Memorable Manitobans: Robert Fletcher Argue (1877-1962)

University professor, cleric.

Born at Stittsville, Ontario on 20 July 1877, son of Mary and Silas Argue, he was educated at Stittsville, later attending Kempville High School and Wesley College (Winnipeg), graduating from the latter with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1911. That same year, he was ordained a minister in the Methodist Church.

During the First World War, he served as a member of the teaching staff of Khaki College, at Bramshott and Ripon, England. Returning from overseas, he became a Professor in the English Department of Wesley College. He receiving a Master of Arts degree from the University of Manitoba in 1921 and took further postgraduate studies at the University of Chicago and the University of Edinburgh. He was appointed Principal of the Academic Department and Lecturer in English at Brandon College in the fall of 1922.

He became a Lecturer in English at the University of Manitoba in 1923. In 1936 he was appointed Assistant Professor and, in 1943, Dean of Junior Men. He retired in 1952. He received an honorary doctor of laws degree at the University’s 75th anniversary celebrations. He then became minister of Shaughnessy United Church and served with the British and Foreign Bible Society. For the last five years of his life, he was Visiting Chaplain at the Deer Lodge Military Hospital.

In 1918, he married Manitoba-born teacher and nurse Annie Eliza Johnston (1879-1965) in London, England and they had two children: Frederick Fletcher “Fred” Fletcher (1919-2006) and Edythe Argue (?-?, wife of W. N. Brown). He was a Mason (Ionic Lodge No. 25).

He died at the Deer Lodge Hospital on 4 January 1962 after a long illness and was buried in the Elmwood Cemetery. He is commemorated by the Fletcher Argue Building at the University of Manitoba.

Sources:

Birth registration [Frederick Fletcher Argue], Manitoba Vital Statistics.

“Brandon,” Winnipeg Tribune, 14 August 1922, page 7.

“R. F. Argue, former dean, dies at 84,” Winnipeg Free Press, 6 January 1962.

Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 6 January 1962.

Obituary [Annie Eliza Argue], Winnipeg Free Press, 19 January 1965, page 22.

Obituary [Frederick Fletcher Argue], Winnipeg Free Press, 22 November 2006.

Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 8 October 2023

Memorable Manitobans

Memorable Manitobans

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