Winnipeg's Cenotaph -- Winnipeg MB
Posted by: 
PeterNoG
N 49° 53.272 W 097° 08.935
14U E 632966 N 5527806
This World War I Monument is in the middle of Memorial Boulevard at York Avenue in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Waymark Code: WMMR7F
Location: Manitoba, Canada
Date Posted: 10/28/2014
Views: 15
Even before it was built, this was a very controversial war memorial (
visit link)
Like every other major centre in Canada, Winnipeg wanted a cenotaph to honour its dead after the first World War. But the contest for the best war memorial almost started another war in Winnipeg.
Actually, there were two contests and the citizens finally awarded the commission for the cenotaph to a runner-up in the second contest.
The winning design of the first contest was submitted by a Mr. Emmanuel Hahn, an eminent Toronto sculptor, whose designs for war memorials had already been realized in several cities of Eastern Canada. But several groups of interested citizens in Winnipeg, including the Winnipeg Board of Trade, the Provincial Chapter of the I.O.D.E., the Traveller’s Association and the returned soldiers’ associations, vehemently protested the choice on the grounds of Mr. Hahn’s birthplace. Emmanuel Hahn had come to Canada in 1892 at the age of eleven and he was a naturalized Canadian but he was German born.
On 25 February 1926 at a war memorial meeting it was decided that Mr. Hahn should be paid the five hundred dollars for the prize design and that the contest should be re-opened to persons British-born or born in countries which were allies of Britain during the war. Tempers ran high at the meeting; appeals to British fair play were drowned out by cries of murder, and the cenotaph was almost forgotten in the heated discussion over Canadian citizenship which followed.
The second contest was won by a Canadian-born woman sculptor, Elizabeth Wood of Toronto, originally frm Orillia, Ontario. Unfortunately, she happened to be the wife of Emmanuel Hahn. In November 1927, citizens rejected the decision of the judges because “it didn’t appeal to them”. Mrs. Hahn got her five hundred dollars and Gilbert Parfitt was chosen to do the cenotaph. The designer as well as the design was acceptable at last. Mr. Parfitt was a resident of Winnipeg who had been born in England and who had come to Canada in 1912. He later became the provincial architect for Manitoba.
The cenotaph was unveiled on 7 November 1928 and few people remember today that it almost started a war in Winnipeg.The cenotaph is octagonal, with four wide main faces and four narrow faces. The wide faces are oriented to the north, south, east & west. On the base of the main faces are "1914" and "1918".
On the north face is this brass plaque:
Erected in honour of our citizens who gave their lives in loyal and noble service in the World War 1914 - 1918
This brass plaque is on the south face:
They shall grow not old as we that are grow old. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn them. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.
Names of battles are carved higher up on the main faces: Somme, Hill 70, Vimy, Ridge, Passchendaele, Ypres, Festubert, St. Eloi, Mount Sorrel, Canal du Nord, Cambrai, Valenciennes, Mons, Somme, Amiens, Arras and Courtqueant.
On each of the narrower sides are: a bronze memorial wreath, an unsheathed sword pointing downwards and a bronze lion head.
Additional plaques were added later for the Second World War, the Korean War and Peacekeeping Forces.