War Memorials

A community honours its dead

When the Pugwash war memorial was unveiled in 1922, the souvenir booklet listed not only the area's dead, but those people who had donated to the memorial fund, as well the amounts.

"Servant of God, well done!"

Merton Crawford of New Brunswick enlisted in the Canadian Mounted Rifles in March 1915, and went missing in action during the last weeks of the Somme campaign in 1916.

Remembering in Edmonton

Wreaths cover the base of the cenotaph in Edmonton, Alberta, during a service held after the Second World War.

Canadian War Memorials Paintings Exhibition

This companion to the 1920 exhibition of the Canadian War Memorials Paintings includes a catalog of the collection and photographs of some of the paintings.

The 701 Dead of Brant County

Sculptor Walter Allward had completed the Bell Memorial in Brantford and was working on the Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge in France when his memorial to the dead of Brant County in southern Ontario was unveiled. Budget shortfalls meant that the intended allegorical figures could not be added at that time.

The Nation's Sacrifice

This poster, distributed by a Toronto newspaper, honoured the unveiling of the National War Memorial in Ottawa, just a few months before the beginning of the Second World War.

"The Garden of the Brave"

The National War Memorial in Ottawa was more than a decade from completion when this song was published. Sales of this card benefited the Canadian Legion.

Brantford - The Telephone City

This fund-raising booklet said little about Brantford in the First World War, but rather used photographs of local landmarks and statuary as a form of civic boosterism.

Brantford.pdf (78.78 MB)

To the people of Maganetawan

The school in Maganetawan, in northern Ontario, dedicated an impressive plaque to townspeople who served during the First World War, and also distributed handsome souvenir portfolios of the memorial.

The grave of a Canadian soldier

Nelson Hodgson of the 1st Divisional Ammunition Column, was killed in the fighting around Passchendaele in November 1917. This photograph of his grave near Ypres, Belgium, was sent to his family in Guelph, Ontario.