Tilly Jean Rolston: She Knew How to
Throw a Party
JULIETTE PROOM

illy Jean Rolston, the first woman to hold a Cabinet portfolio in
the British Commonwealth, was friendly and quick-witted. The woman who
helped introduce the Social Credit party to the British Columbia Legislature
had few vices, but she loved to smoke in a private meeting, or when she was
out of the public eye. At one typically empty meeting of the Vancouver Parks
Board when Rolston sat as a commissioner (1939-1943), she lit a cigarette.
Unfortunately, she also ignited the veil of her hat. Just as the chairman threw
a tumbler of water at her face to douse the fire, a newspaper reporter walked
into the room. "Tilly implored him not to mention her embarrassment,"
recounted Daily Colonist columnist, James Nesbitt. "But he told her it was
too good a story to keep in the dark, so it hit the headlines." 1
From the very start of her public life, Rolston grabbed headlines. She
first made it into print in 193 8, when, in the BC Council of Women's brief to
the Rowell-Sirois Commission, she suggested senators be forced to retire at
the age of seventy-five. John Dafoe, a commissioner on that Royal
Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, said, "That is a very
revolutionary recommendation. " 2 The chief editorial writer for the Province
newspaper, D.A. MacGregor, began his report of the Commission's hearings
with "the Provincial Council of Women, in a brief so admirably compiled and
so forcibly presented by Mrs. F.J. Rolston as to draw a special compliment
from the chairman, urged a Dominion taxation system, and Dominion
responsibility for social services. "3 Soon after her landmark presentation to
the society-shaping Royal Commission, Rolston left her Sunday School
classes and plunged into elected office. Her church had delegated her to the
Vancouver Local Council of Women, which launched her activity in that
organization. She passed through its various offices, eventually becoming
preside"nt of the Provincial Council of Women. At the same time, she was an
executive member of the Pacific National Exhibition, the YWCA, the BC
Barbara K. Latham and Roberta J. Pazdro, Eds., Not Just Pin Money
Victoria: Camosun College, 1984°

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Tilly Rolston

Branch of the Canadian Society for the Control of Cancer and the Vancouver
Symphony Society. 4
Rolston took many of the points she outlined to the Rowell-Sirois
Commission to governmental meetings for the rest of her life. Some became
an integral part of the future Social Credit Party, but they all reflected her
belief that people should be given every opportunity to look after themselves.
For example, she recommended. that Old Age Pensions be renamed
"Retirement Insurance" and be made available at a lower age. They should be
set up on a contributory basis, beginning at age thirty, so that larger pensions
would be available. Her idea was not unlike Registered Retirement Savings
Plans introduced by the Liberal federal government nearly forty years later.
"A person would not be dependant upon the State, and I think it should be a
contribution of their own," said Rolston when questioned by the hearing
chairman. 5 However, she also believed the state should provide for th9se
unable to look after themselves. In her brief to the Commission on DominionProvincial Relations, she recommended a federal unemployment insurance
scheme, with provinces responsible for unemployables whom she defined as
"those persons suffering from mental, physical or social handicaps."6
Other aspects of her brief are also interesting. She wanted education
costs to be borne bythe provinces, complaining that municipalities and rural
districts carried too much of the load. "In BC there is an undue burden on real
estate taxes. Leave the provinces [with the] responsibility for education
finances, and the Dominion responsible for social services. Real estate,
then, will carry the logical responsibility for purely local services, such as
roads, sewers and water." 7 Rolston had the chance to implement her ideas
fourteen years later when as Minister, she sponsored an education financing
bill which became known as the Rolston Formula.
On her first attempt, Rolston was elected to the Legislature as a
Conservative in Vancouver-Point Grey, three years after her appearance
before the Rowell-Sirois Commission. Such early success has been common
amongst British Columbia's elected women MLAs: nineteen of the twentythree have won on their initial ballot. Her repeated re-election is also a
common trait, although seven other female MLAs have not shared such a
fate. Rolston was an active Vancouver Parks Board Commissioner when she
joined the Legislature, an office later held by another notable Social Credit
Cabinet Minister, Grace McCarthy.
The 1941 general election ushered in a new era in British Columbia
politics when John Hart became Premier, defeating Duff Pattullo. Rolston
polled third of ten candidates, with 13,584 votes, a thousand fewer than
incumbent and Conservative Party leader R.L. Maitland, and 2500 more
than her next rival. She joined CCF members Dorothy Steeves, Laura
Jamieson and Grace Macinnis and Liberal Nancy Hodges in the forty-eight
seat assembly. A key to her success could have been the riding in which she
ran: women have been most successful in achieving seats in the Legislature
when they run in Vancouver or Victoria constituencies.
Rolston was a campaign trooper from the start. During that first race,
she often complained "liberty has degenerated into license." 8 She was
incensed when she told a campaign rally on October 10, 1941, that the Liberal

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MLAs (l tor): Nancy Hodges, Tilly Jean Rolston, Dorothy Steeves, Laura Jamieson,
Grace Maclnnis, c.1941-1945.

384

Tilly Rolston

government had used public funds to increase its popularity by sending
congratulatory messages to newly-weds and parents of newborn infants. She
appealed to women to stop "the atrocious" waste of money: "Women
constitute fifty-two percent of the voters' list in this province. They have a
great deal of power, and they should use it to elect an honest, sound
government. "9
During the war years, Rolston was particularly concerned with family
standards on the home front. She.told the BC Housewives League annual
convention in November,1941, that "a man may be the head of the house, but
it has been women's work always to make one dollar go as far as two in the
feeding and clothing of her family." 10
Her first big speech in the Legislature came three months after her
election, when she made her Party's reply to the Throne Speech.
Commentator Bruce Hutchison, in the Vancouver Sun, said:
Anyone who still imagines there is any difference
between the Liberal and Conservative Parties ofB.C.
should have watched the Legislature yesterday
[January 8, 1942] in its first working session. The day
presented the pleasing spectacle of two lady speakers:
Mrs. Nancy Hodges, elected Liberal of Victoria, tall,
handsome and eloquent; and Mrs. Tilly Rolston,
elected Conservative of Vancouver, also handsome,
vigorous and sure of herself. They agreed in every
particular, and their speeches advocated precisely the
same reforms, one by one .... They showed that the
union is drifting, or rather pushing, to the left, as it
must to survive the growth of the CCF. Both lady
speakers were guilty of grand larceny of the CCF
platform, which they helped themselves to without
compunction. Mrs. Rolston, speaking from behind a
formidable hedge of bouquets, demanded curtailment
of liquor consumption; an increase in old age
pensions; a housing scheme; and post-war planning.
But she went further [than Nancy Hodges] in
demanding compulsory savings and standardization
of clothing to save money for the war. 11
Rolston told the Legislature,"Sometimes we are inclined to feel old age
pensions are a charity, but we forget these are the people who helped build up
British Columbia." Asking for an upward trend in mothers' pensions, she
said,"we can't have our boys and girls growing up without sufficient bread
and butter and milk." 12
Rolston found her niche in the Legislature's Standing Committee on
Social Welfare from the beginning. As chairwoman of this Committee for six
years, between 1943-50, she studied the lack of work for able-bodied
unemployed, drug addiction, juvenile delinquency (t;specially psychiatric
services and probation), old age and mothers' pensions, and hot springs
treatment of arthritis.
In late 1942, she and the other female MLA's belatedly joined W.A.C.
Bennett, Harold Winch and five other men on the Post-War Rehabilitation
,Council, an all-party committee of the Legislature, chaired by Education

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Minister H.G.T. Perry. Among other things, the Council recommended a
national health insurance schem~, and that the education tax be equalized,
especially in rural areas. It also called for an orderly program of
apprenticeship training, and a public utilities commission, modelled after
Ontario Hydro, to oversee water and power resources.
Despite Bruce Hutchison's initial observation that Rolston stole her
ideas from the CCF, she engaged in keen and frequent battles with those on
the other side of the floor. Her contention that a woman's place was in the
home, at least while there were children there, led to a battle with Laura
Jamieson in 1943. Jamieson suggested government nursery schools be
established to permit young mothers to work. 13 She believed children should
not be tied to their mothers' apron strings. But Rolston retorted, "It is an
insult to suggest that a mother can't bring up her own children better than
some ... starched, cultured academician." She then suggested it might be a
good idea if women were paid by the state to stay at home to look after their
children. 14 A year later, she repeated herself: "I don't think I stand alone in my
belief that the biggest job any woman can do is raise her children and keep a
happy home forherfamily .... Womenare not superhuman; onejobisaboutas
much as most of us can do properly .... The biggest job any woman can do is
that of raising a family of good Canadian citizens with a sense of
responsibility." 15
Rolston now prefaced her remarks by saying she wished it distinctly
understood that her references to employed women did not apply to the
women who had to work for a living, or to a woman who was the head of a
family, and was therefore the main wage earner; nor did she allude to young
women who were not married. Her preface now makes us wonder to whom
she was referring!
Throughout her years in the Legislature, Rolston called for improved
mothers' pensions. In 1942, when the Liberal-led coalition added another five
dollars to Old Age Pensions in the provincial budget, Rolston congratulated
them, but bemoaned the size of the allowance paid to mothers. 16
As a member of the Coalition government, Rolston toured the province,
and occasionally spoke on the major issues of the day. But her favourite topics
were always those pertaining to the housewife. She told the Legislature of one
Vancouver woman who had been fined fifteen dollars for exceeding her
wartime ratio of sawdust for fuel, despite the fact that the woman did not
know of the limit. She chose to champion coloured margarine. Oleo
margarine became the subject of public debate near the end of World War
Two, when farmers became worried that it would displace butter in the
average food basket. It remained a federal issue until 1948, when the oil-based
product received the government's blessing. Two days before Christmas that
year, a provincial ban on margarine was belatedly unearthed. In the weeks
that followed, housewives blitzed the provincial government with appeals to
repeal the ban. Attention soon turned to colour. Margarine was sold, but it
could not be dyed to match the colour of butter. Instead, a packet of dye was
included in the package so it could be whipped in by the user. Rolston told the
Legislature "It must be palatable and colour is necessary. I don't want it to
look like lard on bread--butter is coloured at times. If colouring is injurious,

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Tilly Rolston

then let us have a crusade against colouring of all foods."' 7 Rolston, a
tenacious politician, pursued the coloured margarine issue through private
members' bills until one passed in 1952. At the height of her popularity, she
topped the polls in the general election three months later. By that time, she
had doubled her initial support.
Rolston had the floor for some time that day in 1949, when she
complained about the lardy appearance of margarine. She thought it was time
somebody did something about so-called comic books and children's
thrillers, too, and she thought hospital insurance had not gone far enough.
And her lifelong bugbear, sales tax, was still a problem. She said,"It's just
penalizing family life and making it tough for young couples to get along.
Even cleanliness is being taxed out of sight, what with a tax on soap." She
admitted at the end of her speech that she had not praised the Coalition
government as much as some other Members had, but she said it was her
"firm conviction that Members are not sent to the House to form a mutual
admiration society."1s
In 1946, when Herbert Ascomb, who disliked women in public life, did
not give her the Cabinet post she felt she deserved, Rolston began to lose faith
in the Coalition. Just after Johnson took over power in the Coalition in 1948,
Rolston aligned herself with W.A.C. Bennett, a not-too-popular maverick
from South Okanagan. He moved, she seconded, that Bill 68 (An Act to
Provide for the Imposition and Collection of a Tax on the Purchase and Use
of a Tangible Personal Property to Provide Funds for Social Security and
Municipal Aid) "be given a six months' hoist." The Speaker ruled the
amendment out of order. Rolston moved, in an amendment, seconded by
Tom Uphill (Labour - Fernie), that Bill 68 "be read six months hence." Again,
the Speaker ruled that the amendment was out of order. When it came time to
vote on the second reading of the bill, both Rolston and the future premier,
Bennett, voted with the CCF. 19
The last straw came in 1951, when the province introduced user fees in
hospitals, in addition to premiums. The week after Bennett quit the governing
Coalition ranks, Rolston made her announcement to the Legislature:
"Madam Speaker, I have lost confidence in the present government and now
sit in the House as an Independent." Saying loyalty to principle was more
important than loyalty to Parties, she claimed that the eleven men in the
Cabinet ivory tower had an "autocratic" disregard for the public. 20 Despite
her move, Rolston still wanted to be a Member of the Conservative Party. A
week after her action, she told a constituency meeting that she quit the "one
cylinder government" because of numerous promises broken by the
government leader, Boss Johnson. 21 Later that month, the Conservative
Party held a meeting in Vancouver, to prepare for the June, 1952, election.
Rolston phoned a key Party member at the downtown Georgia Hotel to say
that if the Party wanted her back, she would be available at the Sylvia Hotel
on English Bay for the next two hours. He passed the word around. No call
went to Rolston. Soon she joined the fledgling Social Credit Party. 22
"Her friend, W.A.C. Bennett, had joined around December 15th, 1951.
Bennett and Rolston evidently conferred and saw fit not to have her come in
at the same time. She announced it, I think, during the election, which had a

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great impact on the Lower Mainland and everywhere. As a woman in her own
right, as a forceful woman and a spokeswoman for women's rights and her
cause, which was margarine over butter. ..it had a good effect." 23 Tilly Jean
Rolston actually joined the Social Credit Party on May 2, 1952. By that time,
she was already a visible campaigner for her friend's Party. Some observers
say W.A.C. Bennett capitalized on Rolston's popularity, and rode her
coattails to victory. At any rate, when he came to power in 1952, he rewarded
her with a Cabinet post. It was a short-lived appointment. In 1952, she learned
she had cancer.
As Education Minister, she finally had a chance to do something about
lessening the real estate tax load. Until that time, the province made basic
grants to school districts to help defray education costs, but the major cost
was carried by landowners. In addition, the province gave municipalities onethird of the revenue gained from the three percent sales tax, about ten million
dollars in 19 51. The other two-thirds of sales tax revenue was spent on health
and municipal improvement projects. Under the Rolston Formula, school
taxes of nine mills would be imposed in urban areas and eight mills in rural
areas. Where a school district's budget went beyond the 1952 level, as they
inevitably did at a time of rapid growth in British Columbia, local taxpayers
would pay fifty percent of the increase, except in Vancouver, where local
taxpayers would pay seventy-five percent of the increase. The province
promised to pay the rest, keeping all the sales tax to itself. Basic and
supplementary grants under the new system would amount to $28.4 million,
originally more than the $27 .2 million that would have been allocated under
the existing formula. During debate on the bill's second reading, on March
24, 1953, W.A.C. Bennett said, "Tying education to sales tax is basically
unsound because if we have a recession, the sales tax would come down while
the school tax would be going up. This Rolston Formula .. .is the best
insurance the municipalities have had. The government is their partner in
education." 24 At midnight, debate was still raging. Former Education
Minister, William Straith, called it a "vicious piece of legislation." Mr.
Bennett decided to take advantage of the split with the old Coalitionists, and
give his Social Credit Party its first real test at the polls.
His gamble paid off: public enthusiasm for the neophyte Party was
remarkable. Unfortunately, Rolston, who always approached campaigning
with relish and vigour, was in bed for much of the race. She made a few
appearances in the first week of June, days before the June 9th election. But it
was not enough. She came fourth in the field of six. Robert Bonner, a longtime powerhouse of the Social Credit government, topped the list with almost
three thousand more votes than Rolston. In an unusual move, Mr. Bennett
invited her into his Cabinet despite her defeat. She did not last long. Tilly Jean
Rolston died of cancer on October 13, 1953. She was the first woman in
British Columbia to be given a state funeral.

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Tilly Rolston

Footnotes
I. James K. Nesbitt (column), Victoria Daily Colonist, June 1, 1975.
2. Transcript of proceedings, Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial
Relations, March 23, 1938 (brief no. 206): 5644. Rolston is incorrectly identified as
Ralston.
3. Vancouver Province, March 24, 1938: 7.
4. Unattributed biography, Provincial Archives of British Columbia: Tilly Jean
Rolston file.
5. Transcript of proceedings, Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial
Relations, March 23, 1938 (brief no. 206): 5639.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.: 5641.
8. Vancouver Province, September 27, 1941.
9. Vancouver Province, October 10, 1941.
10. Vancouver Province, November 13, 1941.
1I. Bruce Hutchison, "Experienced Observer Finds Women MLAs Pack More
Meat into a 20-minute Speech Than Their Male Colleagues in Long Orations,"
Vancouver Sun, January 9, 1942.
12. "Higher Pensions 'New Budget's Claim to Fame,' " Vancouver Sun, January 27,
1942.
13. See Laura Jamieson's pamphlet, Women, Dry Those Tears (c. 1945), and also
Doriese Nielsen's New Worlds for Women (1944).
14. Vancouver News-Herald, March 4, 1943: 12.
15. Vancouver Province, February 26, 1944: 6.
16. Vancouver Sun, January 27, 1942: 12.
17. Vancouver News-Herald, February 16, 1949.
18. Ibid.
19. Journals of the British Columbia Legislature, 1948.
20. Vancouver Sun, March 30, 1951: I.
21. Vancouver Province, April 7, 1951: 1.
22. Obituary, Vancouver News-Herald, October 14, 1953.
23. Transcript: "The Beginnings of Social Credit in BC"; Lyle Wicks in conversation
with William J. Langlois, Sound Division, PABC, October 14, 1976: 6-16.
24. Vancouver Sun, March 25, 1953: 1.
Bibliography
British Columbia Legislative Assembly. Journals of the Legislative Assembly,
1941-1953.
Canada. Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (Rowell-Sirois).
Report (Vol. I, 2, 3) Transcript of proceedings. Ottawa: 1938-39.
Mitchell, David J. W.A. C.: Bennett and the Rise of British Columbia. Vancouver:
Douglas and MacIntyre, 1983.
Ormsby, Margaret. British Columbia: A History. Toronto: Macmillan, 1958.
Provincial Archives of British Columbia. Unattributed biography in Tilly J. Rolston
clipping file. Victoria, BC.
Sherman, Paddy. Bennett. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966.
Vancouver Parks Bo.ird. Minutes, 1939-43.
Wicks, Lyle. In conversation with William J. Langlois: "The Beginnings of Social
Credit in B.C." (transcript) Sound Division, PABC, Victoria, October 14, 1976.