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Agnes Campbell Macphail

Felix Weihs de Weldon

Felix de Weldon was born in Vienna in 1907. He studied art and architecture at the University of Vienna, earning a PhD in 1929. He gained recognition after opening a studio in London, England, and was commissioned to sculpt a bust of King George V for his silver jubilee in 1935. Then-Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King invited him to Canada and, in 1938, de Weldon completed three busts for Parliament: one of King, and one each of Canada’s first woman senator, Cairine Wilson, and first woman MP, Agnes Macphail. At King’s urging, de Weldon toured the United States. He eventually settled there, enlisting in the US Navy during World War II and becoming a citizen in 1945. De Weldon’s other works include the iconic US Marine Corps War Memorial (sometimes called the Iwo Jima Memorial) at Arlington, Virginia. De Weldon died in Washington, D.C., in 2003.

Agnes Campbell Macphail

Agnes Macphail was born in Grey County, Ontario, in 1890. She left the family farm to pursue an education, qualifying as a teacher in 1910. She held rural teaching posts in Ontario and Alberta and got involved in the agricultural cooperative movement. In 1921, Macphail became the first woman elected to the House of Commons, representing the riding of Grey Southeast, and then Grey-Bruce, until 1940. She eventually associated with the “Ginger Group” of MPs, who broke ranks with their Progressive Party colleagues, and, in 1932, helped found the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a forerunner to the New Democratic Party. Years later, as a member of the CCF in Ontario, she represented the riding of York East in the provincial legislature. A pacifist, feminist, and advocate for prison reform, Macphail established Toronto’s chapter of the Elizabeth Fry Society and championed Ontario’s first equal pay legislation, which passed in 1951. She died in Toronto in 1954.