Biography
William John Patterson was born on May 13, 1886 at Grenfell in what was then the District of Assiniboia of the North-West Territories. His father, John Patterson had moved to Grenfell in 1882 to work as a railway section foreman during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. His mother, Catherine Fraser, was an immigrant from Scotland.
Patterson left school at age 15 and found work first at a bank and then in the Saskatchewan Department of Telephones. Following the outbreak of World War I, Patterson in 1916 enlisted in the Royal Canadian Army, serving as a cavalry officer. He was wounded in September 1918.
Upon his return to Saskatchewan after the war, he studied law in Grenfell under lawyer G.C. Neff, and then moved to Windthorst, Saskatchewan to set up a financial and insurance agency.
Patterson ran in the Saskatchewan general election of 1921 as the Saskatchewan Liberal Party's candidate for the constituency of Pipestone. Patterson won the election and took his seat in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. Patterson held several cabinet positions in governments headed by Premier James Garfield Gardiner. He was reelected in the 1925 election and the 1929 election, although in the latter case the Liberals lost the election and Patterson moved to the Opposition. In the 1934 election, the Liberals returned to power, and Patterson returned to cabinet.
In 1935, Premier Gardiner left provincial politics to become Canadian Minister of Agriculture under Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Patterson was elected as Gardiner's successor as leader of the Liberal Party of Saskatchewan and Premier of Saskatchewan. Taking office in the midst of the Great Depression, Patterson sought to extend social programs to assist those in need. His government increased funding for education; enacted pension and debt relief legislation; and expanded public funding for treatment of tuberculosis, cancer, and polio. However, Patterson subscribed to the conventional wisdom of the day that deficit spending would ruin the province's credit and he therefore refused to run a budget deficit, instead funding the increased government spending through a new sales tax. His government also passed legislation making it easier to form credit unions; permitting the formation of unions; and increasing labour standards.
Patterson won reelection in the 1938 election and continued to serve as premier. In the 1944 election, however, the Liberals were easily defeated by the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation under the leadership of Tommy Douglas. Patterson served as Leader of the Opposition until 1946, at which time he resigned as Liberal party leader and declined to seek re-election to the Legislature in the 1948 election.
Following his resignation, Patterson took up a position with the federal Board of Transport Commissioners.
In 1951, Patterson was appointed as the first Saskatchewan-born Lieutenant Governor. He served in this post until 1958. Upon Patterson's retirement, Premier Douglas introduced special legislation to provide Patterson with a pension in thanks for his many years of service to the province.
Patterson lived quietly in retirement until his death on June 10, 1976.
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