Collection paa-7135 - Anthony Mardiros Collection

Anthony Mardiros, an Australian, studied at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England during the Second World War. He joined the Department of Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta in 1947 and was head of the Department of Philosophy from 1957 until 1968. A friend and fellow socialist of William Irvine, he wrote a biography of Irvine, <em>William Irvine: The Life of a Prairie Radical,</em> which was published in 1979. Mardiros described Irvine as "the founding father of the radical democratic socialist movement in Alberta" <em>(William Irvine: The Life of a Prairie Radical,</em> page 1). William Irvine (1885-1962), originally from Shetland, Scotland, arrived in Canada at the age of twenty-one, enrolling at Wesley College in Winnipeg, Manitoba. While at College, he was profoundly influenced by Salem Bland and J.S. Woodsworth, supporters of the Social Gospel movement. In January 1916, he accepted an offer from a Unitarian Church in Calgary, Alberta. He soon became interested in journalism, and helped found a radical paper, <em>The Nutcracker,</em> which later became <em>The Alberta Non-Partisan</em> and then <em>The Western Independent.</em> He became secretary to the Non-Partisan League. William was elected to Parliament a number of times over the next thirty years, for the first time on December 6, 1921, representing the Calgary East Constituency. He was a member of the Ginger Group, an independent group of members of Parliament who had split from the Progressive Party in 1924. In 1932, he was a founding member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). He became the first president of the Alberta CCF in 1936. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a democratic socialist party, led by J.S. Woodsworth. The party brought together several farm, labour and socialist associations in Western Canada and was popular during the Second World War. The Alberta section of the CCF was formed in 1942 when the Alberta Labour Party amalgamated with the Alberta CCF clubs.