Football in Winnipeg

By Dr. Leah Morton, former Curatorial Assistant in History

Football has been present in some form or another in Winnipeg since at least 1879. In that year, three teams – the Winnipeg Rugby Football Club, St. John’s College, and the Royal School of Infantry – formed a league. At the time, the sport was often referred to as “rugby football” due to rule similarities. By 1911, there were teams in other western provinces and the Western Canada Rugby Football Union was started. This league had a championship trophy called the Hugo Ross trophy, donated to the league by Winnipeg businessman Hugo Ross. Tragically, Ross was on the Titanic when it sunk. The trophy was awarded until 1935 to the winner of the Western Canada Rugby Football Union and until 1947 to the winner of the Western Interprovincial Football Union.

Blue Bombers pin, circa 1950. Copyright Manitoba Museum, H9-29-237.

Two players from the 1952 Bombers Grey Cup team, John Brown and Dick Huffman. Copyright Manitoba Museum, H9-37-884.

By Dr. Leah Morton, past Curatorial Assistant in History

The Winnipeg General Strike is central to Winnipeg’s collective consciousness; however, Black workers and union members are often overlooked in narratives of the strike. This blog post looks at John Arthur Robinson, a Black railwayman who is featured on the Winnipeg Personalities wall in the new Winnipeg Gallery.

Railwaymen worked in a dangerous, tough industry, and they were often militant unionists; however, they worked to keep their unions for whites only. From its inception in 1908, the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees (CBRE) excluded black workers and pushed for separate negotiating schedules and wages for Black and white workers.

Undaunted, John Arthur Robinson started a different union – the Order of Sleeping Car Porters (OSCP] – in 1917, a time when Winnipeg’s working-class consciousness was blossoming. The Winnipeg General Strike in May and June 1919 was a pivotal time for many, the members of the OSCP included. The OSCP, despite being marginalized and racialized within their workplace, voted on May 20th in favour of a sympathy strike. The OSCP also donated $50 – not a small sum in 1919 – to the strikers’ fund, a gesture for which the Strike leaders thanked them in their newspaper, the Western Labor News. In a show of solidarity, after learning from Robinson that the railways were bringing in scabs, the Strike Committee publicly  “defended black Canadian railroaders; right to employment in the press, denouncing the company’s tactics.”

Railway workers generally lived in a railway hub and Winnipeg was certainly that. They were at the centre of a vibrant black community in the city. Geographically, the black community in the early 1900s lived around the CPR station near Main and Higgins. While most members of the OSCP spent a lot of time at the union office on Main Street, the broader black community was comprised of families, workers, churches, restaurants, and more. Their stories, like that of Robinson and the OSCP, should be told – and listened to – as part of Winnipeg’s history because they are a part of this city’s fabric.

For more information, check out: Mathieu, Sarah-Jane. North of the Color Line: Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, 1870-1955. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010)

In 1895 William and Isabel Brockinton had a charming Gothic cottage built on their homestead south of Melita, Manitoba. In our new Prairies Gallery we will be featuring a small touchable model and a full scale stone replica wall section of this now abandoned home.

First, what’s a Gothic cottage? “Gothic” conjures all kinds of associations – darkness, brooding, mysticism, fashionable black clothing, and so on. But in architecture after 1800 it really was all about style. The Brockinton house is an excellent example of a Gothic cottage, a building style brought by migrants from Ontario after the 1870s. Though somewhat rare on the prairies, it was a very common house style in Ontario from the 1860s to the 1940s.

The “Small Gothic Cottage” was popularized by architect James Smith in an 1864 article in The Canada Farmer (Vol. 1, No. 1). It was based on houses that farmers were already building for themselves, but included exterior Gothic Revival design elements, in keeping with Victorian aesthetic ideals of the time. This included, among other things, a central high peaked gable above the front door, multi-coloured stone walls, and a hipped roof, all of which are obvious in the Brockinton home. The interior is small, with a room layout based on traditional English Lowland farmhouse plans of the 1700s. The kitchen was a back addition built after the original house was completed.

The Brockintons likely chose to have a small Gothic cottage built because they had seen and admired them in their short time in Woodstock, Ontario. Plans were easily accessible, and a builder would have been easy to find among the 1880s wave of migrant settlers from Ontario. Indeed, the stonemason was skilled: the stones were “dressed” on the exterior, meaning their exterior sides were squared, though the field stones were originally rounded. The walls are two feet thick, and include embrasure windows: they have a narrower opening on the exterior of the wall and flare out towards the interior. This is no mere hut! The Brockintons were making a statement with this house: “We’re here to stay, and we have class.”

In October 2019 the Manitoba Museum opened the Winnipeg Gallery, a permanent new exhibition space about the history and people of Winnipeg. The gallery features a large stained glass window that displays the old city crest.

This window was one of two that was salvaged from the old city hall building when it was demolished in 1962, and recent research has revealed more history of this piece and the artist who made it.

Header image above: The city hall stained glass window after restoration and installation in the Winnipeg Gallery. Photograph copyright Ian McCausland/Manitoba Museum.

May 26, 1903

“The city hall is receiving finishing touches of its renovating, the main entrances having their old plain glass windows replaced by two stained glass windows, over each of the doors. These windows are bold and masterly in design, the seal of Winnipeg is placed in the centre, set in a frame of jewels, surrounding which is a wreath of light and dark maple leaves…”

That’s our window. Early photos also show that the windows faced inwards, meaning they were meant to be seen from inside, receiving the full illumination of daylight from the exterior. It also means that the Winnipeg crest was backwards when you were entering City Hall from the outside!

This detail of a photograph from 1910 clearly shows our stained glass window (at least the back of it). City of Winnipeg Archives, i03103.

The window was designed and made by John Raphael Allward, who moved to Winnipeg with his wife and son in about 1902. Allward was born in Toronto in 1856, and was the cousin of the famous Walter Seymour Allward who designed the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France. John Allward studied art in New York under the master stained glass artist John La Farge. Allward was a specialist in large allegorical stained glass windows, which involved painting scenes directly onto glass, and he made windows for churches throughout North America. He set up shop with a partner at 253 Main St., under the name “Allward and McCormick Glass Co. Ltd.” Allward was also one of the founders of the Manitoba Society of Artists, which held their first public exhibition of 300 paintings in late 1903. Allward served two years in the Great War (at the age of 60!), and when he returned to Winnipeg he sold the business and retired to Seattle. After the 1920s, the popularity of stained glass windows in public places and private houses waned – most examples that survive in buildings today are over one hundred years old.

This research was supported by a grant from the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund.

During the Great War, 8,579 people were sent to internment camps in Canada. Over 5,000 of them were Austro-Hungarian, or Ukrainian, civilians who had been classified as ‘enemy aliens.’ They were from countries Canada was fighting against, but the main reason for their internment was unemployment. It was hard for Ukrainians to find work during the war, mainly due to nativist beliefs (many thought Anglo-Canadians should be given the jobs). Unemployed ‘enemy aliens’ made others very nervous. In 1915, over 100 Ukrainians from Winnipeg who were trying to find work were sent to the Brandon internment camp.

In May 1915 unemployed Ukrainian men in Winnipeg staged a number of public demonstrations asking for work. A rumour spread that there was work to be had in the United States, so several hundred of these men decided to walk there. Nick Lypka, who participated in the walk, remembered that the group was very careful not to break any laws while walking to the border. Many dropped out along the 110 km walk so by the time they reached the border town of Emerson, there were only between 100 – 175 men left.

The pictures you see here were donated to the Manitoba Museum by an individual whose grandfather was likely one of the authorities involved in arresting the Ukrainian men and overseeing their march to Brandon. These pictures are an extremely important part of the historical record, as there are very few existing records detailing the arrests and forced march of May 1915.

Retired General William Dillon Otter, who was in charge of the internment camps, knew that many cities and municipalities were using internment to get rid of unemployed ‘enemy aliens’ even though they didn’t actually pose a security threat. He did not do anything to stop it. The Brandon camp was open until July 1916, at which time inmates there were sent to the Banff internment camp. The last internment camp was closed in 1920.

Image: Some of the Ukrainian men arrested in Emerson after their walk from Winnipeg. They were hoping to get to the United States to find work. The CN Bridge is visible in the background. Copyright Manitoba Museum H9-38-681.

Posted by Dr. Leah Morton, Assistant Curator (History)

This research was supported by a grant from the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund.

During the Great War (1914-1918) Canada interned thousands of German and Ukrainian immigrants. Internment camps were set up across the country and a few ‘receiving stations’ were opened to process and hold those slated for internment. One of these receiving stations was located at the Fort Osborne Barracks in Winnipeg.

Image: This map shows the internment camps and receiving stations that were in use during the Great War. pc.ga.ca

Over 80,000 ‘enemy aliens’ had to register with the authorities. They had to turn in any guns, swear that they would not leave Canada, and carry official papers with them. Several thousand ‘enemy aliens’ were arrested and sent to internment camps. They were arrested for a number of reasons including: being unreliable, trying to cross the border, not carrying their papers, acting suspiciously, and being unemployed. Volunteering to join the war effort also led to internment! Those who were arrested were sent to an internment camp for the duration of the war. Before that, they were processed at a receiving station, like the one in Winnipeg.

Some people tried to escape. In September 1915, Martin Baraszchuk escaped from the receiving station by jumping out a window at the barracks. He had just been captured after escaping from the Brandon internment camp, and clearly did not want to be sent back. After jumping out the window, he was shot at by the military personnel guarding the Barracks, but they missed, and he was free for ten days, before being re-arrested and sent back to the receiving station.

Other than these small glimpses into the historical record, very little is known about the receiving station. In 1998, a plaque was placed on the Legislative Grounds to commemorate the Ukrainian Canadians who were held at the receiving station.