Henry Herbert Stevens | |
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Member of the Canadian Parliament for Vancouver City |
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In office 1911–1917 |
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Preceded by | George Henry Cowan |
Succeeded by | riding abolished |
Member of the Canadian Parliament for Vancouver Centre |
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In office 1917–1930 |
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Preceded by | riding created |
Succeeded by | Ian Alistair Mackenzie |
Member of the Canadian Parliament for Kootenay East |
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In office 1930–1940 |
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Preceded by | Michael Dalton McLean |
Succeeded by | George MacKinnon |
Personal details | |
Born |
Bristol, England |
December 30, 1878
Died | June 14, 1973 Vancouver, British Columbia |
(aged 94)
Political party | Conservative |
Other political affiliations |
Reconstruction Party (1935–1938) |
Cabinet |
Minister of Trade and Commerce (1930–1934) |
Minister of Trade and Commerce (1930–1934)
Minister of Customs and Excise (1926)
Minister of Agriculture (Acting) (1926)
Minister of Customs and Excise (Acting) (1926)
Minister of Mines (Acting) (1926)
Minister of the Interior (Acting)(1926)
Minister of Trade and Commerce (Acting) (1926)
Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs (Acting) (1926)
Henry Herbert Stevens, PC (December 8, 1878 – June 14, 1973) was a Canadian politician and businessman. A member of R. B. Bennett's cabinet, he split with the Conservative Prime Minister to found the Reconstruction Party of Canada.
Stevens was born in Bristol, England and immigrated to Canada with his family at the age of nine. His family settled in Peterborough, Ontario where his widowed father raised him and his three brothers and sisters. The family moved to Vernon, British Columbia, in 1894 and Stevens found his first job there, as a grocery clerk, at the age of 16. He then went to northern British Columbia to work in the mining camps before working as a fireman on the Canadian Pacific Railway and later as a stagecoach driver. In 1899 he joined the United States Army, and travelled to the Philippines and then to China, where he was present during the Boxer Rebellion, before returning to British Columbia in 1901. He found work again in the grocery business and then as an accountant. He became active in politics after a high-profile anti-crime crusade. Vancouver was rife with opium dens, saloons and illegal gambling halls, and Stevens visited these places each night, and then published the names of the establishments and what he had witnessed there in the press the next day. His campaign forced the resignation of the chief of police and won Stevens a seat on Vancouver City Council in 1910.