William Hespeler

Who was William Hespeler?

William Hespeler was a German - Canadian businessman and immigration agent and a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. He served as Speaker of the Legislature and as honorary consul of Germany to Winnipeg and the Northwest Territories. He was awarded the Order of the Red Eagle for his services to Germany.

Born as Wilhelm Hespeler in Baden-Baden, Grand Duchy of Baden, the son of Georg Johann and Anna Barbara Hespeler, Hespeler was educated at the Polytechnic Institute at Karlsruhe. He left school at the age of nineteen and emigrated to Canada with his mother in 1850. He worked for his older brother Jacob Hespeler before becoming a partner in the firm of Hespeler and Randall, which ran both a distillery and a grain mill. He married a Canadian woman and became a naturalized British subject at some time before 1867, adopting the first name of "William". In 1870 he returned to Baden-Baden, serving briefly as a stretcher-bearer during the Franco-Prussian War before being hired by the Government of Canada as an immigration agent in 1871. While he was in Baden he heard that a number of Mennonite families in Russia were intending to immigrate to the United States.