Ontario

The Collingwood Cenotaph is dedicated to the Veterans of the First World War and was erected by the people of the town of Collingwood. The Cenotaph and is located in Memorial Park, at The Station. The Station, a replica of their train station, originally constructed in 1873, is now home to the Collingwood Museum and the Chamber of Commerce.

In 1923, Canadian National Railway (CNR) agreed to the erection of a memorial on its property, if the Town would sign an agreement. CNR also provided a landscape gardener to assist with the layout for the proper placing of the memorial. The Cenotaph was constructed and dedicated to local Collingwood men who volunteered and laid down their lives in the First World War.

The north and south faces of the shaft lists the names of those who fell. Construction began in 1922, with a public dedication held August 5, 1923. The Cenotaph was designed by local contractor Charles Henry Lawrence MacDonald, who used his brother Fred as a model for the soldier. A concrete slab supports a granite base and stations a 16 foot bronze figure of a First World War Canadian soldier in uniform looking west to St. Paul Street. The soldier holds a bugle to his lips with his right hand, left arm at his side, prepared to play "The Last Post", which is inscribed immediately below the figure.

The Cenotaph is framed by four electric light standards and a flagpole, initially installed in 1923. In 1960 granite "wings" flanking the original Cenotaph were installed and commemorate 52 Collingwood men who died in the Second World War. In 1982, the Korean War Veterans were acknowledged on the wings.

The Collingwood Cenotaph is an important symbol of community pride and provides a focus for a number of ceremonies throughout the year, including Remembrance Day. Maintenance and upkeep of the Cenotaph are shared by the Town of Collingwood Department of Parks, Recreation and Culture, the Collingwood Horticultural Society and the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 63.

There is also a First World War artillery piece on the grounds of the park, as well as a plaque honouring the Canadian Merchant Navy.

The Beeton Community Memorial Centre was erected 1948-1949 and officially opened December 29, 1948, by Hon. W.A. Goodfellow. A local farmer and carpenter Ben Heuchan came forward and offered to raise the rink, enlisting local labour and farmers in the community. The actual construction was supervised by Ben Heuchan, and later by Andy McCague.

The Beeton Cenotaph was dedicated by the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 421 in memory of those who sacrificed their lives in the First and Second World Wars, those that served in the Korean War and Canadian Peacekeepers.

The first meeting of the newly organized Women's Institute was held at the home of Mrs. Kate Scott Aitken on 9 November 1920. One topic discussed was a memorial to  the men who had fallen in the First World War. It was decided that a memorial entrance to the park would be a fitting tribute. A vast campaign was launched to raise money, including the village of Beeton and Tecumseh Township. Alliston Marble Works erected the gates using four pillars of granite (two, seven feet high and two, five feet high). The wrought iron archway and lights were added in 1931.

The memorial was unveiled on 27 November 1927. Because it was an extremely cold day, the ceremony took place in the Town Hall followed by a parade march to the newly constructed gateway for the unveiling. The names of the men who had given their lives in the Great War were inscribed on the pillars. Later more names would be added, following the Second World War and an inscription dedicated to those that served in the Korean War.

This black granite stone was erected in 1988 in honour of all the Royal Canadian Legion Alliston Branch ex service personnel buried in Union Cemetery.

In August 1920, Alliston Town Council organized a committee to raise funds and design a First World War memorial. The public and high school staff offered to erect a memorial to the ex-pupils of the school with costs covered by current and former pupils. Alliston Public & High School at 25 Albert Street West was selected as the site. Within three months, more than $800 was raised for the project. 

In November 1918, Dr. F.G. Banting wrote Alliston's Mayor stating that the 44th Battalion, having captured numerous German machine guns, offered one to Banting to present to his hometown of Alliston. In August 1920, the Canadian War Trophies Commission wrote Alliston's Mayor informing him that trench mortar No. 1110 was allotted to Alliston. Council agreed to have both guns placed at the memorial, one on each side.

The dedication took place during the ‘Old Boys and Girls Reunion’ (former Allistonians) on July 17 - 19, 1921, with three thousand people in attendance. The memorial was officially unveiled in front of the school on July 18, 1921. A bronze plaque adorns the front of the memorial and was designed by the Group of 7, while on the back are engraved the major battles of the First World War.

In 1961, Alliston Public School Board removed the two guns from the memorial as a result of ongoing vandalism. The German machine gun from by Sir F.G. Banting was donated to the South Simcoe Pioneer Museum (renamed Museum on the Boyne). The gun, a Spandau Maschinengewehr, was later placed on permanent display at Sir Frederick Banting Homestead inside the octagonal shed that sits behind the farmhouse. The fate of the trench mortar is unknown.

In 1988, the monument was relocated several meters north from its original location to make room for a new driveway at the front of the school. The Town of New Tecumseth purchased the former school property in 2016. In 2020, the Alliston Legion relocated the memorial to its current location with the Alliston Cenotaph directly across from the former school property. Shelburne Memorials donated the cost to remove, transport and reset the monument.

The bronze plaque was cleaned and re-sealed in August 2021 with funds provided by St. john’s Foundation.

The centre is named in honour of Tony Stacey, the Second World War Sergeant who, with other veterans, fought tirelessly to found the centre. It is a long term care facility that accepts non-serving spouses of Veterans, non-overseas Veterans, Veterans of conflicts post Korea and peacekeepers.

As a memorial to staff who gave their lives in the Great War, the Bank of Nova Scotia commissioned about 60 bronze tablets, between July 1920 and February 1921, to be placed on the wall of the branch where each known staff member was employed when they joined the military forces. These plaques listed the names of staff killed on the field, as well as those who died from their wounds after they returned home from the war.

This plaque honours Alan Vincent Frank Trimble a former officer of the Bank of Nova Scotia Danforth & Pape Branch in Toronto, Ontario, who was killed in service during the Great War.

This memorial to the local war dead and veterans of the First World War was originally unveiled on 30 August 1931 through the efforts of the local community. Plaques for the remembrance of the Second World War and the Korean War were added later.

Beginning in 1914 and lasting until the fall of 1918, Malvern Collegiate students volunteered to enter the carnage of what would be the greatest and most catastrophic war in this country's history. Malvern students fought in all engagements of the Canadian Corps. A total of 25 Malvern students made the supreme sacrifice.

On May 19, 1922, after much effort and fundraising, a monument was raised by the local community in memory of the Malvern students who died in the First World War. The statue was sculpted by Emanuel Hahn for the Thomson Monument Company of Toronto. Toronto’s own Ned Hanlon modelled for the statue, which depicts a soldier draped in cloth, holding a down turned sword in one hand symbolic of the end of conflict and broken chains in the other, symbolic of freedom. 

When the school’s west-facing, front entrance was renovated in 1987, the cenotaph was moved from its original location on the front lawn and placed on a raised platform as a design feature in front of the library window on the second floor.

At some point after it was moved, vandals broke off the statue's right hand and the sword went missing. The hand was found on the ground and deposited for safekeeping in the school vault. Lengthy exposure to weather caused some deterioration to the monument: hand-carved lead letters were falling off and the support below the base was crumbling. The surface was stained with rust from an exposed iron pin, paint and egg splatter.

A successful fund-raising effort led by the Malvern Red and Black Society enabled the statue to be renovated in October 2011. The Toronto District School Board committed to cover the cost of repairs to the support below the base, while donations from the community and a grant from Veterans Affairs Canada allowed the hiring of a professional conservator to ensure a careful and historically accurate restoration.

Conservator Susan L. Maltby of Maltby & Associates was brought in to begin the work. The statue had a twin in Alvinston, Ontario, which was used as a reference to create a copy of the missing sword. Brett Davis and sculptor Frank Anjo were brought in to replicate it and Neil Sanderson of Sanderson Monument Company assisted with the refitting. The iron pin that originally held the hand was removed – it had been staining the stone for a number of years – and a new one in stainless steel was inserted.

Originally adorned with hand-carved lead letters, the memorial had been restored at some point using cast white metal letters attached with a variety of silicone sealants which smeared onto the stone. Some letters were put on upside down and the original spacing was not respected. A number were now missing or bent. The decision was made to retain all of the cast letters that were securely fastened to the stone. Those in danger of falling off were removed and retained for the archive. Carver Eric Schop drilled holes to receive the new lead replacements, which were carved in place by hand.

The cenotaph was re-dedicated at a ceremony on November 4, 2011. Within 36 hours of the ceremony, vandals climbed the cenotaph, scraping off some of the letters from Cecil Annis' name, and wrapped it in blue tape. On August 23, 2014, more vandals stole the newly replaced sword. 

Additional restoration work and improved security measures were made in 2022, the 100^th anniversary of the memorial’s dedication.

Emanuel Hahn moved to Toronto at the age of seven with his family of artists and musicians from Germany, in 1888. He studied commercial design and model-making at Toronto Technical School and Ontario College of Art and Industrial Design. At 25 years old Hahn began a nearly lifelong contract with Thomson Monument Company of Toronto. Two years later, he also started work as a studio assistant to sculptor Walter Seymour Allward. Part of his duties included assisting on Allward’s significant works such as the South African War Memorial in Toronto.

In 1912 Hahn began an association with the Thomson Monument Company of Toronto. It was there, along with several assistants, he made the many war memorials that are found across Canada: Fernie, British Columbia; Killarney and Russell, Manitoba; Alvinston, Bolton, Cornwall, Hanover, Lindsay,  Malvern, Milton, Petrolia and Port Dalhousie, Ontario; Gaspe, Quebec; Moncton, New Brunswick; Springhill and Westville Nova Scotia; Summerside, Prince Edward Island.

Hahn is probably most famous as the designer of the Bluenose on the back of the Canadian dime and the Caribou on the back of the Canadian quarter. He was a victim of anti-German sentiment in the years following the Great War, when his design for the Winnipeg Cenotaph was rejected in 1925.