The St. John Ambulance Association of Nova Scotia was founded in 1892 in Halifax in co-operation with the Dalhousie Medical College, the City of Halifax, the navy and the army. The basic goals of the new association were to provide training in first aid and home nursing and to assist the community in times of need. The Provincial Council was to be administered by a volunteer management board composed of local business leaders and physicians. In 1911 the Halifax local centre was established, supervised by the provincial council, and soon other local centres in the province were organized. The first wartime medical service for the Nova Scotia Council came with the South African War, and later, during the Halifax Explosion in 1917, the council, especially its three nursing divisions, provided notable service in the aftermath of the disaster. During World War I it also provided assistance in the operation of the Cogswell Street Station Hospital in Halifax; and during World War II it sent volunteer nursing assistance divisions (known as VADs) overseas. It also helped run the Merchant Seamans' Infirmary in Halifax. With the expansion of public health care in the 1960s and 1970s, interest in home nursing and participating in ambulance or nursing divisions declined. By the early to mid 1980s both home nursing instruction and the ambulance brigade itself were defunct. Instead the association began to focus on training and education. Today the council is the largest provider of first aid training for both individuals and institutions in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island