Good news out of Gibsons this week. The owners of Stonehurst – or Inglis House – have come up with a plan to retain the 104-year-old residence on the property and the Town of Gibsons is working with them to ensure the old building’s preservation.
It’s hard to think of a more fitting project during the year Canada celebrates its 150th birthday. Because not only is Stonehurst an important local heritage marker as the home of the Sunshine Coast’s pioneer medical family; it also has national significance as an incubator of the core social values that define Canada today.
In fact, less than a decade after J.S. Woodsworth left Gibsons, the former Stonehurst resident had pushed an old-age pension plan through Parliament – Canada’s first social welfare legislation. In the following decade, he became the founding leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), precursor to the NDP, and was mentor to a new generation of Christian socialists, including Tommy Douglas.
If Woodsworth is less celebrated than Douglas today, it’s likely connected to his most controversial act as CCF leader – in 1939, he was Canada’s only member of Parliament to vote against declaring war on Germany and thus involving the country in World War II.
As the Canadian Encyclopedia records: “Reviewing the interwar period and repeating that war settles nothing, Woodsworth declared: ‘I rejoice that it is possible to say these things in a Canadian parliament under British institutions. It would not be possible in Germany, I recognize that … and I want to maintain the very essence of our British institutions of real liberty. I believe that the only way to do it is by an appeal to the moral forces which are still resident among our people, and not by another resort to brute force.’”
It was a hugely unpopular position, but it was consistent with the principles that Woodsworth had developed after arriving in Gibson’s Landing in 1917 as the town’s Methodist minister. Both he and his friend Dr. Frederick K. Inglis came under the influence of the Finnish non-conformists who had settled Gibsons Heights and were committed to socialism and pacifism. Due to his church’s support for World War I, still raging in Europe, Woodsworth stepped down as minister. His wife and their six children moved into Stonehurst and he found work as a longshoreman on the Vancouver docks.
Woodsworth and Inglis were men of conscience. Their beliefs changed the country. The house at the foot of School Road stands as a testament to their courage and faith in humanity.
