W. A. C. Bennett

William Andrew Cecil Bennett (September 6, 1900 – February 23, 1979) was a Canadian politician who served as the 25th premier of British Columbia from 1952 to 1972.

With just over 20 years in office, Bennett remains the longest-serving premier in British Columbia history.

He was a member of the Social Credit Party (Socreds).

Notable achievements by the Bennett government included the adoption of BC's first provincial flag, the establishment of the second Bank of British Columbia, and the creation of BC Hydro and BC Ferries.

Bennett led the Socreds to a total of seven consecutive election victories.

Bennett was born in 1900 in Hastings, New Brunswick, Canada, one of five children of Andrew Havelock Bennett and Mary Emma Burns.

His father was a third cousin of Richard Bedford Bennett, eleventh Prime Minister of Canada.

Bennett left formal school in grade nine, during the First World War, to take a job in a hardware store.

As an adult, he pursued correspondence courses to improve his knowledge and job potential.

He joined the Air Force, but the war ended before he saw active duty.

At the age of 18, he and his family moved to Edmonton, Alberta, and then to Westlock, Alberta, where Bennett's father operated a hardware store.

In 1927 Bennett married Annie Elizabeth May Richards.

Bennett opened a hardware store in 1927, in partnership with another man, and married May Bennett soon afterwards.

Bennett was able to sell his interest just before the 1929 Stock Market crash.

He decided to leave the tough Alberta economic conditions.

He moved with his family to the Okanagan Valley, in the interior of British Columbia, settling in Kelowna.

There he opened his own hardware store, known as Bennett's Hardware.

In 1930 they moved to Victoria, and then Kelowna with their two children, Anita and R.J. A third child, William, was born in 1932.

In Kelowna, Bennett joined such fraternal organizations as the local Gyro Club, Masonic Lodge, and the Kelowna Club, and was active with his family in the United Church of Canada.

He was usually referred to as W. A. C. Bennett, although some referred to him either affectionately or mockingly as "Wacky" Bennett.

To his close friends, he was known as "Cece".

In 1932 Bennett, Giuseppe Guezzi, and Pasquale "Cap" Capozzi established a wine-making company to produce wine from the vast surplus of Okanagan apples that were going to waste during the Depression.

Three years later Bennett and Capozzi, both teetotalers, concluded that there was no market for their apple wines.

They switched to making wines from California grapes.

In 1936 they established Calona Wines, the name a phonetic spelling of Kelowna.

A successful merchant, he served as President of the Kelowna Board of Trade from 1937 to 1939.

He ran for the South Okanagan nomination for the 1937 provincial election for the British Columbia Legislative Assembly, but was unsuccessful.

Bennett departed the company in 1940 to enter politics.

Bennett joined the British Columbia Conservative Party.

In 1941, he won the Conservative Party nomination and the general election.

Following that election, the Conservative and Liberal parties voted to govern in coalition.

As a coalitionist, Bennett was re-elected in 1945.

He resigned the seat in 1948 in order to run as Progressive Conservative candidate in the Yale federal by-election of that year, but did not win.

Regaining the Coalition nomination for the South Okanagan seat, Bennett was returned to the British Columbia Legislative Assembly in the 1949 provincial election.

The combined Liberal and PC vote total was 120,000 fewer votes than in the previous election, while the Social Credit party received almost 200,000 more votes than in 1949.

After failing in his bid to become leader of the provincial Progressive Conservative Party in 1951, Bennett left the party to sit as an independent member.

In December of that year, he took out a membership in the Social Credit League.

Commencing with the 1952 provincial election, the province used an alternative vote system designed by the Conservative and Liberal parties to keep the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation out of power.

However, the Liberal and Conservative parties were not at all as popular among voters as expected.

Though he led the party to defeat in the 1972 election, his son Bill Bennett led it to victory in the 1975 election and served as premier until 1986.