William Horace Temple - Temperance Crusader

Temperance Crusader

He acquired the nickname "Temperance Willie" while serving in the RCAF. His anti-liquor attitudes formed in his early years as a result of his father's alcoholism as well as his Methodist upbringing and experiences in the military. He admitted to having a few drinks during World War I, "Of course I've had a drink, you cannot go through two world wars without taking a drink," he told the Globe and Mail but added "I think I had a few on Nov. 11, 1918, but I don't really remember having any since."

After his political defeat, he remained active in West Toronto where he founded the Inter-Church Temperance League. When the community joined the city of Toronto in 1909, it did so on condition of remaining a "dry" district where alcohol sales were prohibited, as they had been since 1904. Temple and his Temperance League fought for half a century to maintain that regulation despite attempts by the city to reverse it. Over the years, several plebiscites were held on allowing alcohol sales, and Temple and his supporters successfully fought against permitting alcohol sales in referendums held in 1966, 1972, 1984. He died several months before a 1988 plebiscite, but had already begun the campaign, and his supporters credited him with their victory. It was not until after Temple's death that neighbourhoods in the area finally voted to allow alcohol sales beginning in 1994 in the St. Clair West area, and ending in The Junction in 2000, when the last dry region in west Toronto became wet.