Wolseley, Winnipeg

Wolseley
Westminster United Church in Wolseley, opened in 1912.
Country	Canada
Province	Manitoba
City	Winnipeg
Government
• MLA	Rob Altemeyer (NDP)
• City Councillor	Cindy Gilroy
Population (2006)	7,610

Wolseley is a neighbourhood located within the West End of Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is named for field marshal Sir Garnet Wolseley, a British Army officer who came to Manitoba in 1870 to suppress the Red River Rebellion.

The area that is now called Wolseley was originally part of the Parish of St. James, and was annexed into the City of Winnipeg in 1882. It was developed primarily between 1905 and 1930 as a middle and upper middle class residential area.

Wolseley was home to an amusement park for several years before it closed permanently in 1909. Happyland included a 90-metre Doric-style entrance, a roller coaster, ballroom, Japanese tea gardens, Ferris wheel, and a 240-metre circular swing.

Beginning in the 1950s, Wolseley began to change as many upper-middle-class families left the area to settle in Winnipeg's suburbs. Many of the homes were subdivided into rooming houses. In the 1970s and 1980s, the large houses, central location, and low real estate prices enticed many young people to return to Wolseley. This new Wolseley generation were largely artistic and socially active young adults who began rejuvenating and gentrifying the area. During this time, the area became affectionately known as "The Granola Belt". Today, Wolseley is once again seen as a desirable residential area, and is one of the most intact pre-1930 residential areas in Canada.

A community history, Rising to the Occasion, covering the neighbourhoods of Wolseley, West Broadway, and Armstrong's Point, was published in 2000 as a millennium project of the Robert A. Steen Community Centre.

The neighbourhood of Wolseley is bounded on the south by the Assiniboine River, on the west by Omand's Creek, on the north by Portage Avenue and on the east by Maryland Street. The electoral district of Wolseley has wider boundaries to the north and west, and includes more of the West End and a part of St. James.