Robert Colin Marshall (May 19, 1883 – February 20, 1962)
was a politician in
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 ...
, Canada. Marshall served as the 20th
Mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...
of
Calgary
Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...
,
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 ...
from 1919 to 1921, and as a Member of the
Legislative Assembly of Alberta
The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. Since 2012 the Legislative Assembly has had 87 members, elected first past the post f ...
.
Marshall was born in
Ingersoll,
Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
in 1883 to parents Peter Marshall and Katherine Allen. He arrived in Calgary in 1906 and started working for the Crown Paving Company Limited. Marshall was associated with this company until its sale in 1961.
In 1907, he married Annie Mae Batchelor, who died in 1915. Together they had one child, Margaret Alexandra, born in 1909. On July 19, 1919, in his first year as mayor he married Daisy Mary MacGregor, the City Hall reporter for the
Calgary Herald
The ''Calgary Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Publication began in 1883 as ''The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate, and General Advertiser''. It is owned by the Postmedia Network.
History
''The C ...
. Together they had two children, Donald and Joan.
Marshall would spend three years serving as an Alderman on
Calgary City Council
The Calgary City Council is the legislative governing body that represents the citizens of Calgary. The council consists of 15 members: the chief elected official, titled the mayor, and 14 councillors. Jyoti Gondek was elected mayor in October 202 ...
. Marshall would serve as Mayor of Calgary for two years, first contesting the
1918 Calgary municipal election defeating opponent and incumbent Mayor
Michael Copps Costello with 3,428 votes, a slim margin of victory of 194.
Marshall also contested the
1919
Events
January
* January 1
** The Czechoslovak Legions occupy much of the self-proclaimed "free city" of Pressburg (later Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia.
** HMY ''Iolaire'' sinks off th ...
election, easily defeating opponent
Isaac G. Ruttle.
He then moved on to provincial politics, becoming a Liberal MLA just as the Liberals lost power to the
United Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) is an association of Alberta farmers that has served different roles in its 100-year history – as a lobby group, a successful political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. As a political party, it forme ...
. He ran as a
Liberal in the
1921 Alberta general election
The 1921 Alberta general election was held on July 18, 1921, to elect members to the 5th Alberta Legislative Assembly. The Liberal government is replaced by the United Farmers of Alberta. It was one of only five times that Alberta has changed gov ...
. He won a provincial seat to sit as MLA for
Calgary electoral district. His support dropped significantly in the
1926 Alberta general election and he was not re-elected.
In 1928, Marshall moved to Edmonton and remained there until his retirement. He was involved in the
YMCA
YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...
,
Rotary Club
Rotary International is one of the largest Service club, service organizations in the world. The self-declared mission of Rotary, as stated on its website, is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, go ...
and the
Alberta Union of Municipalities. He was a
freemason
Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...
and an
oddfellow.
He ran for the
House of Commons of Canada
The House of Commons of Canada () is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Monarchy of Canada#Parliament (King-in-Parliament), Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the Bicameralism, bicameral legislature of Ca ...
in
Edmonton East as a
Liberal candidate in a by-election held on March 21, 1938 but was defeated by
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 ...
candidate
Orvis A. Kennedy.
Marshall died in 1962 while holidaying in
Fort Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale ( ) is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and most populous city in Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 census, making it ...
,
Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
.
References
Bibliography
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, Robert
1883 births
1962 deaths
Alberta Liberal Party MLAs
Mayors of Calgary
People from Ingersoll, Ontario
20th-century mayors of places in Alberta
20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta