Walter Seymour Allward (18 November 1874 – 24 April 1955) was a Canadian monumental sculptor best known for the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. Featuring expressive classical figures within modern compositions, Allward's monuments evoke themes of memory, sacrifice, and redemption. He has been widely praised for his "original sense of spatial composition, his mastery of the classical form and his brilliant craftsmanship".
Allward's 1917 heroic monument, the Bell Telephone Memorial, has been seen as the finest example of his early works. It brought the sculptor fame and led to Allward later creating the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France, his most renowned work. Some of the sculptor's works have also been acquired by the National Gallery in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. In addition to his sculptural works, Allward produced a series of approximately one hundred allegorical drawings exploring the subject of war at the onset of the Second World War.
Allward has been described as "probably Canada's most important monumental sculptor in the first third of [the 20th] century". However, his name was largely forgotten following his death in 1955 until 2001, when he was portrayed as a fictional character in Jane Urquhart's celebrated novel The Stone Carvers.
Early life
Allward was born in Toronto, the son of John A. Allward and Emma Pittman 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.
Body of works
Early work
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. He won this competition at the age of nineteen, despite possessing minimal training as a sculptor. 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), 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.
Heroic monuments
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. Allward also designed numerous municipal cenotaphs around the country, including the Stratford Memorial (1922), the Peterborough Memorial (1929) and the Brant War Memorial (1933).
Bell Memorial
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 parents' home, Melville House, in Brantford, Ontario. 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.