Reporters and columnists on Parliament Hill extended the rarest of honours to Mackenzie King on this date in 1944. The war-time PM, who himself had served as a newspaper reporter for almost a year when in his early 20s, was named an Honorary Life Member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. King was extremely happy to become the first-ever PM to be honoured this way by the Gallery.
“It was no affectation for me to say that it was with difficulty I found words wherewith to express appreciation of the compliment … which the members of the [Parliamentary] Press Gallery had thus paid me,” he told his faithful diary afterwards. “Referred to the occasion and all it represented as the crowning event of my years in public life and recognition which to me in some ways meant more than any other which I had received in my public life.”