John William Hugill (October 3, 1881 – January 13, 1971) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as Attorney General of

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from 1935 until 1937. Born in England, he came to Canada and studied law before setting up a practice in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

. He became a prominent resident of that city, and served two years on its city council. In the early 1930s, he was one of the few prominent Calgarians with mainstream respectability to support William Aberhart's Social Credit League. He was elected as a candidate for it in the 1935 provincial election and, when it formed government, was named Attorney General by Aberhart. Hugill's time as Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) was dominated by differences of opinion with Aberhart. Hugill did not believe that social credit could be legally implemented by a provincial government and did not support the Aberhart's attempts to do so. When asked by

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John Campbell Bowen John Campbell Bowen (October 3, 1872 – January 2, 1957) was a clergyman, insurance broker and long serving politician. He served as an alderman in the City of Edmonton and went on to serve as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta fr ...

whether he considered three of the government's acts to be constitutional, he replied honestly that he did not; this prompted Aberhart to demand his resignation as Attorney General. Thereafter Hugill was an outspoken opponent of the Aberhart government, though he did not seek re-election in the 1940 election. He retired from the practice of law in 1949, and died in 1971.

Early life

John Hugill was born in

West Hartlepool West Hartlepool was a predecessor of Hartlepool, County Durham, England. It developed in the Victorian era and took the name from its western position in the parish of what is now known as the Headland. The former town was originally formed in ...

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, October 3, 1881. He studied at the City of London School before immigrating to Canada in 1896. Settling in

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, he attended King's Collegiate School to complete his matriculation, after which he attended King's College, from which he earned a Bachelor of Civil Law and later a Doctor of Civil Law. Beginning in 1898, he worked for Furness-Withy & Company, Limited, a steamship operator, in Canada and England. From 1904 until 1907 he was a

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, after which he returned to Canada to read law in the

office of future

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R. B. Bennett Richard Bedford Bennett, 1st Viscount Bennett, (July 3, 1870 – June 26, 1947), was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, philanthropist, and politician who served as the 11th prime minister of Canada from 1930 to 1935. Bennett was born in ...

. He was called to the bars of

and

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in 1910, and subsequently earned a

Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

from the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.Blue 111 On July 10, 1913, he married Eelen Cameron Templeton, with whom he had three children. After being called to the bar, Hugill worked for several years as a lawyer for the

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. In 1920, he opened his own practice in Calgary, and was made

King's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel ( post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister or ...

in July 1921. Hugill was active in Calgary society, and specifically with the

Anglican Church of Canada The Anglican Church of Canada (ACC or ACoC) is the Ecclesiastical province#Anglican Communion, province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French-language name is ''l'Église anglicane du Canada''. In 2017, the Anglican Church co ...

, the

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, the Calgary Board of Trade, the Calgary Ranchmen's Club, the Calgary Polo Club, the Calgary Golf & Country Club, and the Calgary branch of Canadian Authors. He was also a major in

the Calgary Highlanders The Calgary Highlanders is a Canadian Army Primary Reserve infantry regiment, headquartered at Mewata Armouries in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The regiment is a part-time reserve unit, under the command of 41 Canadian Brigade Group, itself part of 3 ...

. Outside of Calgary, he was a member of the Edmonton Club and London's British Empire Club. His hobbies included

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

, and

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. He also held a lifetime membership in the Alpine Club, which he was awarded for reaching the summit of Mount Stephen. Hugill was

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throug ...

to Sweden and

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to the Netherlands for fifteen years.

Political career

Hugill served as Calgary alderman from 1921 until 1923. During this term, he was twice acting Mayor of Calgary. One of these occasions included a visit to Calgary by

Julian Byng, 1st Viscount Byng of Vimy Field Marshal Julian Hedworth George Byng, 1st Viscount Byng of Vimy, (11 September 1862 – 6 June 1935) was a British Army officer who served as Governor General of Canada, the 12th since the Canadian Confederation. Known to friends as "Bung ...

, the

Governor General Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...

In the early 1930s, Hugill was one of the few members of Calgary's social and business elite to support William Aberhart's burgeoning Social Credit League. He was not an adherent of its social credit monetary theories, but joined Social Credit because he viewed it as a vehicle of reform. Concerned about the constitutionality of a provincial government legislating on banking and monetary issues, as was advocated by many Social Crediters, Hugill sought (and, by his account, received) assurances from Aberhart that no such legislation would be forthcoming from a Social Credit government.

Athabasca University Athabasca University (AU) is a Canadian public research university that primarily operates through online distance education. Founded in 1970, it is one of four comprehensive academic and research universities in Alberta, and was the first ...

historian Alvin Finkel suggests that Hugill's initial support of Social Credit was opportunistic, and not born of any belief in its rightness.Finkel 61 If Hugill's allegiance to Social Credit was incongruous, his allegiance to Aberhart was even more so. Aberhart, a radio evangelist, did not share Hugill's taste for fine wines, cigars, or flippant humour.Elliott & Miller 211 Hugill, for his part, objected to Aberhart's belief in the

occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

, and in particular to his practice of

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.Elliott & Miller 215 About his eventual presence in cabinet,

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's J. R. Mallory said "one can imagine the discomfort of an experienced barrister...moderate in his political views and absorbed principally in his departmental duties, confronted by a cabinet of hot gospellers, presided over by the Messianic Mr. Aberhart."

Election as MLA

Whatever the surface incompatibilities between Hugill and the Social Credit movement, in the runup to the 1935 provincial election Aberhart found his team lacking mainstream respectability and legal expertise. Hugill provided both, and Aberhart recruited him to run as a Social Credit candidate in

. During the campaign, Hugill attracted attention by refusing (on Aberhart's instructions, and like other Social Credit candidates) to accept questions from the floor at political meetings. The '' Calgary Albertan'' commented that "it must be rather irritating for a gentleman like J. W. Hugill, a practitioner at the bar and a King's Counsel withal, skilled and experienced in the art of debate, not to be free to make use of it". On August 22, Hugill was elected one of Calgary's six Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs). On the initial ballot count he was in fifth place of twenty candidates, but after the redistribution of votes in accordance with the

single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

system in use in Calgary at the time, he fell to sixth place, and was not elected until the eighteenth and final count. Aberhart named him Attorney General several days later, and he was sworn in with the rest of Aberhart's cabinet on September 3, 1935.

Attorney General

Hugill's service as Attorney General was brief and eventful. Three days after their swearing-in, he and Aberhart embarked for

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to meet with Bennett, now prime minister, and seek a federal loan to prevent Alberta from defaulting on its bond and payroll obligations. Despite needing Can$18 million, they secured only $2.25 million from Bennett. They then set out for

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to meet with

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—who had financed many of his projects without involving banks, Social Credit's sworn enemies—but, on their arrival, discovered that he was away at his summer home. Returning home still in need of funding, Aberhart authorized Hugill to negotiate for the services of Robert J. Magor, a

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financier who had successfully assisted the government of

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in emerging from dire financial straits. Magor's acceptance of a $600 per month appointment raised the ire of Social Crediters loyal to

C. H. Douglas Major Clifford Hugh "C. H." Douglas, MIMechE, MIEE (20 January 1879 – 29 September 1952), was a British engineer and pioneer of the social credit economic reform movement. Education and engineering career C.H. Douglas was born in either Edge ...

, the originator of social credit, and of Douglas himself, who saw Magor as a tool of eastern financial interests and Hugill as their man inside the government. Magor's financial advice led to the government tabling a very conservative 1936 budget that was decidedly not in keeping with social credit ideals. Partly in response to the situation, British social crediter John Hargrave visited Alberta to advise the government on how it might implement social credit. At a cabinet meeting with Hargrave present, Hugill expressed that the Canadian Constitution did not give to the provinces sufficient powers to implement social credit, and that doing so would necessitate the use of the federal power over banking and currency. Hargrave, referring to Social Credit's election promises to implement social credit, responded, "surely the public ought to be told". After the meeting, Hargrave—by his account, at Aberhart's request—prepared an eleven-point plan to implement social credit in Alberta; Aberhart rejected it, but the Social Credit

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invited Hargrave to explain it. The resulting meeting featured the following exchange between Hugill and Hargrave:

Hugill: You realise, Mr. Hargrave, that this scheme you are putting forward would not be legal?
Hargrave: I am not interested in legal arguments.
Hugill: What would you do if your legislation was disallowed and your parliament dissolved?
Hargrave: There is only one way in which such a government could be "dissolved", and that is by sending in troops to throw it out, physically, neck and crop, down the steps of this parliament house. Does the Attorney-General suggest that any authority anywhere in Ottawa or elsewhere would, in those circumstances, march troops into Alberta?Elliott & Miller 253

Much of the caucus, frustrated by the government's failure to implement social credit or even take tangible steps towards doing so, sided with Hargrave, and Hugill's cabinet colleagues did not come to his defense. Hargrave's presentation to Social Credit MLAs precipitated the

1937 Social Credit backbenchers' revolt The 1937 Social Credit backbenchers' revolt took place from March to June 1937 in the Canadian province of Alberta. It was a rebellion against Premier William Aberhart by a group of backbench (not part of the cabinet) members of the Legislative A ...

, in which much of the Social Credit caucus threatened to bring down the government over its failure to introduce social credit. The revolt was muted with the creation of the

Social Credit Board The Social Credit Board was a committee in Alberta, Canada from 1937 until 1948. Composed of Social Credit backbenchers in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, it was created in the aftermath of the 1937 Social Credit backbenchers' revolt. Its m ...

, which was to oversee the introduction of social credit. The first legislation recommended by the Social Credit Board included the ''Credit of Alberta Regulation Act'', which provided for provincial licensing and supervision of banks, the ''Bank Employees Civil Rights Act'', which prohibited unlicensed banks and their employees from instigating legal proceedings, and the ''Judicature Act'', which prohibited challenges to the constitutionality of Alberta legislation. Hugill did not believe that the acts were within the province's legislative competence, but avoided saying so publicly. In response to a question posed in the legislature on the province's authority over banking, he said that he could not conclusively answer such an academic question, but referred the questioner to the '' British North America Act, 1867''. In a caucus meeting, in response to a request from Aberhart that he " ssureus that he feels in a position on every count to recommend that the Lieutenant-Governor gives his assent to every Social Credit Measure", Hugill was more open in his beliefs.Mallory 74 On August 6, 1937, after the three acts were approved by the legislature,

Lieutenant Governor of Alberta The lieutenant governor of Alberta () is the viceregal representative in Alberta of the . The lieutenant governor is appointed in the same manner as the other provincial viceroys in Canada and is similarly tasked with carrying out most of the m ...

requested a meeting with Aberhart and Hugill before he granted

royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in other ...

to the legislation. He asked Hugill whether he considered the bills constitutional, and Hugill replied in the negative. Aberhart immediately said that he would take personal responsibility for the legislation's constitutionality, and Bowen granted assent. In journalist John Barr's telling, as Aberhart and Hugill left the meeting the premier said "your resignation is accepted, Hugill", while according to Elliott and Miller he said only "you know what this means, don't you?"Elliott & Miller 268 Whatever the words used, Hugill resigned later that afternoon. Historians have debated the propriety of Hugill's actions in undercutting his own government's legislation to Bowen. Elliott and Miller believe that he could have refused to answer Bowen's question, but that by not doing so he "obeyed the letter of the Alberta law that set out his duties". They see his cabinet duties conflicting with his responsibility as a legal adviser, and argue that by giving Bowen his honest opinion he was upholding the oath he took as a barrister. Mallory disagrees, citing a rule dating from 1882 that the Lieutenant Governor should use—or consider using—his powers of

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only as a Dominion officer, and never on the advice of his ministers, including the Attorney General. He speculates that neither Bowen nor Hugill was aware of this rule, and criticizes the federal government for not monitoring the situation and advising Bowen as to the proper use of his powers.

Post-resignation

Having left the government, Hugill also left the Social Credit caucus, and served the rest of his term as MLA as an

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. He joined the People's League, a collection of mainstream elements opposed to Aberhart which ran nominally independent candidates in the

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and 1944 elections, and denounced Aberhart's government as a "tyrannical dictatorship" and the premier as the most sadistic man he had ever met.Elliott & Miller 270 Hugill himself did not seek re-election in the 1940 election. One of Hugill's last acts as Attorney General had been attending a

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meeting of the Canadian Bar Association. In response to Hugill's comments about his government, Aberhart refused reimbursement of Hugill's expenses from that trip. Later, when Aberhart received word that Ryerson Press was going to publish an exposé of his government authored by Hugill, he threatened to cancel Ryerson's contracts to print Alberta's school textbooks unless the company reconsidered. The exposé was not published.

Later life

At the expiration of his term as MLA in 1940, Hugill returned to practicing law in Edmonton and Calgary. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he served on the mobilization board. He retired to Victoria in 1949, the year after the death of his wife, and died in Vancouver on January 13, 1971.

Notes

References

Works cited

* * * * * *

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hugill, John 1881 births 1971 deaths Alberta Social Credit Party MLAs Canadian Anglicans English emigrants to Canada Lawyers in Alberta People from West Hartlepool University of Manitoba alumni Members of the Executive Council of Alberta Canadian King's Counsel Calgary city councillors