This memorial is dedicated to the three local war dead and 27 local Veterans of the South African War. Funded by the city of Brantford, the memorial was dedicated on 24 May 1903.
There were thirty men who volunteered to fight with the British and Canadian units in South Africa in 1899. The monument, designed by Hamilton MacArthy of Ottawa, depicts a soldier ready for battle mounted on a granite base. On the four sides of the base are bronze plaques, one depicts the three Brantford heroes who lost their lives and three illustrate the respective battles in which they fell. The attack on the Boer position at the Battle of Spion Kop where Lieutenant Osborne fell; the Battle of Hart's River where Corporal Sherritt lost his life; the defense of the British guns at the Battle of Belfast where Lieutenant Builder suffered fatal injuries. A Howitzer is located behind the memorial.
Hamilton P. MacCarthy was born on 28 July 1846 in London, England. He studied with his father, sculptor Hamilton Wright MacCarthy and at the Royal Academy Schools. MacCarthy moved to Toronto, Ontario, in 1885. Thirteen years later he moved to Ottawa and studied at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. MacCarthy had 15 children and his son Coeur de Lion MacCarthy was a sculptor who produced numerous commemorative works after the First World War.
Other memorials by Hamilton MacCarthy include: South African War Memorial and Lieutenant Harold Lothrop Borden Memorial in Nova Scotia;Soldiers Monument in Prince Edward Island; General Isaac Brock Monument, and South African War Memorial in Ontario Boer War Memorial in Quebec.
