History and governance

Bishop Robert Machray officially opened the present St John’s College on November 1, 1866, but the College’s roots lie in the early years of the Red River Settlement. Starting in the 1820s, the Anglican church began founding schools to educate the children of local settlers and to provide theological training to Indigenous people. When the Diocese of Rupert’s Land was established in 1849, the first Bishop, David Anderson, created the first school to bear the name “St John’s.”

Robert Machray became the Bishop of Rupert’s Land in 1865 and arrived in the Red River Settlement later that same year. He recognized a need for an Anglican college and set about finding the necessary funds to re-open St John’s. The buildings from Bishop Anderson’s school were renovated and others acquired to house the boarders and faculty of the new school. The Reverend John McLean came from London, Ontario to become the College’s first Warden. When the school was re-opened on All Saints Day, 1866, it had nineteen boys attending as either boarders or day students and three students enrolled in theology courses.

The College grew with the community it served. After the creation of the province of Manitoba in 1870,the Manitoba Schools Act (1871) created separate school boards for Roman Catholic and Protestant schools. At the time, St John’s College was one of only three secondary colleges in the entire province, still maintaining its focus on training young men for Anglican ministry.

In 1877 St John’s College, St Boniface College and the Manitoba College became the founding colleges in the University of Manitoba. In the early years of the University the colleges provided all the instruction to their students: the University itself was limited to granting degrees in fields other than theology. During this period St John’s was housed in locations on Main St and Broadway Avenue before moving to the Fort Garry campus in 1957.

In 1970, an agreement was reached between the University and the College whereby the two institutions’ separate academic programs (excluding theology) were merged. From that point on, the College’s students and faculty fellows have all been admitted to or employed by UM but choose to affiliate with St John’s. By the terms of the 1970 Agreement, the College continued to operate independently with respect to the residence, food service, and chaplaincy. In 1992 the College launched a major fundraising campaign called “Founding the Future. The goal of the Founding the Future campaign was to raise one million dollars for the continuing support of the College’s theology program, academic programs and residence renewal. This was also when the College’s development office was permanently established, and it has continued to fundraise to sustain the work of the College and towards capital projects like the Robert B. Schultz Lecture Theatre.

St John's remains a vital community within the University of Manitoba. It also retains its historic ties to the Diocese of Rupert's Land and continues to provide education and training in Anglican theology. Like the University and Diocese, St John's acknolwedges it's colonial history and is working towards Reconciliation in a variety of ways. In the twenty-first century, the College is moving forward towards a bright future committed to academic excellence, wide-ranging supports for students, faculty and staff, and inclusion and social justice. 

Should you be interested in learning more about the history of St John’s College, there are two book-length histories written by Laurence Wilmott and J.M. Bumstead respectively that are available in the General Office.