Farmer, aviation enthusiast.
Born at Hartney on 18 October 1921, youngest of four children of Neil Agnew and Mary Story, in April 1942 he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and was trained under the Commonwealth Air Training Plan, later serving as a flight instructor at Davidson (Saskatchewan), Vulcan (Alberta), and Yorkton (Saskatchewan). After the war, he returned to Manitoba and farmed near Hartney while surplus training aircraft were sold to farmers across the prairies to be dismantled and used for a variety of purposes.
In the late 1960s, he realized that Canada’s aviation history would be lost if efforts were not made to protect and restore some of these aircraft. He began buying aircraft and their parts from farmers. In 1981, he loaned five restored aircraft—a Bolingbroke, Cornel, Lysander, Tiger Moth, and Yale—to the newly established Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum. He is credited as one of museum’s founders, along with stockbroker Ed Baker, and he served as curator for five years, for which he received, in 1990, an award from the Royal Canadian Air Force Association.
On 26 December 1945, he married Joyce Burrill (1921-2015) at Langbank, Saskatchewan and they had three daughters and three sons. He and his wife retired to Brandon in 1982.
He died at the Brandon Regional Health Centre on 5 March 2000 and was buried in the Rosewood Memorial Gardens. He is commemorated by Agnew Drive in Brandon.
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: No. 12 Service Flying Training School / Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum (300 Commonwealth Way, Brandon)
Birth registration [George Wesley Agnew], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
1931 Canada census, Ancestry.
“Names & faces,” Brandon Sun, 16 March 1981, page 9.
“Barnyard derelicts museum fodder,” Brandon Sun, 30 August 1982, page 2.
“Friendly invasion preserved for all at McGill Field,” Brandon Sun, 19 April 1986, page 9.
Obituary, Brandon Sun, 7 March 2000, page 13.
Obituary, Brandon Sun, 11 March 2000, page 19.
Obituary [Joyce Agnew], Brandon Sun, 7 November 2015.
We thank David McConkey for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 17 September 2025
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