Memorable Manitobans: William H. “Bill” Hoop (1876-1928)

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William H. Hoop
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Labour leader.

Born in Durham County, England on 5 May 1876, he was a steelworker for three years then a postal carrier in Winnipeg after his arrival here in 1904.

He was an “impossibilist” member of the Socialist Party, and he helped organize the party in Winnipeg in 1906. His political views later moderated. He was a supporter of the revised Direct Legislation League. In the 1912 municipal election Hoop ran for alderman in Ward 2, declaring, “Race-protection, race-progression, and race-perfection are the ideals of my religion, and if elected I will put them in practice.” He ran for a seat in the Manitoba Legislature during the 1914 general election but finished a distant third behind T. H. Johnson. During the First World War he was an ardent conscriptionist. In 1919 he was organizer of the retail clerks and a moderate member of the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council.

He remained active in labour circles during the 1920s and, in 1927, he ran as an Independent for a seat on the Winnipeg city council but was soundly defeated by an Independent Labour Party candidate. In the late 1920s, he edited a pro-labour newspaper called the Winnipeg Sporting News.

He and wife Annie (1873-?) had no children.

He died at the St. Boniface Hospital on 14 October 1928 and was buried in the Elmwood Cemetery.

Sources:

1911 Canada census, Automated Genealogy.

Death registration [William Hoop], Manitoba Vital Statistics.

“W. H. Hoop, prominent in labor circles, dies,” Manitoba Free Press, 15 October 1928, page 7.

“W. H. Hoop dies, former head of trades council,” Winnipeg Tribune, 15 October 1928, page 2.

Obituary, Manitoba Free Press, 18 October 1928, page 22.

Times of Trouble: Labour Quiescence in Winnipeg 1920-1929 by David Edward Hall, MA thesis, University of Manitoba, 1983, page 76.

Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, December 1999, 288 pages.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 3 July 2026

Memorable Manitobans

Memorable Manitobans

This is a collection of noteworthy Manitobans from the past, compiled by the Manitoba Historical Society. We acknowledge that the collection contains both reputable and disreputable people. All are worth remembering as a lesson to future generations.

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