Hannah Gale

Hannah "Annie" Elizabeth Rolinson Gale (December 29, 1876 – August 7, 1970) was a British-born Canadian politician who was one of the first women to hold an elected political position in Canada. She served as an Alderman on Calgary City Council 1918 to 1924.

Early life and personal life Gale, nicknamed Annie at an early age, was born in Netherton, West Midlands, England. The daughter of a merchant grocer and his wife, she attended an all-girls school. She began helping run the family business after her father died of pneumonia. eventually left to join their extended family, who had emigrated to Canada and eventually settled in Calgary, Alberta in 1912.

Career Gale took an active interest in her new home. She soon noticed the poor quality and high prices charged for vegetables. This she found was a result of grocers having contracts with BC producers so the cost of transportation was added to the price plus the long time in transit accounted for the poor quality. Gale joined the Consumers League, founded to contest wartime profiteering and the high cost of living, and helped establish a City Market (farmers market) where sellers cold sell local produce. She also played a leading role in the Vacant Lots Garden Club whose motto was "make the waste places into fruitful gardens.

Hearing tales of isolated farm women having to give birth without proper medical attendance, she became secretary of the Free Hospital League, which was dedicated to "work for hospitals as free as the public school system." The organization, with support from the United Farmers of Alberta, pushed Alberta's Liberal government to initiate public hospitals.

She began helping run the family business after her father died of pneumonia. She was elected to the Calgary City Council on December 10, 1917. She was among the first women in Canada, and in the British Commonwealth, to be elected to an elected position in any level of government, following shortly after two women were elected in the provincial election earlier that same year.

The following year Gale was elected as acting mayor by her fellow members on the city council. For the first time in the British Empire, a woman performed the duties of a mayor, when the elected mayor was unable to perform his duties.

In 1924, she was elected as a public school trustee for the Calgary Board of Education. The following year she resigned when she and her family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. They moved there in hopes the coastal climate would help her husband's declining health - he died in 1939.

Annie Gale resided in Vancouver until her death in 1970 at the age of 93.

Gale said: "I have always believed that the mission of women in political life was to clean up politics."

Feminist Nellie McClung paid tribute to Annie Gale: "Women haven't an easy time in public life and Mrs. Gale has played her part courageously and intelligently. Mrs. Gale could always be depended upon to take a sane, forward, dependable view. Her tact and charming personality have carried her through many difficulties. Women haven't an easy time in public life but they count the cost before they enter. Mrs. Gale has always upheld the standards of womanhood and we cherish the hope that she will come back to us again."

In 1983, a junior high school was named after her in the Calgary community of Whitehorn.

In 1985 Judith Lishman's book "Alderman Mrs. Annie Gale" was published by Sheila Graham, in Vancouver.