St. John Ambulance is a large volunteer first aid organization in the Commonwealth countries, Ireland, and Hong Kong. There is also a Priory (a national organization) of its order of chivalry in the United States. It has been active in Canada since 1883.
St. John Ambulance and the Order of St. John have a long, complex history. It has evolved from a hospital for pilgrims to a Christian Crusader force to a humanitarian organization whose members and patients can be of any religion or no religion. Here is a brief and simplified history.
Medieval Origins
St. John Ambulance traces its history to 1080 in Jerusalem when Brother Gerard Thom and his fellow monks of the Order of St. Benedict created a hospital for pilgrims to the Holy Land. The hospital was built on the former site of a monastery named after St. John the Baptist. Brother Gerard and his monks wore black robes, which would inspire the colour of St. John Ambulance uniforms and the regalia of the Most Venerable Order of St. John eight hundred years later.
In 1096, the Crusaders conquered the Holy Land in the First Crusade. In 1113, Pope Paschal II recognized Brother Gerard’s hospitallers as a new religious order, the Order of St. John.
In 1120, the French knight Raymond du Puy succeeded Brother Gerard as Master of the Hospital and added knights to the Order. He transformed the Order into a combined military and hospitaller force. The Order fought Muslims in the Crusades as a military force, but it cared for patients of any religion as a hospitaller order.
Years on Cyprus and Rhodes
The Mamluk Sultanate expelled the Crusaders from the Holy Land, and the Order of St. John went into exile in the Mediterranean. The Order initially went to Cyprus from 1291 to 1309. It went to Rhodes and stayed there for over two centuries, from 1310 to 1522, before the Ottoman Empire expelled it. Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, gave the island of Malta to the Order in 1530.
The Order of St. John on Malta
The Order became powerful as rulers of Malta and had its own army, navy, government, and coinage. The Pope and European monarchs recognized the Order as a sovereign entity, the equivalent of a sovereign country. In 1565, the Order fought off an invasion by the Ottoman Empire in the Great Siege of Malta.
Exile in Europe
Although it had defended itself from the Ottoman Empire for over 200 years, the Order fell to a French invasion in 1798. Napoleon expelled the Order from Malta, and the knights dispersed throughout Europe. Groups of knights attempted to restore the Order in several countries. The most successful of these groups were in Rome, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Great Britain, where they gradually achieved recognition as orders of chivalry by their national governments. Today, they form the Alliance Orders of St. John.
The Order of St. John in Great Britain
A group of English knights declared the Order of St. John revived in England in the 1830s. However, they lacked recognition as an order of chivalry from the British Crown or anyone else. Fortunately, they did more than wear black robes and hold investiture ceremonies; they founded St. John Ambulance, a volunteer first aid service, in 1877. Queen Victoria was so impressed by their work that she granted a Royal Charter to the British order, henceforth known as the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. She also took the role of the Order’s Sovereign Head. The Royal Charter made the Most Venerable Order of St. John an order of chivalry in the British honours system. With this royal support, St. John Ambulance grew into a major volunteer organization in Britain.
St. John Ambulance in Canada
St. John Ambulance spread to the rest of the British Empire. In the winter of 1882-1883, St. John Ambulance members began teaching first aid classes in Quebec City. That same winter, St. John Ambulance members also taught first aid classes for cadets of the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. The year 1883 is now considered the year when St. John Ambulance began in Canada.
The first St. John Ambulance centre was established in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1892. In November 1895, at the Canadian Military Institute (now called the Royal Canadian Military Institute) in Toronto, St. John Ambulance members founded the Dominion Council of the St. John Ambulance Association, a national organization. The Ontario Centre was founded in 1895, and the Toronto Centre was founded on February 5, 1896. These centres and the Dominion Council would evolve into the current organization of St. John Ambulance in Canada, which consists of a national priory, provincial and territorial councils, and local branches.
St. John Ambulance Growth in Canada
St. John Ambulance spread from its busy Toronto Centre to the rest of Canada in the 1890s. In the two World Wars, St. John Ambulance activities went beyond Canada; Volunteer Aid Detachments (VADs) of St. John volunteers went overseas to aid our soldiers.
Today, St. John Ambulance in Ontario provides first aid training, first aid services at public events, and several other services, including the Therapy Dogs program. Although St. John Ambulance has its origins in a Christian organization, its members can be of any religion or no religion, like the community that it serves.
A Commonly-Asked Question
There is often confusion between the Order of St. John and St. John Ambulance to the uninitiated. Are they the same organization, or are they different?
A simplified answer is that the Order of St. John, St. John Ambulance, and a third entity, the Eye Hospital Group, are three related parts of the organization. Most people begin their St. John affiliation by volunteering to serve in St. John Ambulance. Persons who serve with merit are invited to be admitted into the Order of St. John, an order of chivalry and national honour. Note that there are St. John Ambulance members who are not members of the Order, but almost all members of the Order are, or were, St. John Ambulance members.
It was not until 1990 that the Order of St. John was incorporated into the Canadian honours system as a Canadian order. Before then, it was a British order to which Canadians were appointed. In Canada, as in the UK, members of the Order can be of any religion or no religion.
A third institution, the Eye Hospital Group, is the only charity offering expert eye care to the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. It operates an eye hospital and related clinics, and patients can be of any religion, though the majority are Muslim.
For A More Detailed History
For a more detailed history of St. John Ambulance in Canada, see The Maple Leaf and the White Cross: A History of St. John Ambulance and the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in Canada, by Christopher McCreery, Historian of the Priory of Canada, published by Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2008
