On the west grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg stands a sculpture of Nellie McClung with her fellow Famous Five members – Henrietta Muir Edwards (1849-1931), Emily Murphy (1868-1933), Louise McKinney (1868-1931), and Irene Parlby (1868-1965). They are depicted in the middle of a meeting, around a table, signing a petition.
Nellie McClung (1873-1951) was a social reformer, suffragist, women’s rights activist, and author. She founded and led many women’s organizations in Canada. When she lived in Winnipeg, she led the women’s suffrage campaign and won. In 1916, Manitoba became the first province in Canada to grant women their voting rights.
On August 27th, 1927, the Famous Five started the first wave of feminism in Canada when they filed a petition to allow women to be senators. The Supreme Court ruled that women are not included in the word ‘persons’ in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, and therefore cannot become senators. The Famous Five appealed to the highest court of appeal in the British Empire, and on October 18th, 1929, it overruled the Supreme Court decision and declared that women were “qualified persons.”
The Nellie McClung Foundation, led by Manitoba politician Myrna Driedger, commissioned the statue to honor McClung’s activism work towards equal rights for Manitoba women and Canadian women in general.
The sculpture was created by the sculptress Helen Granger Young and was dedicated on June 18th, 2010.
There are two more statues of Nellie McClung in Manitou and Edmonton. The Famous Five were also honored with monuments on Parliament Hill and Olympic Plaza in Calgary.
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