A history of Goderich: From the late 1920s through the 1930s

By: Kate Smith

During the late 1920s and into the 1930s, people in Goderich – and across Canada – began to face hardships and disruptions with the emerging Great Depression and eventual outbreak of the Second World War.

Emerging from the devastation of the First World War, this era became a time to redefine.

The Roaring Twenties was transformative, from 1920 until 1929, marked by economic prosperity and significant social, cultural, and artistic changes.

The worldwide Great Depression of the early 1930s was a social and economic shock that left millions of Canadians unemployed, hungry and often homeless.

This period had disastrous effects in countries.

Personal income, profits, taxes and prices dropped, and international trade fell more than 50 per cent.

Over production and over expansion led to factor owners slowing down production, which led to laying off workers. Due to unemployment, families had less money.

This was a time when the government implemented severe restrictions on immigration and deported many unemployed immigrants.

In response to the crisis, the Canadian government began creating the social welfare programs.

Prior to hardship seeping into the lives of those in Goderich (and Huron County), it was a time of light and celebration.

In July 1927, Goderich was gripped by centennial fever as the town prepared for its celebrations.

A committee was struck with Mayor MacEwan as chair, and John Galt - grandson of town’s founder – and William Campbell, 93 and the town’s oldest resident, were designated honorary presidents of the committee.

The sum of $500 was set aside as a budget for the celebratory event.

Although Goderich was formally established on June 27, 1827, when ‘Tiger’ Dunlop met John Galt at the mouth of the Maitland River, the committee decided on a week in August to avoid Diamond Jubilee celebrations on July 1, according to local historian and author David Yates.

The mayor declared a half holiday on July 27, 1927, for shops, businesses and industries to give the town a ‘gala appearance’. Yates says shop windows were emblazoned with flags and bunting, and the arches were strung with electric lights to illuminate the Square.

Everyone was asked to keep porch lights on at night to add to the town’s luminescent glow, and police promised to enforce the Liquor Control Act ensuring all events remained dry.

At the beginning of the week of festivities, guests arrived to celebrate Goderich’s first century.

The week began with an interdenominational service on the Square followed by a solemn wreath laying service for the town’s dead and honour the 379 names of Goderich’s men and women who answered the call in the Great War.

Festivities over the week included a parade, horse races at Agricultural Park, concerts, dancing, and a historical pageant.

According to Yates, in one century, Goderich had gone from wilderness settlement to an industrious and prosperous town.

Yet soon, hard times would fall on Goderich in the dark days of the early 1930s.

The Great Depression was causing hardships in a land of plenty, which seemed impossible in the boom years of the 1920s.

According to Yates, by the autumn of 1930, the town had established a Central Relief Committee to handle the numbers of people applying for relief assistance.

This system was a first attempt at providing unemployment insurance and welfare.

In the 1930s, applying for relief held a weight of shame and humiliation.

As telephones, driver’s licenses and liquor permits were seem as luxury, many had to yield these items to qualify.

It was in September 1930 the town was granted $10,000 for public works projects. Council approved a building program and within a few months, over 200 of the town’s citizens registered with the Relief Office to construct public works.

In September 1931, the council decided priority would be given to married men with children.

Less fortunate were single men.

Sadly, in March 1932, the town provided unemployed transients with one free meal, and they were then expected o move on. Many took to riding the rails in search of work.

Goderich placed a three-month residency requirement on relief applicants, in hopes to prevent hordes of idle young men from coming to Goderich and looking for a handout.

According to Yates, in July 1932, relief rates were set at $1.50 per week for a single adult, a second adult in the household received an extra .60 cents per week, each child was work .35 cents per week, up to a maximum of $8.25 per week for a family of 10.

Enough to prevent starvation but not enough to live on, but there was little more the town could provide.

For those who had a job, wages dropped substantially.

The drop in grain prices forced a reduction in wages of Goderich mill and grain operators.

Collegiate teachers took a $100 pay cut in 1932.

As bad as the Great Depression was in Goderich and Huron County, there were many other places in the country that were far worse off and relief trains from Goderich would travel to the prairies to help, even in a time of great need around here.

By the late 1930s, most areas had seen recovery from the Great Depression, only to be hit with another crisis as the start of the Second World War would soon commence.

Prior to the horrors of the Second World War that awaited the world, residents in Goderich were preparing for the Royal Tour visit of King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth in May 1939.

It was the first tour of a reigning monarch, and the people of Goderich and Huron County were going to do anything to catch a glimpse of their sovereigns.

Stratford and London were the closest places to Huron County, and everyone came together to organise the logistics of moving people by rail and giving them a place to stay the night before.

Over 900 children were boarded in Seaforth, 846 in Clinton and nearly 1,000 in Goderich. Additionally, Boy Scout and Girl Guide troops camped out in Stratford the night before the visit.

Local Great War veterans trooped en masse, and thousands crammed into stuffy train coaches to see their King and Queen in Stratford.

When Huron County residents arrived in Stratford, they joined a crowd estimated at 100,000 people.

Members of the Goderich and Seaforth companies of the Middlesex and Huron Regiment lined the parade route in London the next day.

After the Royal Visit, local newspapers reported that the people of this area received the Royal couple with full-hearted respect and enthusiasm. This impression must have stuck, as when Prince William visited Calgary in 2011, he recalled with emotion that his grandmother told him that ‘Canada made us’. Referring to the 1939 Royal Visit when people from Goderich and Huron County were part of an embrace, holding their King and Queen as two of their own.

It would be this respect, love and one-ness that would soon be put to the test when, a few months following the uniting Royal Visit, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany, on September 3,1939.

Canada soon acted as a sovereign nation and chose to declare war a week later, on September 10, 1939.

The first major group of Canadian soldiers arrived in the United Kingdom in December 1939 to train and help defend Britain.

By the end of the Second World War, more than 1.1 million Canadians had served in the army, navy, and air force to support the Allies.

Out of that, 40 names are listed on the Goderich cenotaph from the Second World War.

From the early 1930s until the early 1940s, this era stole the youth and innocence from the people in Goderich, who were subjected to struggle, hunger, uncertainty and soon, a dark weight of grief that would wash over from the sacrifices made during the Second World War.

This is an ongoing series of historical features to tell the story of Goderich, in each issue of the Goderich Sun, from June 2026 until June 2027, in anticipation of its bicentennial.