Walter Rollo

Born in Linlithgowshire, Scotland in 1875,[1] he emigrated to Canada in 1883[2] and was a broom-maker in Hamilton, Ontario by 1899.[3] He married Margaret Bell of Berlin, Ontario in the same year.[4]

When the 9lst Regiment Canadian Highlanders was formed in Hamilton in 1903, Rollo enlisted and rose over time to become its colour sergeant.[5]

Rollo was secretary of the Hamilton Trades and Labour Council from 1906 to 1919.[6] In 1919, he also became editor of the Labor News, a Hamilton-based union paper.[7]

Rollo was involved in politics at all levels. In 1916, he was appointed as a member of Ontario's Organization of Resources Committee which was established to improve Canada's war effort in the Province.[8] He had also been a member of the Board of Education in Hamilton for several years.[5][9]

In 1907, Rollo was elected as the President of the newly formed Independent Labour Party,[10][11] and would become its leader in 1917.[12][10] He stood for election in Hamilton West in the following campaigns:

• in the 18 November 1914 by-election, which he lost by only 39 votes,[6]
• in the federal 1917 general election, where he came in second,[13]
• in the Ontario 1919 general election, which he won. In his campaign, signs were posted that read: "Your Vote for Walter Rollo is a nail in the coffin of the profiteer."[14]

He and Morrison Mann MacBride were instrumental in negotiating a coalition government between the Independent Labour Party and the United Farmers of Ontario under E.C. Drury,[15] which lasted until 1923. As a result of those negotiations, the ILP had the right to nominate two of its members to the new government: Rollo became the Province's first Minister of Labour—a position that had been created immediately before the election by the previous Conservative government of William Hearst[16]—and Harry Mills became the first Minister of Mines.[17][18] This caused a confrontation within the ILP, as MacBride had sought to be nominated to the Labour position.[19][20]

During his time as Minister, Rollo brought in several enhancements to Ontario's labour laws:[21]

• the Minimum Wage Act, which set minimum wages for female employees,[22]
• the Wages Act was amended to provide that 70% of any wages due to a worker was exempt from seizure,[23]
• the One Day's Rest in Seven Act, which provided (with certain exceptions) that employees were entitled to 24 consecutive hours of rest every seven days,[24]
• improvements to workmen's compensation benefits[25][26]

Rollo (at right) in 1955, with last surviving members of the 1919-1923 coalition

After his defeat in the 1923 general election, Rollo was appointed as an adolescent school inspector for the City of Hamilton,[27] and he was still working as a school attendance officer there in 1938,[28] and as a part-time school assessment adviser in 1950.[26] He died in 1957.[29]

• Bill Freeman (1979). "Hamilton Labour: The failure of an opposition group". In Bill Freeman; Marsha Hewitt (eds.). Their Town: The Mafia, the Media and the Party Machine. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company. pp. 38–61. ISBN 0-88862-266-X.
• James Naylor (1991). The New Democracy: Challenging the Social Order in Industrial Ontario, 1914-1925. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5953-8.
• Roger Hall; William Westfall; Laurel Sefton MacDowell, eds. (1996). "The Decline of Labourism". Patterns of the Past: Interpreting Ontario's History. Toronto: Dundurn Press. ISBN 1-55002034-X.

• Ontario Legislative Assembly parliamentary history