On Canada Day, we learned that one of our earliest and best-known members, Gordon Macpherson, had been awarded membership in the Order of Canada. Gordon – who among other things, serves as Art Editor of this journal and of Heraldry in Canada – is well known to many in the Society. He was born in New Westminster, BC, but has spent most of his life in Ontario, where his father, a Presbyterian minister, moved when he was four. He lives today with his wife Nancy in Burlington, Ontario.

Educated in Toronto, Gordon was first attracted to heraldry at the age of nineteen by seeing a coat of arms in a biography of Lord Kitchener. In 1946, he was introduced to the famous Canadian heraldist, Scott Carter, whose work he admired enormously. His study of Carter's work began with making frequent visits to the Great Hall of Hart House – where Scott Carter's paintings of the arms of Allied universities were displayed – and making countless sketches of his magnificent lions. He often visited Mr. Carter and has said that his subsequent heraldic style was influenced by the latter's work.

Gordon first started painting coats of arms and making heraldic bookplates in that same year – initially for friends and purely as a hobby – so that his work as an heraldic artist now spans some sixty-two years. He subsequently became a “spare-time professional” during his respected career in the securities business, from which he retired in 1987 as Vice-President and manager of the Hamilton branch of Dominion Securities. During this time Gordon not only painted but designed coats of arms, creating personal, corporate and ecclesiastical arms subsequently granted by the Lord Lyon, the College of Arms and the Chief Herald of Ireland.

Since its creation in 1988, Gordon has painted Letters Patent for the Canadian Heraldic Authority, including its first two grants – to Quebec City and to the Rt. Hon. Jeanne Sauvé, Governor General. For his work for the Authority, he was honoured by his appointment by the Governor General as Niagara Herald Extraordinary. He has also continued his private work and, since 1955, has designed and created some 231 armorial bookplates for private individuals as well as public institutions in Canada, the U.K., Europe and the U.S.A.

Not surprisingly, Gordon Macpherson has accumulated a number of honours during his distinguished career, in addition to that of Herald Extraordinary. These include:

• Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), 1957.
• Elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (FSAScot), 1957.
• Elected a Fellow of the Heraldry Society of Canada (FHSC), 1975 (now FRHSC).
• Appointed the Society's Dean of Fellows, 1999.
• Admitted to the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, 1974. Current grade: Knight of Justice.
• Genealogist of the Venerable Order's Priory of Canada, 1993-2003.
• Elected a craft member of the Society of Heraldic Arts, (UK), 1999.
• Gordon was also, from 1992-95, the International Chairman of the world-wide Clan Macpherson Association and, as a permanent honorary vice-president, remains active in the Association. He and Nancy were recently hosts to Sir William Macpherson of Cluny, the clan Chief, prior to the Canadian Macpherson Clan Gathering in Collingwood, Ontario.

Gordon's heraldic work is displayed in numerous institutions and churches, including St. John's House in Ottawa (40 shields) and, most notably, the Clan Macpherson House and Museum in Newtonmore, Scotland (65 shields, including the Clan Association arms themselves, which he designed and painted for a grant by the Lord Lyon).

As noted in the Summer issue of Gonfanon, Gordon's bookplate work was recently celebrated at an exhibition held at St. Michael's College in Toronto, sponsored by the Toronto Branch of the Society in April of this year.

With Gordon Macpherson's award of the Order of Canada, we are seeing only the third grant of this prestigious decoration to one of our members for services specifically to heraldry – the first being to our founder and first President, Alan Beddoe, the second to Bruce Beatty, designer of many of the badges for the Canadian Honours System. Let us be glad for Gordon; but let us also be glad that we belong to a Society that has such members.