
WILLIAM B. TATE.
The name of William B. Tate, grand secretary of the Grand Lodge
of Saskatchewan, A. F. & A. M., is known to every Mason in the prov-
inces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, for he has been prominently identi-
fied with the work of the Masonic order in those regions for twenty-three
years. A clergyman in the Presbyterian church by profession, he re-
signed his charge to accept his present office, which he has filled since
1914. Born in Belfast, Ireland, on the 12th of October, 1869, he is the
eldest of the seven children in the family of Robert and Mary (Bradshaw)
Tate. His parents spent their lives in the Emerald Isle. The father
was a soap manufacturer, a successful business man of Belfast in his day.
He was a worthy exemplar of the teachings and purposes of the Masonic
fraternity and an active and consistent member of the Presbyterian
church, to which his wife also belonged.
William B. Tate obtained his education in the Methodist College, Bel-
fast, one of the best boys' schools of Europe. After putting aside his text-
books he served a five-year apprenticeship with his father, passing through
every branch of the soap manufacturing industry. In 1890 he crossed
the Atlantic to New York, United States of America, and thence proceeded
to the plant of the Kingan Provision Company at Indianapolis, Indiana.
Subsequently he was sent back to the company's New York branch, work-
ing in the eastern metropolis for a year and a half. Thus he was well
trained in business in both the United States and Ireland. In November,
1891, he decided to make his future home in Canada, but first returned
to Ireland on a short visit and to get married. In 1892 he came to Canada
and during the year he spent in Toronto, his first home in the Dominion,
he worked for the T. Eaton Company. He came west to Winnipeg in
1894 to attend college and six years later graduated from the theological
department of Manitoba College. He first came to what is now the
province of Saskatchewan in the fall of 1898 and did missionary work
at Ellisboro for a year and a half, during the vacations of his theological
school. His first settled charge was at Grenfell, Saskatchewan, where
he worked from 1900 to 1904. From Grenfell he went to Qu'Appelle,
where he remained until 1913. He had been in his next pulpit, that at
Broderick, but a little over a year when he was offered the position of
grand secretary of the Grand Lodge of Saskatchewan, A. F. & A. M.,
and resigned his charge to accept this office.
Mr. Tate has been a Mason for over thirty years, having been initiated
into that order in Ireland, in January, 1892, and has taken all the degrees
in both the York and Scottish Rites. In October, 1921, he received the
thirty-third degree. At Grenfell he was master of Evening Star Lodge
No.57, A. F. & A. M. He was very active in forming the Grand Lodge
of Saskatchewan, which was finally organized in 1906, when he was
elected grand junior warden. The following year he was reelected to
the same office and in 1908 chosen grand senior warden. In 1909 he
held the office of deputy grand master, in 1910 that of grand master and
four years later was elected to his present post of grand secretary. Be-
fore the formation of the grand lodge of Saskatchewan Mr. Tate was
district grand deputy of District No.8, under the Grand Lodge of Mani-
toba, which included practically all the lodges in Saskatchewan to the
Alberta border. He was most wise sovereign in Regina Chapter, Rose
Croix, in 1920, and is a Noble of the Mystic Shrine.
Mr. Tate has retained his interest in church affairs since leaving the
ministry and has acted on the session of Westminster church in Regina
for a number of years past. He belongs to the Canadian Club and takes
an interest in sports, which he has followed since his college days, when
he played on the Rugby team of the Methodist College of Belfast.
In 1892 Mr. Tate was married to Elizabeth Queen, who was born in
Ireland. They are the parents of seven children: Mary, the wife of J.
E. Campbell, of the teaching staff of the Regina Collegiate Institute;
Robert, who assists his father; Queenie, now the wife of A. H. Parker,
who is connected with the Sterling Bank of Winnipeg; Margaret, who
graduated from the nurses' training course in the Regina General Hos-
pital, on May 30, 1923; Dorothy, now in training at the same hospital;
and William K. and Agnes, students in the Regina Collegiate Institute.
Robert Tate served in the Great war with the Twenty-eighth Battalion,
going overseas with his unit in 1915. After he was wounded in 1917 he
was sent across to England, where he remained until after the signing
of the armistice.
Bibliography follows:
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