Walter Seymour Allward

Allward was born in Toronto, the son of John A. Allward of Newfoundland. Educated in Toronto public schools, his first job was at the age of 14 as an assistant to his carpenter father. Allward first served an apprenticeship with the architectural firm Gibson and Simpson before working at the Don Valley Brick Works, where he modelled architectural ornaments. There he showed skill in clay mold making. This early training, supplemented by modelling classes at the New Technical School, prepared Allward for his lifelong career as a monumental sculptor.

Allward's first commission was for the figure of Peace on the Memorial of the Battles in the North-West (1895) in Queen's Park, Toronto. Other early works included a life-sized figure of Dr Oronhyatekha commissioned by the Independent Order of Foresters for the opening of the Temple Building in Toronto (1899),[4] and the Old Soldier, commemorating the War of 1812 in Toronto's Portland Square (now Victoria Memorial Square) (1903). Also in 1903, he was elected an associate of the Royal Canadian Academy and in 1918 became a full academician. Now well established he received commissions to do busts of Lord Tennyson, Sir Charles Tupper, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and others. On the grounds of Queen's Park are statues of General John Graves Simcoe and Sir Oliver Mowat, completed in 1903 and 1905 respectively.

Allward's true talent lay in his heroic monuments. These included the design work for the Boer War Memorial Fountain in Windsor, Ontario (1906), the South African War Memorial in Toronto (1910), The Baldwin-Lafontaine Monument on Parliament Hill in Ottawa (1914) and the Bell Memorial commemorating Alexander Graham Bell's invention of telephone in Brantford, Ontario (1917). Allward had also completed design work on a memorial to King Edward VII but the onset of the World War I prevented its completion. The figures of Veritas (Truth) and Iustitia (Justice) were cast in bronze for the memorial. They were found in their crates in 1969 buried under a parking lot, and in 1970 were installed outside the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa.[5] Allward also designed numerous municipal cenotaphs around the country, including the Stratford Memorial (1922), the Peterborough Memorial (1929) and the Brant War Memorial (1933).

Dedication of the memorial, including Alexander Graham Bell, members of his family plus committee members

In 1906 the citizens of the Brantford and Brant County areas formed the Bell Memorial Association to commemorate the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in July 1874 at his parent's home, Melville House, in Brantford, Ontario.[6][7] Allward's design was the unanimous choice from among 10 submitted models, winning the competition. The memorial was originally to be completed by 1912 but Allward did not finish it until five years later. The Governor General of Canada, Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, ceremoniously unveiled the memorial on 24 October 1917.[6][7]

Allward designed the monument to symbolize the telephone's ability to overcome distances.[7] A series of steps lead to the main section where the allegorical figures of Inspiration appears over a reclining male figure representing Man, the inventor, and also pointing to the floating figures of Knowledge, Joy, and Sorrow, positioned at the other end of the tableau. At each end of the memorial there are two female figures mounted on granite pedestals representing Humanity, one sending and the other receiving a message.[6]

The Bell Telephone Memorial's grandeur has been described as the finest example of Allward's early work, propelling the sculptor to fame. The memorial itself has been used as a central fixture for many civic events and remains an important part of Brantford's history, helping the city style itself as "The Telephone City".

Allward's final design

The most important and famous commission Allward received was for the monument to commemorate Canadians killed in the First World War, a project which would occupy him from 1921 till the memorial's unveiling, by King Edward VIII, on 26 July 1936. There was a huge crowd of approximately 100,000 people present at the ceremony including over 50,000 Canadian and French veterans and their families. The Vimy Memorial was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada in 1996. After a $30 million restoration, the monument was re-dedicated on 9 April 2007.

Allward had made 150 design sketches before submitting the final plan which won the commission from the Canadian federal government. The Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission eventually selected Vimy Ridge as the location for the memorial, due largely to its elevation above the plain below, as the preferred site of Allward's design. The site (Hill 145) was donated by France in perpetuity.[8] In June 1922, Allward set up a studio in London, England and toured for more almost two years to find a stone of the right colour, texture, and luminosity for the memorial. He eventually found it in the ruins of Diocletian's Palace. Known as Seget limestone, it was a stone that came from an ancient Roman quarry located in Croatia. The stone had to be first quarried then shipped by boat to France and then transported to Vimy Ridge by truck and by rail.

Statue carving in progress

Allward chose a relatively new construction method, a cast concrete frame to which the limestone was bonded. The memorial base and twin pylons contain almost 6,000 tonnes of Seget limestone on a bed of about 15,000 tonnes of concrete. The 20 sculptured symbolic figures, representing Christian and universal virtues, were actually carved where they now stand, from the huge blocks of stone. The professional carvers used life-size plaster models produced by Allward in his London studio and an enlarging instrument called a pantograph to make calculations that allowed for reproducing the figures at double life-size. All this work was carried out inside temporary studios built around each figure, including those at the top of the pylons.[9][10]

Left-front view showing an entire aspect of the Memorial

Most of the original plaster figures are stored at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. [11]

The final step called for carving the names of 11,285 Canadians who were killed in France and are buried in unknown sites on the memorial's walls.[12] The time required to build the massive concrete and steel base, to obtain some 6,000 tonnes of stone from Croatia, to build roads and clear the site of mines and graves, as well as other issues, led to significant delays. In 1930, Prime Minister R. B. Bennett insisted that the project be completed by 1932 but that deadline was missed by four years. The total cost was approximately $1.5 million.[9]