William Henry Cushing was Canadian politician and philanthropist. He was part of Alberta's first cabinet and was the thirteenth mayor of Calgary, Alberta.
Cushing was born on August 21, 1852 in Kenilworth, Ontario . He was married three times. He married Elizabeth Rinn in 1877 (d.1880), Mary Jane Waters ca. 1883 (d.1924), and Isobel McNabb in 1926. With his first two wives he had three children each, but only three survived to adulthood.
He arrived in Calgary in 1883, following his brother John. He was a partner in a sash and door business named "Jarret and Cushing". In 1885, he bought Jarret out and became the founder and president of the "W.H. Cushing Lumber Company" in Vancouver, British Columbia and "Cushing Brothers" in Edmonton, Alberta and Calgary. He entered municipal politics in 1890. In total, he spent ten years on Calgary city council. This includes one year as mayor. In 1905, Cushing was appointed the Minister of Public Works in Alberta's first Provincial Cabinet. He resigned on February 14, 1910 in a dispute with Premier Alexander C. Rutherford's government over the financing of the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway Company . He was elected first Chairman of Mount Royal College's Board of Governors and served in that capacity from 1910 to 1926, at which time he was made Honorary Chairman. He was also a member of the Bowness Golf Club, Calgary Board of Trade and the Central Methodist Church (His company held the contract supplying the leaded glass, doors, and decorative work for the church in the 1883).
Cushing died on January 25, 1934 in Vancouver, British Columbia. He was buried on January 29, 1934 in Union Cemetery in Calgary, next to his second wife Mary Jane and five of his children who had predeceased him. There is a bridge and a school in Calgary named in his honour.
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