Remembrance Banners

The Royal Montreal Regiment (RMR) and the City of Westmount share a bond forged in sacrifice and remembrance. In 1920, the 58th Regiment, Westmount Rifles, stood aside so the RMR could continue after the Great War, and Westmount provided the land that made the Regiment’s Armoury possible. Built in 1925, the Armoury was dedicated to the 1,192 members of the Regiment who gave their lives in France and Flanders, and it remains a living memorial today.

These banners honour that legacy. Each features the face and name of an RMR soldier, reminding us that behind every act of service was a life, a family, and a story worth remembering.

Lest We Forget.

Charles Basil Price, CB, DSO, DCM, VD, CD

Born December 12, 1890. Died February 15, 1975.

Lived at 64 Forden Crescent, Westmount, QC.

Major-General Charles Basil Price (1889-1975) was a highly distinguished Canadian soldier, affectionately known as the “Father of the R.M.R.”. His military career began in 1905 with the Victoria Rifles, and at the outbreak of World War I, he joined the 14th Battalion CEF. Price famously exemplified selflessness by voluntarily stepping down from Sergeant-Major to Colour-Sergeant, allowing a more experienced regular soldier, J.M. Stephenson, to assume the Regimental Sergeant-Major role.

His wartime valor was recognized with the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) in April 1915 for a courageous night patrol in Belgium, shortly after which he was commissioned as a Lieutenant. Price was wounded three times during the war, steadily rising through the ranks to Major and Second-in-Command. He earned the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his gallant leadership during the critical Canal du Nord operations in September 1918, where he commanded the Battalion despite being wounded for a third time.

After the war, Price became the first peacetime Commanding Officer of The Royal Montreal Regiment (1920-1924), a position he held again from 1927-1929. He was instrumental in securing the RMR’s armoury in Westmount, serving as Secretary of the “Armoury Association”. This association, under the leadership of Honorary Colonel Brig.-General W. O. H. Dodds and Lieutenant-Colonel Price, initiated a campaign to secure an armoury, which resulted in the City of Westmount leasing land on St. Catherine Street for 99 years at an annual rental of $1.00. The completed building was formally opened on December 28, 1925. As a civilian, he became managing director of Elmhurst Dairy. In January 1931 he became an alderman in Westmount.

At the start of World War II he was a Brigadier General and led the 3rd Brigade overseas in 1939 at the outbreak of war. He was later promoted to Major-General, commanding the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, and upon retiring from military service in 1943 he served as the Overseas Commissioner for the Canadian Red Cross Society for the duration of the war.

Price was later appointed Honorary Colonel of  The Royal Montreal Regiment on August 6, 1943, a charge he did not relinquish until December 31, 1957. In this capacity, he received distinguished visitors like Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein and the Governor General of Canada, Viscount Alexander of Tunis, at the Armoury.

His extensive service was further recognized with the Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) and the Canadian Forces Decoration (CD). He also served as Dominion President of the Canadian Legion in the 1950s. Price’s legacy within the RMR is honored by a dedicated memorial plaque and the “Price Badge,” worn by the current Regimental Sergeant-Major.

Francis Alexander Caron Scrimger, VC

Born February 10, 1881. Died February 13, 1937.

Lived at 1389 Redpath, Westmount, QC.

Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Alexander Caron Scrimger, VC (1881–1937) was a Canadian doctor and soldier whose courage at Ypres became legendary. Born in Montreal, the son of a Presbyterian minister, he studied medicine at McGill University and graduated in 1905. He joined the staff of the Royal Victoria Hospital before the outbreak of war and was widely respected for his quiet confidence and integrity.

When the 14th Battalion (Royal Montreal Regiment) was formed in 1914, Scrimger became its first medical officer. During the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915, German poison gas swept the Canadian lines. Stationed in a dressing station under heavy bombardment, he tended the wounded until the building was collapsing around him. Refusing to abandon his patients, he carried the badly injured Major Edward Norsworthy to safety through shellfire and gas. For his valour and devotion to duty he was awarded the Victoria Cross—the first Canadian in WW1 to receive the Empire’s highest decoration.

Scrimger survived the war and continued his medical career at Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital, serving first as an assistant surgeon and later as surgeon-in-chief. Just one year into that role, he died of a massive heart attack in 1937 at the age of 57. His service and sacrifice lived on in his family: his only son, Captain Alexander Canon Scrimger, of the 29th Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment (The South Alberta Regiment), was killed in action in Holland in 1944.

Scrimger’s name is permanently etched into Canada’s landscape and memory. A 2,755-metre (9,039 ft) peak in the Canadian Rockies on the border between Alberta and British Columbia bears the name Mount Scrimger, VC, and he is commemorated at McGill University’s Strathcona Medical Building as well as within the RMR’s armoury itself. His life remains a testament to courage, compassion, and the enduring bond between medicine and military service.

George Burdon McKean, VC

Born July 04, 1888. Died November 28, 1926.

Captain George Burdon McKean, VC, MC, MM (1888–1926) was one of the most remarkable soldiers to serve with the Royal Montreal Regiment. Born in Durham, England, he immigrated to Canada in 1902 at the age of 14 and worked on farms near Lethbridge, Alberta, before enrolling in a Presbyterian theological school in Edmonton. Small in stature—barely 120 pounds—he was rejected three times before finally being accepted into the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1915. After serving with the 51st Battalion, he transferred to the 14th Battalion (RMR) in June 1916.

McKean quickly distinguished himself in combat. He earned the Military Medal at Bully-Grenay in 1917 and was soon promoted to lieutenant and appointed the RMR’s Scout Officer. His memoirs Scouting Thrills vividly describe trench raids, including one in April 1918 near Gavrelle where, armed with grenades, he leapt a barricade and landed in a trench swarming with enemy soldiers. Despite being wounded, he fought through and captured two trench blocks and eight prisoners, actions for which he received the Victoria Cross—the RMR’s second of the war. Later that year he was awarded the Military Cross for his role in the capture of Cagnicourt.

After the war, McKean settled in England, married, and had a daughter. He wrote Scouting Thrills (1919) and Making Good: A Story of North-West Canada (1920), the latter inspired by his years ranching in Alberta. In 1926, while working in Hertfordshire, he was killed in an industrial accident at a sawmill at only 37 years old.

McKean’s legacy endures both in Canadian military history and within the RMR. The Captain G.B. McKean, VC, MC, MM Trophy (Best Soldier) is awarded annually to the Regiment’s best soldier. This prestigious award honours McKean’s courage and leadership, recognizing the individual who best represents the highest standards of conduct, professionalism, and excellence throughout the training year. His memory is also preserved in a striking portrait by Frederick Varley of the Group of Seven, held at the Canadian War Museum, and in the Canadian Rockies where Mount McKean, VC rises 2,743 metres in his honour.