Description: Canada’s involvement in World War I was considerable; 625,000 soldiers fought in Europe and 60,000 died. Of those, 16,000 have no known grave. In 1920, The Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission was established to determine how to best honour the dead and missing. Its guidelines followed those of the 1918 Imperial Conference on London, stating the memorials should be both public and permanent. The Commission issued a call for proposals to Canadian architects and sculptors. Documents dated December 20, 1920 outlined both the architectural and sculptural programs, conditions for participation and the sites considered "five locations in Belgium and North of France" where World War I battles took place. The Vimy Ridge, where so many Canadian soldiers lost their lives, was among them. The Maxwells were among the participants but it is unknown whether a sculptor/artist joined in their submission. This competition entry is for a 96-foot stone monument capped by a statue of a winged female figure. The Maxwell proposal featured a tall stone pylon on a drum, eight stories tall. The cylindrical base would have been adorned with bas-relief motifs of Canadian coat of arms and symbols of the nine Canadian provinces. Inside the drum, a Memorial Chamber was to contain remains of Unknown soldier. From there, a circular stair would have ascended the core to an observation room below the statue proper. Standing on a sphere, a winged statue of victory, poised on one foot with the other balancing in the air, its long dress draping, was to be three times larger than life. It would have held a smaller, six-feet figure of a youth symbolising a “new civilisation, the outgrowth of sacrifice & victory” (as quoted in the notes from William Maxwell watercolour renditions of the proposal). Two presentation watercolour panels were submitted, one a perspective of the monument in context, set within a circular plaza and backed by a hemicycle of hedges. The front stairs were to be flanked by a pair of buffaloes and flag staffs. The second panel includes a site plan and a section. See Monument to Sir George Etienne Cartier (397). Sculptor Walter Allward (1875-1955), author of the Northwest Rebellion and the Boer War memorials in Toronto and of the Alexander Graham Bell memorial in Brantford, Ontario, won the competition in October 1921. He produced 17 plaster figures, now in the custody of the Canadian War Museum, Ottawa. The stone memorial and figures are the work of professional stone carvers working in France. The monument was erected from 1925 to 1936 on the Vimy ridge, overlooking the Douai plain in northeastern France. It was officially unveiled on 26 July 1936 before a crowd of 100,000. The Saint-Julien site received the competition’s second place design. Allward plaster figures have been restored in 1999-2000; the Vimy Memorial remains a vibrant testimony of the courage and sacrifice of Canadian soldiers, 64 years after its opening.

Holdings: 2 Photographs: 1 section; 1 perspective
1 File folder: regulations
Comment: Competition drawing signed "W.S. Maxwell."

Comments: Competition drawing signed "W.S. Maxwell." 2 Photographs: 1 section; 1 perspective