GIRDWOOD, WILLIAM (1880-1961)

GIRDWOOD, WILLIAM, Presbyterian and United Church minister, Red Bank and Whitneyville, 1919-30 and 1940-47; b. Barnesville, Kings Co., N.B., 23 Aug 1880, s/o Peter Girdwood and Mary Campbell; m. 1911, Margaret Greer, of New Maryland, N.B.; d. Fredericton, 21 Jul 1961.

William Girdwood was educated at the Provincial Normal School, the University of New Brunswick, and Dalhousie University (BA 1908, MA 1909) and was trained for the ministry at the Presbyterian College in Halifax. Ordained in 1909, he served as pastor in four rural communities in Nova Scotia and two in New Brunswick, including Red Bank, where he was the Presbyterian and United Church minister twice, for a total of eighteen years.

Girdwood was long remembered for the role he played in the rebuilding of the church and manse at Red Bank after these were destroyed in the Red Bank fire of 11 June 1923. The new church was opened on 31 August 1924. Another highlight of his ministry was on 1 April 1926, when he presided over the ceremonies in Newcastle which officially joined the Methodist and Presbyterian congregations under the United Church of Canada. When he left Red Bank for the second time in 1947 he became the United Church minister at Minto, N.B. He retired in 1951. He was residing in Truro, N.S., at the time of his death, which occurred while he was visiting in Fredericton. He and his wife, Margaret ("Pearl") Greer, had three children.