William James Major
Canadian politician (1881-1953)
William James Major (November 10, 1881 – August 13, 1953) was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1927 to 1941, and was a prominent cabinet minister in the government of John Bracken.
Major was born in Yeovil, Somerset, England in 1881, worked in the law office of Athelstan Rendall and migrated to Canada in 1901. He was educated in Manitoba, was called to the Manitoba Bar in 1913, and worked as a barrister-at-law. He also became active as a freemason.
Major was chosen as a star candidate of the governing Progressive Party in the 1927 provincial election. In this period of Canadian history, newly appointed cabinet ministers were required to resign their seats and seek the renewed support of their electorate. This was inconvenient for most government leaders, who frequently circumvented the regulation by appointing or shuffling cabinet ministers just before general elections. Major, despite his lack of political experience, was named as Bracken's Attorney General on April 29, 1927, and fought the election in this capacity. He proved an effective campaigner and was elected for Winnipeg, which returned ten members through the single transferable ballot voting method.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3568737. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1881, 1953, 1927 and 1941.
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This entry incorporates text from “William James Major” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.