Farmer, municipal official.
Born at Welford, Northamptonshire, England on 18 May 1859, in a family of three daughters and three sons, he did not attend school, instead herding turkeys and working in a factory until 1884 when he emigrated to Canada in a cattle boat. He came to Manitoba and took up a homestead at 18-14-29, just inside the Manitoba border, east of Moosomin, Saskatchewan. At first, he lived on his homestead for six months a year, spending the remainder in the Rocky Mountains on a construction crew for the Canadian Pacific Railway. During the 1885 North West Rebellion, he worked as a cook on a steamboat operating on the South Saskatchewan River.
In 1889 he returned to England to see his boyhood sweetheart, Jane Wilkins (1859-1953), who he married on 25 February 1889, returning to Moosomin the next month. The couple took up residence in a sod shack on the homestead and farmed there for the next thirty years. Over the next few years, they had four children: Herbert John Poole (b 1890), Elsie Elizabeth Poole (b 1894), Frederick Charles Poole (b 1896), and Arthur William Poole (b 1898).
He served his community in a number of ways, including as a lay preacher in the Congregationalist Church, and an elder in the Manson United Church. From 1894 to 1911, he served as Reeve for the Rural Municipality of Archie. In this capacity he attended the 1905 founding meeting in Brandon of the Union of Manitoba Municipalities. He was a member of the UMM Executive and was later made an Honourary Life Member of the organization. He was a prominent member of the United Farmers of Manitoba and was one of the first shareholders in the Manson Grain Growers Hall. He was fond of music and reading good literature, especially Shakespeare.
He retired from farming in 1922, leaving it in the hands of his son Arthur. He and his wife moved to Manson where they bought a home, later moving into an addition on the home of their son Fred. Poole served as Weed Inspector for the municipality.
He died on 14 March 1935.
A Century of Memories: Manson, McAuley, Willen, Archie Municipality, 1883-1983, Archie Centennial Book Committee, 1982, pages 334-336 [Manitoba Legislative Library].
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 26 December 2009
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