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The Agnes Benidickson Tricolour Award

Since they were first presented in 1940, the Tricolour Awards have recognized students who “made significant contributions to student life.”

The Tricolour Awards were unveiled by the AMS executive of 1938-39. They were initially decided by a committee of students and faculty, chaired by the principal. In a few short years though, it became a students-only decision. One of the first award recipients was John Matheson, Arts’40, who had been vitally active in AMS affairs and who would go on to a career in the army, and later as a lawyer, judge and politician. Judge Matheson would take a leading role in the 1960s creation of Canada’s flag and the Order of Canada, a national award that, Matheson said, was shaped by his Tricolour Award experience.

In 1941, Tricolour recipients included the first woman president of the AMS, Dorothy Wardle, Agnes Richardson (later Benidickson), and civil engineer and Olympic athlete Jim Courtright.

Over the decades, many Queen’s graduates now recognizable to the nation at large received a Tricolour Award: Pauline Jewett, Ned Franks, Bob Beamish, David Dodge, Andrew Pipe, Jeff Simpson, Peter Raymont, Sarah Pritchard and Ken Wong, to name a few.

Entrepreneur Michele Romanow, Sc’07, won a Tricolour for her vital role as a student entrepreneur in establishing the Queen’s Tea Room.

In 1996, the award was renamed the Agnes Benidickson Tricolour Award in honour of the 1941 winner who returned to her alma mater to enthusiastically serve as Queen’s chancellor from 1980-1996.