Ambitious Beginnings & Transitions
Ambitious Beginnings and Transitions
There was no social safety net. Hard times, disease and poverty were rampant and the need was great in 1768 when Chief Justice Jeremy Pemberton, Hon. John Butler Dight, Admiral Herbert Sawyer, R.N. and 68 of Halifax and Nova Scotia’s then leading citizens followed the Charitable Irish Society’s and the North British Society’s (“The Scots”) lead with the launch of the St. George’s Society at Halifax. The Society grew like a weed and its benevolence and social gatherings soon made a Saint George’s project or event “ the place to be seen”. With an annual dues of 20 shillings – roughly $240 today – the Society was well-funded and energetically fulfilled its then English-focused mission of charitable support for the “indigent, the distressed and newly arrived immigrants”.
As Halifax and the need grew, the Society kept pace. In 1807, the then St. George’s Society at Halifax was reorganized as the Saint George’s Benevolent Society and shortly thereafter Sir John Wentworth, 1st Baronet, took the reins. The Society was again renamed in 1823 as The Saint George’s Society of Nova Scotia, It was then reincorporated as The Saint George’s Charitable Society of Halifax in 1856. One-hundred-and-six years and two World Wars later, the Society recommitted to its mission and, with Royal Assent, became The Royal Saint George’s Society of Halifax, Nova Scotia. We are the first and oldest Saint George’s Society in the Commonwealth, if not the world, and one of more than 45 international affiliates of The Royal Society of Saint George, London, England.
The Royal St. George’s Society Today
In today’s hectic and homogenized world, an understanding and appreciation of our own heritage, and that of others, is more important than ever. Heritage isn’t just about folkways and festivals, monuments to military heroes and victories at sea, past poets, ancient cathedrals and celebratory St. George’s Day dinners. It fosters national pride, citizenship and a commitment to the “common good”.
Heritage is the “sweet-spot” where the past enriches the present.