From its beginnings over a thousand years ago as a religious order dedicated to caring for travelers, to its progression as a military order of Knights, to its relatively recent mission as instructors of First Aid and providing volunteer Medical First Response; it has always served mankind.
St. John Ambulance in Canada first began in Quebec City with first aid classes during the winter of 1882 – 1883. The next year the Royal Military College of Canada began a first aid course for the Cadets with Canada being one of the first countries to realize the value of first aid training for its armed forces. The first St. John Ambulance Association was formed in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1892. The first unofficial Brigade Division was formed in Halifax in 1895 but there is no record that it registered itself with St. John’s Gate as an ambulance division. The first registered Brigade Division of volunteer First Aiders was established in London, Ontario. On May 3 1909, No 1 London (Forest Hill, Ontario) Ambulance Division was registered and has been a continuously active Division ever since.
In 1910 the Canadian Branch of St. John Ambulance Overseas was established and located in Ottawa. In November 1910 an Association Centre for the city was formed and late in the year meetings were held to form an Executive Committee which moved quickly to action and in January 1911 the Secretary reported that five First Aid classes had been organized respectively for the City Police, the Y.M.C.A., the Ottawa Electric Company, the Civil Service and the Dominion Police. This was the beginning of what, 20 years later would be called Federal District. First aid training in Ottawa was a great success in the first four years of our existence.
Shortly after war was declared in 1914, St. John Ambulance accepted responsibility for forming Voluntary Aid Detachments comprised of female volunteers who would work in military hospital wards both in Canada and overseas. VAD No. 1 was formed in Ottawa in January 1915 with approximately 30 officers and members. Late in 1915 the Militia Department acquired the residence of the late Sir Sandford Fleming in Ottawa’s Sandy Hill district and this large home was converted into a convalescent hospital for the returning wounded. When the Governor General opened the hospital in January 1916, there were sixty members of VAD No.1 on parade in uniform and began voluntary duty for a week at a time, acting as assistants to the nursing sister of the Canadian Army Medical Corps who was in charge. VAD No.1 was renamed 32 Central Ottawa Nursing Division in 1917 and there is still a 32 Division in Ottawa today. By the end of the war, thousands of women would serve in Canadian VADs and 368 Canadian St. John Ambulance women would serve overseas in England and the battlefields of Europe and Asia. The men in the Brigade were taken on strength in Army and
Navy fighting and medical units.
After the War, 125 members of the Brigade gave service at Ottawa’s City Hall during the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918-19. The Brigade in Ottawa continued to flourish with a Cadet program beginning in the 1920s. Federal District was set up in 1930 as a separate Centre from the Ontario Council and achieved the status of a “Province” with the first Federal District Provincial Commissioner - Dr. D Kemp Edwards - appointed in 1943 and serving as such until 1957. Ottawa’s first Ambulance Division, No 73 was formed in 1939. Over the years, many more Divisions would be created.
By 1939, Canada was at war again with Germany and in 1941 St. John Ambulance instituted the VAD program again. During the course of the war, 23 women from Ottawa would serve overseas as unpaid nurses assistants, ambulance drivers and clerical staff. By war’s end, 221 St. John Ambulance women from across Canada would serve overseas and many other served at home in hospitals, blood clinics and training clinics. Once again, the men of the Brigade joined the fighting services and most Canadian servicemen were trained in combat first aid by St. John Ambulance.
After the war, the Brigade in Ottawa flourished and by the 1950s there were 20 Divisions in Ottawa comprising 10 Nursing, 4 Ambulance, 5 Cadet and 1 Crusader Divisions. The Nursing Division participate in blood typing clinics with the Red Cross, worked at the Civic Hospital and assisted the Ambulance Divisions in providing first aid at large events in the city. The two ambulances and all volunteers were subject to 24/7 callout by the Chief of Police and Fire Chief. Over the years, major call outs have occurred in response to the Red River Flood (1950), Hurricane Hazel in Toronto (1954), the Jackson Building explosion on Bank Street (1958), the Heron Road Bridge collapse (1966), and the Ice Storm of 1998. Brigade volunteer served at Camp Fortune ski hill, Winter and Fall Fairs and a typical summer at the Exhibition at Lansdowne Park would see 1400 First Aid cases, and on one day alone 263 cases were handled by the first aid posts.
The 1970s through the 1990s saw an average of 10 active divisions in Federal District. The Annual Report of 1974 reported 15, 421 hours of duty served and 9,267 casualties treated. The average public duty hours for an Ambulance member was 170 hours per year and nursing hours rose to 111 hours per member per year. Throughout these decades the volunteers donated anywhere between 15,000 – 21,000 hours of first aid duty. The three ambulances were used from 150 – 270 times a year. In 1999 Federal District introduced the Therapy Dog program as a new community service. This very successful program see highly trained dogs and owners visit hospitals and retirement homes and provide joy and comfort to people who are not able to leave their rooms.
At the turn of the century, the Brigade in Ottawa was still flourishing with 6 Adult Divisions, 4 Cadet Divisions, a Therapy Dog Division, 3 mobile first aid posts, almost 16,000 hours served in public duty, 1400 casualties treated and over 50 transferred to the care of paramedics. The move to the new headquarters at Corvus Court was accomplished in 2005 and public duty volunteers were upgraded to the Medical First Response standard.
Today, our MFR volunteers continue to provide an invaluable service to the community at public events and our Youth program offers an excellent opportunity for Ottawa’s young people to build character, learn leadership and first aid skills and provide service to the community. The next 125 years will be exciting.