However, the new party was founded by fundamentalist radio preacher and Bible school teacher William Aberhart or " Bible Bill ".

William Aberhart ( December 30, 1878 – May 23, 1943 ), also known as Bible Bill for his outspoken Baptist views, was a Canadian politician and the seventh Premier of Alberta between 1935 and 1943.

William Aberhart was born December 30, 1878 in Tuckersmith Township ( now part of Huron East, Ontario ) to William ( c. 1844 – 1910 ) and Louisa ( c. 1850 – 1944 ) ( née Pepper ) Aberhart.

William Aberhart Sr. had immigrated to Canada from Germany with his family at the age of seven, while Louisa Pepper was born in Perth County, Ontario.

Aberhart was not a social child.

In 1897-98, Aberhart attended Seaforth Collegiate Institute, where he was nicknamed " Whitey " ( for his blond hair ) and broadened his athletic prowess to include the long jump, shot put, 100-yard dash, high jump, cycling, and football.

A daughter, Khona Louise Aberhart, was born in the winter of 1903, and a second, Ola Janet Aberhart, followed in August 1905.

In the fall of 1901 Aberhart was hired as a teacher at the Central Public School in Brantford, for which he was paid $ 60 per month.

His school's principal died in 1905, and Aberhart was selected to replace him ; his salary increased to $ 1, 000 per year.

In response to a petition from his staff and students that this offer be matched by Brantford, Aberhart was offered a raise to $ 1, 300 ; he declined it, and moved to Calgary that spring.

Aberhart was to become principal of Mount Royal School, but it was not yet complete at the time of his arrival, so he became the principal of Alexandra Public School immediately on his arrival.

Elliott and Miller write that Aberhart took a less rigid approach to discipline at Crescent Heights than he had in Ontario, though Schultz says that as principal he was " authoritarian in manner and a strict disciplinarian ".

One way Aberhart applied his organizational prowess was in creating one of Calgary's first and largest Parent-Teacher Associations, which had an average of two hundred parents attend each meeting ; Aberhart had a generally good relationship with parents.

Despite this uneven relationship, Aberhart was not all together closed-minded, and would entertain — and sometimes even be convinced by — arguments from his staff.

Aberhart had aspired to take ministerial training at the Presbyterian Knox College Divinity School, but the church in Brantford was reluctant to take on the support of both him and his family in the four year training period.

In 1927, Aberhart was appointed Dean of the newly-founded Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute.

Reid, right, giving a speech in Edmonton on the occasion of George V of the United Kingdom | George V's silver jubileeA more dangerous opponent than Howson was William Aberhart, the Calgary preacher who was proposing a form of social credit to cure the province's ills.

Social credit, the brainchild of British engineer C. H. Douglas, purported to bridge the gap between a society's production and its purchasing power ; Aberhart maintained that this gap was the source of Alberta's economic hardships.

Reid was leery of Aberhart though he, like most politicians of the era, pronounced himself in favour of Douglas's philosophy.

Aberhart was a fundamentalist, preaching the revealed word of God and quoting the Bible to find a solution for the evils of the modern, materialistic world: the evils of sophisticated academics and their biblical criticism, the cold formality of middle-class congregations, the vices of dancing and movies and drink.

In 1918, Aberhart began a Bible study group in Calgary, Alberta which grew steadily year-by-year ; by 1923, the Palace Theatre had to be rented to accommodate those interested in Aberhart's message.

The ideology was embraced by the Reverend " Bible Bill " William Aberhart, who formed the Alberta Social Credit League based on Douglas ' ideology and conservative Christian social values.

" Bible Bill " Aberhart died in 1943 and was replaced by his Provincial Secretary and Minister of Trade and Industry, Ernest Manning.

Aberhart died in 1943, and was succeeded as Premier by his student at the Prophetic Bible Institute and lifelong close disciple, Ernest C. Manning ( 1908 – 1996 ).

Aberhart died in 1943, and was succeeded as Premier by his student at the Prophetic Bible Institute and lifelong close disciple, Ernest C. Manning ( 1908 – 1996 ).

Aberhart and his disciple Ernest Manning then governed the province for the next forty years, several times trying to expand into the rest of Canada.

Aberhart also campaigned for and instituted several anti-poverty and debt relief programs during his premiership.

In 1919 eight Crescent Heights teachers wrote the school board requesting an investigation into Aberhart's work ; the resulting inspection led to the transfer of three male teachers — with whom Aberhart had a particularly poor rapport — to other schools, and stated that persisting problems would lead to a request for Aberhart's resignation.

When some students wanted the school to purchase a movie projector not provided for the in school's budget, Aberhart organized a company into which students could buy for ten cents per share ; the company put on movies for which it charged admission, and at the end of its first year of operation it declared a dividend of 25 cents per share.

Besides Aberhart, it featured actors portraying two characters of whom Aberhart had been making considerable use in presentations around the province: the Man from Mars, who expressed bewilderment that poverty could exist in the midst of plenty and that governments were doing nothing about it, and Kant B. Dunn, who brought up straw man arguments against social credit for Aberhart to dismantle.

Time would prove Reid correct in most of his criticisms of Aberhart: he did lack a specific economic agenda, much of his legislation was struck down by the courts, and the depression did continue for several more years in Alberta.

In doing this, Brownlee hoped both to co-opt the promise of social credit for the benefit of the UFA and to discredit Aberhart by demonstrating how widely his interpretation of social credit differed from Douglas's.

In May 1935, after Aberhart announced that his social credit movement would contest the next provincial election, Brownlee ridiculed its candidate-selection process — in which Aberhart personally interviewed and selected more candidates for each riding than could ultimately run — as one in which the candidates would be " wrapped in cellophane and carefully hidden away so they will not dry out on, until the day he calls out the fittest and discards the rest ".

However, a week prior to convocation the full senate — responsible for all university academic affairs — met, and voted against awarding Aberhart a degree.

The government, to uphold its election promise of allowing democratic control of the government, passed a law allowing allowing for the recall of members of the Legislative Assembly by petition of consituents but then repealed the legislation when Aberhart himself became the target of a recall drive.

The governments ` Liberal and Conservative opponents, as well as opposition from those calling for more interventionist anti-capitalist policies and calls for radical monetary reform from William Aberhart ` s Social Credit movement, grew louder and more popular.

Furthermore, the social credit proposal for reform of the monetary system could only be implemented at the federal level ( as the Social Credit government of William Aberhart in Alberta had learned when it tried to issue “ prosperity certificates ”).

During this period, the party supported the monetary reforms of Major Douglas, which Aberhart had been promoting in Alberta for several years.

All three bills were later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, though, in retaliation for this move by Bowen, his premier, William Aberhart, closed the viceregal residence, removed the Lieutenant Governor's secretary and support offices, and took away his official car.

Though he was gaining adherents, Aberhart insisted that his aim was not to enter politics, but to persuade existing parties to adopt social credit in their platforms.

C. H. Douglas proved more evasive than Reid had anticipated in evaluating the Aberhart version of social credit. The threat from within apparently defeated, Reid and his government turned their attention to the threat from without: the convention's repudiation had convinced Aberhart that his Social Credit League must run candidates in the next election.

Aberhart did not resist the comparison, retorting that the pied piper had " rid the capitol of all the rats "; Brownlee responded that, after doing that, he had led its children to their destruction.