page_title: Charles Stewart (premier)
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Stewart (premier) / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Charles Stewart's farm house in Killam, Alberta. Stewart himself is standing lower left.
context_page_description: Charles Stewart, PC was a Canadian politician who served as the third Premier of Alberta from 1917 until 1921. Born in Strabane, Ontario, in Wentworth County, Stewart was a farmer who moved west to Alberta after his farm was destroyed by a storm. There he became active in politics and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the 1909 election. He served as Minister of Public Works and Minister of Municipal Affairs—the first person to hold the latter position in Alberta—in the government of Arthur Sifton. When Sifton left provincial politics in 1917 to join the federal cabinet, Stewart was named his replacement.
  As premier, Stewart tried to hold together his Liberal Party, which was divided by the Conscription Crisis of 1917. He endeavoured to enforce prohibition of alcoholic beverages, which had been enshrined in law by a referendum during Sifton's premiership, but found that the law was not widely enough supported to be effectively policed. His government took over several of the province's financially troubled railroads, and guaranteed bonds sold to fund irrigation projects.
context_section_description: Charles Stewart was born on August 26, 1868, in Strabane, Ontario, on Wentworth County, to Charles and Catherine Stewart. Charles Sr. was a stonemason and farmer. As a child, Charles Jr. accompanied his father to Carlisle to hear Canadian Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald.  According to family lore, Macdonald noticed the young future Premier and told him that he was a fine boy who would make a good politician someday.  When Charles Jr. was 16, he moved with his family to a farm near Barrie. Seven years later, on December 17, 1891, he married Jane Russell Sneath; the pair had eight children.  After marrying Sneath, he converted to her Church of England faith.
  In 1892, Charles Sr. died, leaving his son in charge of the family farm.  Twelve years later, this farm was destroyed by a storm, and Stewart decided to move west, settling near Killam, Alberta in 1906.  His family endured a cold winter—the warmest place in their shack was on the kitchen table, so they kept the baby there—and in the spring their crops were destroyed by hail.  As he was unsuccessful at farming, he supplemented his income using the stonemason's skills he had learned from his father: he laid foundations for the Canadian Pacific Railway, worked on the High Level Bridge in Edmonton, and dug Killam's town well.  He later worked in real estate and as a farm implement dealer, earning enough to buy a new and larger homestead in 1912.
  Stewart was active in his local community: he was the first chair of the Killam School District, attended the first meeting of Killam ratepayers on January 19, 1907, and was involved in the incorporation of Killam in January 1908.  In 1909, the Alberta Liberal Party, which had dominated provincial politics throughout Alberta's short history, came seeking a candidate to run in the new riding of Sedgewick.  Stewart agreed to run and was elected by acclamation in the 1909 election.
caption: Stewart's farmhouse in Killam; Stewart himself is standing at lower left.
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