John Queen (February 11, 1882 – July 15, 1946) was a labour activist and Manitoba politician who was a leader of the Winnipeg General Strike, for which he served a year in prison. He was a Labour city councillor in Winnipeg from 1916 to 1921; MLA for Winnipeg from 1920 to 1941; and the mayor of Winnipeg from 1935–1936 and 1938–1942. He was also the parliamentary leader of Manitoba's Independent Labour Party from 1923 to 1935. Background Queen was born at Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1882, the son of John Queen and Jane Todd, both natives of Scotland. A cooper by trade, he arrived in Canada in 1906 with his younger brother William, moving into a rooming house at 259 Dorothy St., a stone's throw from the massive Canadian Pacific Railway yards where many working-class Scottish and English immigrants were then employed. He operated a horse-drawn delivery wagon for a laundry. On June 25, 1908, Queen married Katherine Ross, who had herself emigrated from Scotland in 1907. By 1911 the family, which by then included a son John and a daughter Gloria (later Gloria Queen-Hughes, a prominent feminist and mayoral candidate), were living in the working-class neighbourhood of Weston. Political activism Queen soon became involved in the radical politics of Winnipeg. He joined the Social Democratic Party of Canada in 1908, as the group was breaking away from the more doctrinaire Socialist Party of Canada. Queen's own variety of socialism was undogmatic, and was strongly influenced by the reform liberalism of John Stuart Mill. Elected political career City council Queen was elected to the Winnipeg City Council in 1916. He served on this body representing Ward Five until 1921. In this capacity, he argued for a more progressive tax system, and defended the rights of returning soldiers. He intended to run for federal office in 1917 but stood aside in the interest of labour unity. Queen was a leading figure in the Winnipeg General Strike, and received a one-year jail sentence for "seditious conspiracy" in 1920. This did not hurt his popularity among the city's workers, and he was elected by Winnipeg voters to the Manitoba Legislature in 1920 and as mayor later. Elected to provincial legislature In June 1920, while still serving his prison term, he was elected to the Manitoba Legislature in the ten-member district of Winnipeg. After taking his seat in 1921, he supported a motion to allow