SWEET, JOHN HALES SWEET (1849-1929)

SWEET, JOHN HALES SWEET, Anglican rector, Newcastle, 1881-95, and Nelson, 1888-95; b. London, England, 2 Sep 1849, s/o the Rev. John Hales Sweet and Mary Ann Pullan; m. 1876, Evelina Janet Vial, also a native of England; d. Oak Bay, B.C., 14 Mar 1929.

John H. S. Sweet came to Canada after receiving theological training at St Augustine's College in Canterbury, England. He was first stationed in Quebec, where he was ordained an Anglican priest in 1874. He was curate at New Carlisle and Paspebiac on the Gaspé coast and rector at Dalhousie, N.B., before being named rector of Newcastle in July 1881, as successor to the Rev. H. Hough Barber. While at Newcastle he played a part in the founding of St Mark's Church at Nelson, which was opened in 1888 and consecrated on 30 November 1890. From 1888, he had pastoral responsibility for both St Andrew's and St Mark's. He had a reputation for being "an earnest worker."

Sweet was not much involved in activities outside of the church, but he was an enthusiastic participant in the cricket matches which were an organized recreation in Newcastle and Chatham at that time. In 1892 he was granted leave to spend several months in England on health grounds, and he was preparing to return there to live in 1895 when he was offered an appointment in Victoria, B.C. The remainder of his ministry was conducted there, as rector of St James's Church for more than twenty years and archdeacon of Victoria from 1915 until his retirement in 1921.

Sweet was seventy-nine years old when he died in Victoria in 1929. His wife, Evelina J. Vial, predeceased him in 1907, at age fifty-three. They had a son and two daughters who survived infancy. Their son, John H. Sweet, was an outstanding student at Harkins Academy and a scholarship holder at the University of New Brunswick. He was later a lawyer in Vancouver. In World War I he was an officer with the Seaforth Highlanders and died in action at Vimy Ridge.