ABERHART, WILLIAM

born Dec. 30, 1878, Kippen, Ont., Can. died May 23, 1943, Vancouver, B.C. the first Social Credit Party premier of Alberta, during and after the Great Depression. Trained as a teacher, Aberhart was a high school principal in Calgary, Alta. (1915-35). In 1918 he founded the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute and in 1932 employed his evangelical rhetoric in promoting the unorthodox Social Credit monetary-reform and political theories of Clifford Douglas. In order to solve economic problems and to build a new society, Aberhart proposed to issue dividends (social credit) to each person, based on the real wealth of the province. After the 1935 provincial election in which the Social Credit Party candidates won 56 of the 63 assembly seats, he was made premier and minister of education, and he determined to make Alberta an example of the Social Credit system. The necessary enabling legislation, however, was declared unconstitutional and was disallowed by the federal government. Aberhart nonetheless continued in office, directing Alberta's economy along orthodox financial lines, until his death.