Robert Henry Parkyn (November 19, 1862 – June 13, 1939) was a municipal and provincial level politician and tradesman in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

, Alberta, Canada.

Early life

Parkyn was born in Cornwall, United Kingdom on November 19, 1862 to William and Annie Parkyn. He was educated in public schools in Cornwall. Later, he apprenticed as a Carpenter and Joiner, and joined the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of England. Robert married Matilda Edwards of Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales in 1895, and had seven male children. The family moved to Calgary in 1910.

Municipal career

Robert Parkyn was elected to Calgary City Council as an Alderman on the Labor ticket for the first time on January 2, 1922 and served his first stint as Alderman until January 2, 1924. Parkynad

He would return to city council with his re-election on January 2, 1926. He served as both an Alderman and as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. His second term in office ended on December 31, 1926. Parkyn would serve 3 more broken terms as an Alderman January 1, 1933 to December 31, 1934 and January 2, 1935 to January 1, 1936 and his final term from January 1, 1939 until his death on June 13, 1939.

Provincial career

In the

1921 Alberta general election The 1921 Alberta general election was held on July 18, 1921, to elect members to the 5th Alberta Legislative Assembly. It was one of only five times that Alberta has changed governments. The Liberal Party, which had governed the province since it ...

Robert ran his first provincial campaign as a Labor candidate and ended up finishing 8th in a field of 20 candidates. Parkyn was elected in the

1926 Alberta general election The 1926 Alberta general election was held on June 28, 1926, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The United Farmers of Alberta government that had first been elected in 1921 was re-elected, taking a majority of the seats in t ...

this time as an Independent Labor candidate (of labour but not directly tied to any labour group). He won the 5th seat in the

district. The win was seen as an upset. He was defeated after serving a single term in office. Parkyn ran for re-election in the

1930 Alberta general election Year 193 ( CXCIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sosius and Ericius (or, less frequently, year 946 ''Ab urbe condit ...

as an Independent. He was unsuccessful, finishing 7th in Calgary's six-member district at the time. Parkyn was an advisory delegate during the

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF; french: Fédération du Commonwealth Coopératif, FCC); from 1955 the Social Democratic Party of Canada (''french: Parti social démocratique du Canada''), was a federal democratic socialism, democra ...

founding meetings. Parkyn attempted re-election in a 1933 by-election, again running under his Independent Labor banner. In that election he never came close as the vote polarized between the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation candidate Amelia Turner and the Independent candidate Norman Hindsley.

Late life

In 1938 Parkyn became terminally ill with an undisclosed illness. His last wish was to meet the King and Queen of the United Kingdom on their Royal Visit to Canada in 1939. He did so with the help of wife and physician days before his death. He died on June 13, 1939.

References

External links

City of Calgary Aldermanic Galley: Page 90
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Parkyn, Robert 1862 births 1939 deaths Independent Alberta MLAs Dominion Labor Party (Alberta) MLAs Calgary city councillors Canadian people of Cornish descent British emigrants to Canada