{{short description|Canadian politician}} {{for|the Jamaican politician|Arthur Henry Winnington Williams}} {{Use Canadian English|date=January 2023}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Arthur Henry Williams | image = | image_size = | caption = | parliament = Canadian | riding = Ontario | term_start = 1948 | term_end = 1949 | predecessor = William Sinclair | successor = Walter Thomson | office2 = Ontario MPP | term_start2 = 1943 | term_end2 = 1945 | predecessor2 = Gordon Daniel Conant | successor2 = Thomas Kelso Creighton | constituency2 = Ontario | office3 = Reeve for Township of<br />East York, Ontario | term_start3 = 1936 | term_end3 = 1936 | predecessor3 = John Warren | successor3 = John Warren | party = East York Workers' Association<br />Co-operative Commonwealth Federation | birth_date = {{birth date|1894|12|04}} | birth_place = Tredegar, Wales | death_date = {{death date and age|1968|10|4|1894|12|4}} | death_place = Pickering, Ontario, Canada | occupation = Trade union organizer | spouse = Lily Evans<br />m. 4 Feb 1912 }} '''Arthur Henry Williams''' (December 4, 1894 – October 4, 1968) was a Canadian trade union organizer and politician who served in both the Ontario legislature and the House of Commons of Canada on behalf of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. He was born in Tredegar, Wales, emigrating with his wife to Canada in 1929.<ref name=guide/>
==Background== Williams lived in the Toronto suburb of East York, Ontario in the 1930s and served as president of the East York Workers' Association, a Great Depression era labour organization which was formed in 1931 to improve the situation of the unemployed and had 1,600 members by 1934. He married Lily Evans in 1912.<ref name=guide>{{cite book |title=Canadian Parliamentary Guide |year=1944 |author=P.G. Normandin}}</ref>
==Politics==
===East York=== At the end of 1933, Williams was elected to and served a one-year term as alderman on the East York Town Council for 1934.<ref name="parl">{{cite web|url=http://www.parl.gc.ca/parlinfo/Files/Parliamentarian.aspx?Item=0cd274e4-2adf-47f4-af85-6a4879d11c76&Language=E&Section=ALL|title=PARLINFO - Parliamentarian File - Complete File - WILLIAMS, Arthur Henry|publisher=parl.gc.ca|accessdate=2015-04-08}}</ref> That same year, Williams ran for the Ontario legislature in the 1934 provincial election as the Ontario CCF candidate in York East, the personal constituency of Premier of Ontario George Stewart Henry, and won 21% of the vote (30% in East York Township) coming in third place.<ref name="1934 Election Results">{{cite news |title=Detailed Election Results |newspaper=The Globe |date=June 21, 1934 |location=Toronto |page=3}}</ref> His 6,086 votes were the best result of any CCF candidate in the Toronto area.<ref>"Record of 30 years broken as Liberals sweep suburbs", Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971); Toronto, Ontario. 20 June 1934: 28.</ref> He also ran for the House of Commons in York East (the federal riding that included East York) during the 1935 federal election for the national CCF but was defeated by Conservative Robert Henry McGregor and the Liberal candidate.
One of the Association's campaigns led by Williams was to convince the East York town council to issue poor relief in the form of cash instead of vouchers. After the council agreed to issue cash instead of vouchers but reduced the value of relief payments the Association organized a "voucher strike" to raise the payments. Council reversed its decision and the Association retaliated by encouraging members to pull their children out of school which had the effect of reducing the provincial government's grant to East York. The Council then capitulated to the Association's demands only to have the Bank of Nova Scotia refuse to grant the municipality a loan which in turn caused the council to end cash relief and return to vouchers. In December 1935, Williams was elected reeve of East York.<ref name=ey>East York Historical Society,"{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20080512150309/http://eastyork.org/eyhs/eyworkers2.pdf East York in the Great Depression: The Activities of the East York Workers Association]}}"</ref>
However, Williams was more than three months in arrears in his rent and had to defend his right to take office as the provincial government had passed a law prohibiting anyone owing more than three months rent from holding office. A new election was scheduled but as no other candidates ran, Williams was acclaimed. The Workers Association under Williams also organized to block bailiffs from evicting families from their homes. The blocking of evictions had the support of many residents and Township officials, no matter their political views. Williams lost the reeve's office when he ran for re-election in the December 1936 election but the Township's council continued to support the policy of blocking evictions and set a licensing fee for bailiffs and then refused to issue licences for two months giving families threatened with eviction a reprieve.<ref name=ey/>
According to a local historian, "If a member of the Workers Association caught wind of an eviction about to take place, they would telephone other members and yell to their neighbours on the street "eviction." Members would race by foot or by automobile if one were available to the house where the eviction was to take place. As the bailiff would remove the family's furniture from the house, members of the Association would politely carry the furniture back into the house."<ref name=ey/>
===Provincial politics=== At the 1936 convention of the Ontario CCF, Williams filibustered against a resolution opposing a united front between the CCF and the Communist Party of Canada and was threatened with expulsion from the CCF for his behaviour.<ref>{{cite news|title=Ontario C.C.F. Votes Against United Front|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zaxTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RjgNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1875,4293896&dq=john+mitchell+ccf+president+ontario&hl=en|accessdate=2011-08-20|newspaper=The Leader-Post|date=1936-04-11}}</ref>
Williams ran for the Ontario legislature in the 1943 provincial election and was elected from the riding of Ontario, which covered Ontario County (now part of the Regional Municipality of Durham).<ref name="1943 Election Results">{{cite news |author=Canadian Press |title=Ontario Election Results |newspaper=The Gazette |date=August 5, 1943 |location=Montreal |page=12 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_H4tAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BpkFAAAAIBAJ&dq=rae%20luckock&pg=3097%2C672685}}</ref> He sat as an Ontario CCF Member of Provincial Parliament for two years until he and most of the CCF's MPPs went down to defeat in the 1945 provincial election.<ref name="1945 Election Results">{{cite news |author=Canadian Press |title=How Ontario Electors Voted in all 90 Ridings |newspaper=The Toronto Daily Star |date=June 5, 1945 |location=Toronto |page=5 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=JbE7AAAAIBAJ&sjid=KisMAAAAIBAJ&pg=876%2C12828009}}</ref>
===Federal politics=== In 1948, he ran in a federal by-election in the riding of Ontario, which occurred following the death of Liberal MP W.E.N. Sinclair, and won. He served for a year until he was defeated in the 1949 federal election when he came in third place.<ref name="1949 results">{{cite news |title=Tally of votes secured by candidates in all ridings |newspaper=The Windsor Star |date=June 28, 1949 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=wCY_AAAAIBAJ&sjid=UE8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=6154%2C3701938 |pages=10–11 |accessdate=2014-06-29}}</ref>
==Later life== Williams was active with the Canadian Congress of Labour and spoke at its 1943 federal convention in support of a successful resolution for the union federation to endorse the CCF as the "political arm of labour".<ref>Labour Gazette October 1943, Pages: 1440–1447</ref>
Williams died in 1968 and was buried at Erskine Cemetery in Pickering, Ontario.<ref>"Deaths", ''The Globe and Mail'', October 5, 1968, pg. 49</ref>
== Electoral record == {{1935 Canadian federal election/York East}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{Canadian Parliament links|ID=7076}} * {{Ontario MPP biography|id=arthur-henry-williams}}
{{EastYorkMayors}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Arthur Henry}} Category:Trade unionists from Ontario Category:Ontario Co-operative Commonwealth Federation MPPs Category:Co-operative Commonwealth Federation MPs Category:20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario Category:Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario Category:Mayors of East York, Ontario Category:Canadian socialists Category:People from Tredegar Category:1894 births Category:1968 deaths Category:Welsh emigrants to Canada Category:20th-century members of the House of Commons of Canada Category:20th-century mayors of places in Ontario Category:20th-century trade unionists