The death of an English soldier in Calgary led to the creation of the South African War Memorial which is modelled after Eneas Edward McCormick.
Quebec sculptor, Louis Phillipe Hébert, was visiting his cousins, the Miquelon family in Calgary,
at the turn of the century when they came upon the body of a soldier in a ditch in the Killarney area.
It seems he had died from lead poisoning and no one had known about his illness.
Members of the Calgary-based Lord Strathcona Horse Regiment
who had fought in the South African Boer War (1899 - 1902) took up a collection and efforts were made to trace his family in England.
It was decided that the men who fought in the war should be commemorated and Hébert said, "I'll put up a statue taller than your trees."
Further funds were raised and Hébert was commissioned to create a statue in 1911. It was unveiled in 1914.
One day, standing on the steps of Sacred Heart Church, Hébert spotted Eneas, then in his early twenties, and thought he would make a good model for the statue.
The statue is one and a half times life size, and has been described as one of the four finest equestrian statues in the world.
(R. L. Boyle was known for his contributions at Ypres, several years after the Second Boer War. Russell Lambert Boyle, was born on October 29, 1880.
Although Colonel Boyle served in South Africa as a Sergeant, he is better known for his courageous exploits during the Second Battle of Ypres, where he led his battalion in their first action at Kitchener's Wood. He died on April 25, 1915.)
The statue of R.L. Boyle (actually of Eneas McCormick) is unusual in that his name is not inscribed on the monument.
Rather than memorializing him personally, the statue is intended as a tribute to all Albertans who fought in the Second Boer War, and the dates 1899-1902 are inscribed on the pedestal.
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