Mary Ellen Spear Smith (1863-1933)

Mary Ellen Spear Smith was a significant figure during the women’s suffrage era. She contributed to the campaign for suffrage in British Columbia and to other reforms, and became one of the few women who successfully made the transition from suffrage and reform activism to electoral politics.

Smith became an accomplished politician in the immediate post-suffrage era, representing newly enfranchised women and bringing their concerns into the political forum. She spearheaded a number of important social legislation initiatives in British Columbia during her three terms in office, including the establishment of a minimum wage and generous pensions for mothers. Smith’s efforts during this era to improve women’s place within mainstream parties, such as the British Columbia Liberals, helped women find their political voice.

Mary Ellen Spear was born on October 11, 1863 in Gunnislake, Cornwall, England, and raised in Cramlington, a satellite community of Newcastle-on-Tyne. In 1883, she married a widowed coalminer named Ralph Smith.

Smith began her political career in Nanaimo, British Columbia, where she and her husband settled in the late 19th century. She began by assisting her husband with his political aspirations. She then founded the Hospital Auxiliary in Nanaimo, established the Laurier Liberal Ladies’ League, and worked for women’s empowerment. After her move to Vancouver, she served as first vice-president of the Political Equality League in the busy years prior to the granting of suffrage to women in British Columbia in 1916. Smith decided to pursue her own political ambitions after suffrage was achieved and following her husband’s death in 1917, drawing upon her many years of volunteer work with a wide range of progressive organizations dedicated to politics, women’s rights or philanthropy.

She was first elected to the province’s legislative assembly in 1918 in her husband’s former riding and became a cabinet minister after her second electoral victory in 1920. A year later, Smith was appointed to the cabinet as a minister without portfolio, making her the first female cabinet minister in the British Empire. She hoped to be appointed to a department responsible for child welfare or women’s issues. When the hoped-for portfolio did not materialize, she resigned from cabinet. A popular politician and tireless public speaker, Smith was re-elected in 1924 and served briefly as Speaker of the House in 1928. After being defeated in the 1928 election, along with most of the Liberal Party, she was for a short time Canada’s representative at an international labour conference in Geneva.

Mary Ellen Smith died in May 1933.