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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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WYLLIE, ERNEST BURNAM (1885-1940)

WYLLIE, ERNEST BURNAM, Presbyterian minister, St Andrew's Church, Chatham, 1916-21; b. near Peterborough, Ont., 1885, s/o Byron M. Wyllie and Rose Belle Griffin; m. 1909, Gertrude Mary Elliott; d. Ottawa, 14 Apr 1940.

Ernest B. Wyllie earned two degrees at Queen's University (MA 1910, BD 1912) and had his first pastorate at St Stephen, N.B. He was called from there to St Andrew's Church, Chatham, in the fall of 1916, as successor to the Rev. George B. Wood, who had joined the armed forces a year and a half previously.

Wyllie soon came to be known to the Miramichi public as a zealous prohibitionist. When he defended the rough manner in which liquor inspectors carried out raids in Chatham in 1920, The World informed its readers in a front-page headline that "Dr Wyllie heartily endorses...midnight raids on private rooms and the clubbing of citizens by inspectors." The editor supposed that he would also favor inspectors pumping the stomachs of persons suspected of consuming alcohol.

Wyllie remained in Chatham until the summer of 1921, at which time he accepted the offer of a church in San Diego, Cal. He came back to Canada in 1923 as minister of Erskine Presbyterian Church in Ottawa, and he continued there after the congregation elected not to join the United Church in 1925. Early in his term he accused high school students in the city of immoral conduct. Surprisingly, the premier of Ontario appointed a judge to investigate. He pledged his cooperation, but in the end, the judge stated that he had "failed utterly to prove any of his sweeping statements." For this or other reasons a period of intense conflict ensued between him and the Erskine elders, who at one point sought a court injunction to prevent him from carrying out his pastoral functions. In December 1927 he resigned and left the ministry.

Wyllie gave most of the rest of his working life to journalism. He was on the staff of the Toronto Mail and Empire for several years and was subsequently the publisher of a small Scarborough newspaper. He took a government position in Ottawa a month before his death in 1940, at age fifty-five. He was survived by his wife, Gertrude M. Elliott, a son, and two daughters.

Sources

[b] Queen's archives [m] official records (Ont.) [d] Commercial World 25 Apr 1940 / Advocate 20 Sep 1916, 7 Dec 1920, 14 Jun 1921, 6 Feb 1923, 11 Jan 1927; Free Press Evening Bulletin (Winnipeg, Man.) 12 Apr 1927; Telegraph 10 Feb 1923; UC archives; Walkington; World 21 Apr 1920

Remarques

In most records, a PhD is appended to Wyllie's name and/or the title "Dr" is applied to him. It was stated in his obituary in the Commercial World that he had received doctorates from Queen's and Chicago in 1912. Queen's records show that the last degree he was granted was the BD, but he could have received a doctorate from a degree mill in Chicago. It was announced in the Union Advocate in 1920 that he had been granted an LLB by the LaSalle institution in Chicago. Afterwards, this degree, as LLB, or LL, sometimes appeared after his name also.


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