Ginger Goodwin, labour martyr
To mark Canada’s 150th birthday, we are counting down to Canada Day with profiles of 150 noteworthy British Columbians.
Ninety-nine years after his death, Ginger Goodwin remains one of B.C. Labour’s most revered figures, and one of its most controversial.
To his supporters, Ginger was murdered in cold blood by a disgraced cop on July 27, 1918. But his killer, Dan Campbell, claimed Goodwin had raised a rifle toward him, and that he shot in self-defence.
Goodwin was hiding out in the woods near Cumberland on Vancouver Island because he had been drafted into the Canadian Army during the First World War. As a socialist, he was opposed to the war, and refused to fight.
Born on May 19, 1887 in Yorkshire, England, Albert Goodwin had bright red hair, hence the nickname Ginger. He immigrated to Canada when he was 19, initially working in the coal mines at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. In 1910, he moved to the Kootenays and then to Cumberland.
He was shocked by the conditions in Vancouver Island’s coal mines, and became involved in a long and bitter strike from 1912-14. Blacklisted by the mine owners, he moved to Trail, where he worked in a smelter.
In 1916, he was elected secretary of the Trail Mill and Smeltermen’s Union, and the following year was elected vice-president of the B.C. Federation of Labour. Goodwin organized a strike at the Trail mill in 1917, which many believe led to his draft problems.
Like many coal miners, Goodwin had health issues, and had initially been classified as unfit for military service. But after he led the Trail strike, he was told to report for re-examination, and was classified as fit.
So he fled to Cumberland, where other draft dodgers were hiding out.
Dan Campbell had been kicked off the B.C. provincial police force for trying to extort money. But he was hired as a special constable when the authorities decided to go after the draft dodgers near Cumberland.
Campbell caught up to Goodwin by Cruickshank River at the back of Comox Lake, killing him with a shot that went through Goodwin’s wrist and neck. There were no witnesses.
Most people in Cumberland believe Goodwin was murdered.
“Ginger was a pacifist, I can’t imagine him shooting first or anything like that,” said Brian Charlton of the Cumberland Museum and Archives. “Gord Carter’s father’s friend was one of the first people on the scene, and said that Ginger didn’t have a gun.”
Miners heard about the shooting and stopped the police from spiriting Goodwin’s body out of Cumberland. A couple of thousand people marched with Goodwin’s body down Dunsmuir Avenue the day he was buried. Vancouver labour responded to Goodwin’s death by staging the first general strike in Canadian history on Aug. 2, 1918.