Thomas Greenway

 

            Thomas Greenway was one of the very few Manitoba premiers whose memory has been perpetuated in our educational system.  His descendants look with pride and fond memories at his name carved in bold letters on one of Winnipeg’s oldest schools.
    He was born in Cornwall, Devon, in 1838.  Although he migrated with his parents to Western Ontario when he was a small child of six years, he always preserved characteristics and traits that were distinctively English.  Such qualities as strength of will, tenacity of purpose, intense sincerity, and high intelligence marked his for greatness.  

    Since his parents had settled on a farm in the county of Huron in Western Ontario, Thomas attended the country schools in the neighbourhood.  His business life began as a general storekeeper in Centralia where he soon displayed a keen interest in the public affairs on the community.  In 1867 he was elected reeve of the township of Centralia and held that position for ten years.  

    His political career began in 1875 when he was elected by acclamation as an independent member of the House of Commons for South Huron.  He declined to be renominated in 1878 when he was elected , having decided to move to Manitoba where he purchased a farm of about 800 acres near the present town of Crystal City.

    Interest in public affairs and a desire for political life was as strong in Thomas Greenway in his new home in Manitoba as it had been in Ontario, and in the year following his arrival in Manitoba, he presented himself as a candidate for the Manitoba legislature.  He was elected by acclamation for the constituency of Mountain,  for twenty-five years from 1879 to 1904.  Along with a small band of half a dozen he was arrayed in opposition to the Conservative administration of John Norquay.  With his dogged tenacity he soon settled down to a legislative opposition that was at first laughed at but later received support throughout the country from newcomers who were anxious for a change in the methods and policy of the provincial government.  Thus he became a potent force in western Canadian Liberalism.

    Upon the defeat of the Harrison Government in 1888, Mr. Greenway was called upon to form a government, becoming Premier and Minister of Agriculture.  During his twelve year regime as Premier of Manitoba several important acts were passed, among which was the provocative act respecting the Department of Education and Public Schools, doing away with separate schools, and making the new system non-sectarian.  This act agitated the political world of Canada and made Manitoba the storm centre of politics in the Dominion.

    As Minister of Agriculture, Thomas Greenway had an absorbing desire for the agricultural progress of Western Canada, and encouraged the breeding of high class livestock in Manitoba.  It was later said of him that he had never ceased to be a farmer and that his happiest hours were spent on his model farm and among his prize cattle which he introduced to the West.

    In 1904 Thomas Greenway again became interested in federal politics and was elected to the House of Commons by the constituency of Lisgar.  Four years later he was appointed to the Board of Railway Commissioners as a tribute to his undoubted knowledge of Western Canadian conditions, his unquestionable ability, and the years of service to a party which he had led so long in provincial politics.  It was the general feeling that he was particularly fitted to give the views of the West on all transportation problems.  Before he had an opportunity to show his capacity in his new public endeavour, he died suddenly in Ottawa in 1908 at the age of 70.

    Thomas Greenway had belonged to the interesting generation that stayed with the West through its period of doubt and unsolved problems, an had the satisfaction of seeing his faith justified.

    What greater monument than a school could have been erected to the memory of this public man who was prominent during the most eventful period of Manitoba’s history?