George Prout

Who was George Prout?

George Waldron Prout was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1915 to 1920, as a member of the Liberal Party.

Prout was born to a British family in Barbados, and was educated privately. He came to Canada in 1896, and worked as a financial agent in Selkirk, Manitoba. He married Emma Evans McKinley in 1914. In religion, Prout was a member of the Church of England.

He first sought election to the Manitoba legislature in the provincial election of 1914, and lost to Conservative cabinet minister Walter Montague by only one vote in the constituency of Kildonan and St. Andrews. Montague was not a candidate in the 1915 provincial election, and Prout defeated his new Conservative opponent by 541 votes to win a seat in the legislature. The Liberals won a landslide majority government in this election, and Prout served as a backbench supporter of Tobias C. Norris's administration for the next five years.

In 1917, he introduced the Rural Credits Act which provided for the establishment of rural credit societies that could obtain short term loans on behalf of members to pur­chase seed, livestock, implements, machinery and other supplies.