author
John West
1778–1845
An early Anglican missionary, teacher, and reformer, he wrote one of the firsthand accounts of life in the Red River Colony and his journeys among Indigenous communities in the early 1820s. His work helped shape the early religious and educational life of what is now Manitoba.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Surrey, England, in November 1778, John West studied at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and was ordained in the Church of England in 1804. After years of parish and evangelical work in England, he was appointed by the Church Missionary Society as chaplain to the Hudson’s Bay Company.
West arrived at the Red River Colony in 1820 and became a central figure in its early religious and school life. He founded a church and school at what became St John’s in present-day Winnipeg, and he is often described as the first Anglican priest in Western Canada. He was also known for promoting missionary and educational work among Indigenous peoples, including supporting the education of Henry Budd, who later became the first Indigenous Anglican priest in Canada.
As an author, West is best remembered for The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, published in 1824. The book records his time in British North America and his excursions among North West Indigenous communities, giving modern readers a vivid period view of frontier settlement, missionary work, and colonial attitudes. He died in England on December 21, 1845.