Pastor,
Editor, Labour Advocate, Legislator & Chiropractor
By
George Siamandas
Ivens
had been
born in the town of Barford in Warwickshire England in 1878 where his
father had been a landscape gardener. In 1896 at age 18 Bill Ivens
immigrated to Winnipeg where he found work as a labourer. He went to
Wesley College (University of Winnipeg) and later attended the
University of Manitoba where he earned a Master of Arts degree in 1909.
He
was
influenced by Salem Bland an advocate of the Social Gospel at meetings
in Mobius's Reading Room on Main St. The Social Gospel taught that
human welfare and social justice are moral imperatives and that
religion should shift from inner spirituality to public service. This
meant involvement and support for issues like temperance, economic
reform, fair wages, and pacifism. It was the pacifism issue during WW1
that got Ivens into hot water. And ironically both of his brothers were
fighting in the Great War.
Ivens
had
already begun to be involved in the labour movement and became
attracted to the ideals of the labour Church and in July 1918 formed
the Labour temple Church. Many thought it was not a church at all.
After all it did not preach any creed and seemed more political than it
was religious.
Ivens
preached
to his audiences about inevitable revolution, which sounded at odds
with his pacifism. He believed in the destruction of the profit system.
In the year of labour unrest preceding the General Strike, he became
editor of the Strike Bulletin. Soon the crowds became too large and
shut out of several Winnipeg theatres; Ivens took his meetings to
Victoria Park where 10,000 gathered to hear. By this time the Methodist
Church from which he had obtained a leave of absence voted to
permanently defrock him as a Methodist minister.
Ivens
was
promptly arrested and tried for seditious conspiracy. Like the others,
he provided his own defence but was found guilty. After doing his time
in a prison farm, Ivens went on a speaking tour in eastern Canada where
he was not well received. The Free Press called him: Chief Orator of
the Strikers" while the Telegram referred to him as "Ivan the
Terrible." Upon release he took his seat in the Manitoba legislature as
a member of the Independent Labour party where he would sit for the
next 15 years.
But
by 1925 the
Labour Church came to an end. Never having a spiritual component it had
attracted very secular people who had see the enterprise as a kind of
self-help group.
As
his MLA
salary was only $1,500 annually, Ivens needed a source of financial
support. He became a chiropractor and things went well. He bought a
cottage at Clear Lake, which he proceeded to call Ukanrest, and rented
it out by the week or month. Ivens continued to write on labour issues
but found the new CCF and other left organisations not as welcoming of
his work. He tried to win a seat in Rainy River Ontario and also tried
to set up a chiropractic hospital in the area.
In
his later
years like many other labour leaders Ivens retired in California. He
died at age 80 in 1958. His son Milton became a doctor and moved to the
US.