J. Martin Hattersley (November 10, 1932 - June 7, 2020) was a Canadian lawyer and long-time activist of the

Canadian social credit movement The Canadian social credit movement is a political movement originally based on the Social Credit theory of Major C. H. Douglas. Its supporters were colloquially known as Socreds in English and créditistes in French. It gained popularity and its ...

. Born in Swinton, near

Rotherham Rotherham ( ) is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies at the confluence of the River Rother, South Yorkshire, River Rother, from which the town gets its name, and the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don. It is the largest settlement ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, Hattersley earned degrees in economics and law from

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

before moving to

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

in 1956 where he worked as a

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

. His parents met at a

social credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made t ...

conference in Britain. From 1962 to 1964, he was director of research of the Social Credit Association of Canada, and personal secretary and speechwriter to

Social Credit Party of Canada The Social Credit Party of Canada (), colloquially known as the Socreds, was a populist political party in Canada that promoted social credit theories of monetary reform. It was the federal wing of the Canadian social credit movement. Origins ...

leader Robert N. Thompson, MP. Hattersley served as national president of the party in the mid-1970s and ran for the party's leadership following the death of

Réal Caouette David Réal Caouette (; September 26, 1917 – December 16, 1976) was a Canadian politician from Quebec. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) and leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada and founder of the '' Ralliement des créditistes''. O ...

in 1976, placing third. He ran again in 1978 when he was defeated by

Lorne Reznowski Lorne Reznowski (January 5, 1929 – November 9, 2011) was a Canadian professor of English at the University of Manitoba and leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada. Background He was the son of Ukrainian-Canadians Lorne William Reznowski and ...

at the party's national

leadership convention {{Politics of Canada In Politics of Canada, Canadian politics, a leadership convention is held by a political party when the party needs to choose a leadership, leader due to a vacancy or a challenge to the incumbent leader. Overview In Canada, ...

by a margin of 356 votes to 115. Hattersley had campaigned on a platform of broadening the party's base and appealing to a wider spectrum of voters but was unable to overcome Reznowski's more doctrinaire approach advocating

monetary theory. After the party's remaining five Members of Parliament were defeated in the 1980 general election, he became leader of the party from 1981 to 1983. He resigned after the party voted to reinstatate Jim Keegstra and two others after Hattersley suspended their memberships and tried to expel them because of their

anti-Semitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

activism, saying "I simply cannot be leader of a party that has people accepted into its ranks that publicly express views of that sort." Hattersley later claimed that Social Credit's association with "that sort of approach . . . prevents other people from taking it seriously." He was also interim leader of the

Social Credit Party of Alberta Alberta Social Credit was a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada, that was founded on social credit monetary policy put forward by Clifford Hugh Douglas and on conservative Christian social values. The Canadian social credit movement wa ...

from 1985 to 1988, in the wake of the party's loss of its only remaining seats in the

Alberta legislature The Alberta Legislature is the unicameral legislature of the province of Alberta, Canada. The legislature is made of two elements: the lieutenant governor of Alberta, lieutenant governor (representing the King of Canada),. and the Legislative A ...

and was president

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

afterwards. As leader he led an attempt to merge several Alberta parties into the Alberta Political Alliance, which proved to be a short-lived coalition of Social Credit, the

Western Canada Concept The Western Canada Concept was a Western Canadian federal political party founded in 1981 to promote the separation of the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, and the Yukon and Northwest Territories (which included ...

and the Heritage Party, in 1986 but neither the Alliance nor Social Credit were prepared to run candidates in the 1986 Alberta election. In August 1988, the body of Hattersley's 29-year-old daughter, Cathy Greeve, was found in the bathroom at an Edmonton Transit station. She had been robbed and strangled to death. Ronald Nienhuis, on day parole while serving time for armed robbery, was charged and convicted of the crime. After his daughter's murder, Hattersley was involved in an Edmonton victim's support group and spoke in prisons on alternatives to violence. He spoke out in favour of prisoners' right to vote, telling the ''

Edmonton Journal The ''Edmonton Journal'' is a daily newspaper published in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It is part of the Postmedia Network. History The ''Journal'' was founded in 1903 by three local businessmen — John Macpherson, Arthur Moore and J.W. Cunn ...

'' that " ing allowed to vote means you are being treated as a human being and a citizen and that's good from a psychological point of view." He was given the Queen's Jubilee medal for his work in the victim's support group. Over the course of his life he served as a Lay Reader and choir director at a number of Anglican churches in Edmonton and Ottawa, and in 1974, was ordained as a 'priest in secular employment'. He died in

Edmonton, Alberta Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

, on June 7, 2020.

References

External links

Martin Hattersley's Economic and Monetary Reform WritingsMartin Hattersley websiteThe Fifth Column Book by Martin Hattersley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hattersley, Martin 1932 births 2020 deaths Alberta candidates for Member of Parliament Canadian Anglican priests Canadian Protestants Alberta Social Credit Party leaders Social Credit Party of Canada leaders People from Swinton, South Yorkshire Lawyers in Alberta Social Credit Party of Canada candidates in the 1972 Canadian federal election Anglican lay readers