Rev James Moffat Douglas
James Moffat Douglas (May 26, 1839 – August 19, 1920) was a farmer,
missionary and politician from western Canada.
James Moffat
Douglas, the son of John and Euphemia (Moffat) Douglas, was born and
received his early education in Linton, Bankhead, Roxburghshire in
Scotland, and came with his parents to settle on a small farm near
Cambray, Ontario, in 1851. Through studies at the University of
Toronto, Knox College, and Princeton Theological Seminary he
obtained a degree in theology, and was ordained a minister of the
Presbyterian Church in Canada, serving with churches at Cobourg and
Uxbridge for a number of years. His studies included a short course
in medicine, in preparation for service in the field of foreign
missions.
In 1878, James Douglas went to lndore in Central
India where he served as a medical missionary and chaplain of a
British Army garrison. On his return to Canada in 1882, he became
minister at Morris and later at Brandon, Manitoba, serving there
until 1887.
On 6 Aug. 1861 he married Jane Smith of Darlington Township, Upper
Canada, and they had four sons and three daughters.
In 1883 Rev. Douglas and two of his sons, John
and Robert, drove west by team and buckboard to Fort Ellice in the
Qu'Appelle Valley. Impressed by the beauty of the Valley and its
resemblance to their homeland in Scotland, the Douglas family
acquired homesteads near the site of the village of Tantallon, named
by Rev. Douglas after the ancestral seat of the Angus branch of the
Douglas family.
Rev. Douglas continued in the ministry until
1898; in rural charges he learned at first hand about the problems
faced by his farmer-parishioners in the marketing and transportation
of their grain, and their uneven struggle to secure something
resembling economic justice at the hands of railway and grain
handling companies. That struggle led James Douglas, a man of great
compassion, to become involved with the agrarian movement. He was
active first in the short-lived North-West Farmers Protective
Association in 1883, and in the early 1890s became an eloquent and
effective spokesman for the Patrons of Industry, an organization
which was largely responsible for his nomination as an Independent
candidate in the federal election of 1898. He was elected with a
large majority, and in the House of Commons at once became
recognized as a staunch advocate of the rights of western farmers.
The legislation he introduced in 1898 to compel railway
companies to improve loading facilities at grain elevators, to
distribute boxcars more evenly among farmer patrons, and to curtail
the many abuses suffered by farmers in the marketing of their grain,
was embodied in the Manitoba Grain Act of 1900. That Act provided
western grain producers with a greater measure of economic justice
than they had ever known.
James Douglas withdrew from
politics in 1904, but continued to be actively interested in farmers
and their welfare. He nominated Walter Scott, Saskatchewanís first
premier, for leadership of the Liberal party in 1905; in 1908 he was
appointed as one of the four Senators to represent the new province
of Saskatchewan.
d. 19 Aug. 1920 in Tantallon, Saskatchewan
Brother: Thomas
Sisters:
Janet, who married Mr Williamson
Christina Susan. She was the youngest child[Primary and
secondary sources give three different birth dates for Douglas. An
1841 entry in the register of births and baptisms for Linton, held
by the General Register Office for Scotland (Edinburgh), indicates
that John Douglas of Linton Bankhead and Euphemia Moffat had a son
named James on 1 June 1836. Another date, 26 May 1838, is given in
the CPG for 1897 and in a profile of Douglas that appeared in the
Vidette (Indian Head and Fort Qu’Appelle, [Sask.]) on 5 May 1897.
The third date, 26 May 1839, appears in the CPG for 1903, an
obituary notice that was published in the Regina Morning Leader on
20 Aug. 1920, the 1898 and 1912 editions of Canadian men and women
of the time (Morgan), and many other sources. The author regards the
date 26 May 1839 as the most likely; the General Register Office
entry may simply mean that John Douglas and Euphemia Moffat had two
sons named James, the first of whom died as a child. Most of the
evidence suggests that James Moffat Douglas himself regarded 26 May
1839 as his date of birth]
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
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