Purchase Mount Royal University: A Work of Art, today!
Don't miss out on this beautiful commemorative art book, telling the story of MRU's first 100 years, using our mural mosaic images. Available at the Mount Royal BookStore until supplies last.
Leave your lasting legacy
Donate to the centennial mural project and receive your own piece of history.
Honouring the fallen
This hand-calligraphed scroll commemorates the service and sacrifice of Mount Royal students, alumni and employees in the First World War.
Designed and illuminated by Stafford & Kent in Calgary, the “Roll of Honor” was started in 1914, but shows no completion date, since the war was still in progress when the scroll was commissioned.
It is one of two scrolls honouring Mount Royal’s soldiers — the Second World War scroll features artwork by famed Group of Seven artist A.J. Casson.
Both scrolls are currently on display in Mount Royal's Alumni Relations office.
Since Mount Royal was founded in 1910, hundreds of our students, employees and alumni served in the First and Second World Wars, as well as in several United Nations military operations. Research has found 27 who gave their lives for our country.
The first name listed on the WWI scroll is also the name of Mount Royal’s first soldier to be killed in service: James Arnell. Reportedly shot by a German sniper, Arnell was a popular student on campus, and his death shook many in the local community.
Possibly inspired by his sacrifice, another Mount Royal student — Zoe Pauline Trotter — published a memorial poem in the Calgary Daily Herald on Oct. 16, 1915, shortly after Arnell was listed as killed.
The first stanza reads:
There were men of every province,
Forest, mountain and plain,
From plow and pen and anvil,
From tide to tide they came.
They wrote our country’s name in blood
Where all the world could see,
And always fighting in the front
Were the Boys from Calgary.
A continuing legacy
This past fall, Mount Royal launched the Centennial Military Memorial project, creating memorial scholarships in honour of each of our fallen soldiers. These scholarships will recognize their sacrifice while furthering the learning and the dreams of 27 Mount Royal students — today and tomorrow.
Retired General John de Chastelain, former Chief of Canadian Defence and 1956 Mount Royal alumnus, is Honorary Chair of the project.
If you are able to contribute artifacts, photos and stories related to Mount Royal soldiers, please contact Patricia Roome at 403.440.5690. To support the Centennial Military Memorial Scholarship Fund, visit Giving to Mount Royal.
This page regularly showcases the collections of the Mount Royal University Archives.Thanks to the Director of the Archives, Patricia Roome, PhD, and her staff for their assistance in selecting artifacts and conducting research.