Walter Bromley | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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Walter Bromley

Walter Bromley, social activist (b at Keelby, Eng 1775; d at South Australia 7 May 1838).

Bromley, Walter

Walter Bromley, social activist (b at Keelby, Eng 1775; d at South Australia 7 May 1838). After he retired in England from active military service in 1813, Bromley went to Nova Scotia, where he devoted the next 12 years to the education and relief of the Halifax poor and the assistance of native peoples in the Maritimes. He established the Royal Acadian School, maintained a spinning and knitting manufactory, and actively participated in the Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society.

In the course of promoting agricultural settlements for the natives, especially at Shubenacadie, NS, he exposed the colonists' exploitation of native peoples at Sussex Vale, NB, at the expense of the New England Co, an English missionary society. Disappointed with the results of his ventures he returned to England in 1825 and went to work among the aborigines of South Australia in 1836, an enterprise cut short by his accidental drowning.