On 1 November 1918, John H. Spence, chairman of the Patriotic Association, announced that the association would act jointly with the Great War Veterans Association in having interment of the bodies of all soldiers who had passed away recently and who were now in individual plots in Mount Hope Cemetery, made into one plot, and when the war was over to have a shaft erected over these graves with the names of all the deceased inscribed.
It was a decade before these plans came to fruition. Those behind the project proved themselves up to the task, resorting to card parties to raise money.
On 23 September 1928 the Soldiers’ Plot was ready. The unveiling of the memorial to make the last resting places of returned soldiers was attended by thousands. From the community of Brantford and Brant County 5,571 – including 37 nurses – donned the uniform; of these 608 officers and men gave their lives during the First World War; 58 were reported missing, hundreds were wounded and 143 won decorations or were mentioned in dispatches.
The initiative of the memorial is due to members of the Eagle Place Kith and Kin. Its lasting combination of materials, Scottish and Canadian granite, is symbolic of Empire unity. The sheathed sword on each of the four sides is the emblem of everlasting peace for those whose resting place it marked. The sides are identical, facing the four corners of the earth, each side bearing the inscriptions: “Their Name Liveth Forevermore,” and the motto of the Kith and Kin “Lest We Forget.”
No names were engraved upon the stone, significant that those for whom it was erected went not to war to make great names for themselves, but with the spirit of service and sacrifice. The Soldiers’ Plot became a beloved feature of the cemetery and was expanded on more than one occasion. The plot included some 46 Veterans of campaigns from Egypt, India, Sudan, South Africa, and various theatres of hostilities in the last war. There are also about six women and children who died of influenza during the epidemic of 1917-1918, while their husbands and fathers were overseas.
