The Cenotaph in Stratford was created by Walter Seymour Allward who is most famous as the sculptor and architect of the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge in France. Allward completed only two other World War I memorial sculptures, this one in Stratford and another in Peterborough Ontario. The Cenotaph in Stratford is a favourite place of mine. It is simply stunning.
I did a Google search on Walter Seymour Allward, and in addition to the information at Wikipedia, I discovered that he is considered on of Canada's most important monumental sculptor in the first third of this century.
He was born in Toronto in 1875, he first worked as a draughtsman for an architectural firm. Later he modeled terra cotta decorative panels for the Don Valley Brick Company.
His first commission was for the figure of Peace for the North West Rebellion Monument at Queen's Park, Toronto in 1894.
Later he received commissions for portrait monuments at Queen's Park. From his hand arose momuments to John Graves Simcoe, Sir Oliver Mowat and J.S. Macdonald. Still later he created an allegorical momument that stands on University Avenue in Toronto honouring the veterans of the South African War (Boer War). He subsequently created the Baldwin-Lafontaine Monument on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and the Alexander Graham Bell Monument in Brantford, Ontario.
In 1912 when he was awarded the contract for the King Edward VII memorial in Ottawa of which only two figures, Truth and Justice, were cast in 1923 and which are now installed in front of the Supreme Court in Ottawa.
Perhaps the most important commission Allward received in his life time was for the monument to Canadians killed in the First World War at Vimy, Fran. . It was a project which would occupy him from 1921 to its unveiling in 1936 on the eve of the Second World War.
Allward passed away in 1955.
Thankfully, his monuments and sculptures remain as his personal legacy and to honour those who served their country, and who fell in battle on foreign ground.
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