William Archibald Geddes (1894 - 1947)
William Geddes was born in the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and attended Dalhousie University.1) He attended Wycliffe College and was a college friend of Reverend Henry Marsh, a future bishop of the Yukon.2)
Geddes was a gunner in the 8th Canadian Siege Battery during the First World War.3) He received his L.Th. from Wycliffe College, Toronto in the same year he was ordained a priest at St. Paul’s in Dawson. He served the first eight years of his ministry at Herschel Island and Shingle Point.4)
In September 1928, Rev. Geddes was elected Bishop of Mackenzie River, and was ordained at Winnipeg at St. John's Cathedral on February 3rd, 1929. Later that same year he married Beatrice Terry, a nurse working in the Mackenzie River area. On June 1st 1933, Bishop Geddes took over the duties of Administrator of the Yukon Diocese following the transfer of Bishop Arthur Sovereign.5) He was the Bishop of the Yukon Diocese from 1933 to 1947.6)
Through the Depression and the Second World War years, Geddes managed a travel schedule that affected his health. By the mid-1940s, he was wintering in Vancouver and in the Yukon during the summer.7) Geddes died in Vancouver.8)
The Dawson Museum holds a collection of photographs and some textual documents collected by Bishop Geddes while he was in the Yukon.9) The William A. Geddes fonds at the Yukon Archives includes images that mainly depict Anglican Church activities and clergy throughout the Yukon.10)