The New Brunswick NDP traces its roots to the Fredericton Socialist League, which was founded in 1902. Prominent leaders included the poet and publisher Martin Butler and educator Henry Harvey Stuart, who formed a Fredericton local of the new Socialist Party of Canada in 1905. The SPC had branches in several parts of the province prior to the First World War. Stuart was later a supporter of independent labour candidates, who had two successful candidates in Northumberland County in the 1920 provincial election. Another nine Farmer candidates were also elected that year. A strong believer in building alliances among the province's social movements, Stuart was later an influential figure in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation to the time of his death in 1952.