Bell Memorial
The Bell Memorial is a memorial designed by Walter Seymour Allward to commemorate the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell at the Bell Homestead National Historic Site, in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.
In 1906, the citizens of the Brantford and Brant County areas formed the Bell Telephone Memorial Association, which commissioned the memorial. By 1908, the association's designs committee asked sculptors on two continents to submit proposals for the memorial. The submission by Canadian sculptor Walter Seymour Allward of Toronto won the competition. The memorial was originally scheduled for completion by 1912 but Allward, aided by his studio assistant Emanuel Hahn did not finish it until five years later. The Governor General of Canada, Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, unveiled the memorial on 24 October 1917.
Allward designed the monument to symbolize the telephone's ability to overcome great distances. A series of steps lead to the main section where the floating allegorical figure of Inspiration appears over a reclining male figure representing Man, transmitting sound through space, discovering his power to transmit sound through space, and also pointing to three floating figures, the messengers of Knowledge, Joy, and Sorrow positioned at the other end of the tableau. Additionally, there are two female figures mounted on granite pedestals representing Humanity positioned to the left and right of the memorial, one sending and the other receiving a message.
The Bell Memorial has been described as the finest example of Allward's early work. The memorial itself has been used as a central fixture for many civic events and remains an important part of Brantford's history. It was provided a heritage designation under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2005 and listed on the Canadian Register of Historic Places in 2009.
History
conceived the technical aspects of the telephone and invented it in July 1874, while residing with his parents at their farm, Melville House, now a National Historic Site of Canada. One of the first successful voice transmissions of any notable distance was made on 4 August 1876, between the telegraph office in Brantford, Ontario and Bell's father's homestead over makeshift wires. He later refined the telephone's design at Brantford after producing his first working prototype in Boston. Canada's first telephone factory, created by James Cowherd, was located in Brantford, and operated from about 1879 to 1881 leading to the informal designation as The Telephone City.Memorial association established
Discussion of a monument to commemorate both Bell and his invention was first raised in Brantford in 1904 although the Bell Telephone Memorial Association was not formally established until 1906. After gaining Bell's approval, the association and its proposed memorial were publicly endorsed on 9 March 1906 at a banquet in Brantford Kirby House, which Bell attended as a guest of honour. That same year the association was formally organized and incorporated by an Act of the Legislature of Ontario with the stated aim of commemorating the invention of the telephone in Brantford and to name Bell as its inventor. What was highly unusual in this instance was the building of an important monument to a living person, an event usually conducted only for imperial leaders. The duality of the monument with its dedication to both the inventor and to his invention, with its emphasis on the latter, likely persuaded Alexander Graham Bell, normally modest, to accept the invitation to its public unveiling.The association was organized with the support of George, Prince of Wales, Viceroy of India and former Governor General of Canada Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto, and the latter's successor Governor-General Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey, plus an approximate dozen other prominent leaders in Canada and the United States, who endorsed the project with their backing. Donald Howard, 3rd Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal became its first honorary president and upon his death, he was succeeded by the Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, a former Governor General of Canada. William Foster Cockshutt, the local federal Member of Parliament who had originally proposed the memorial in 1904, became the association's president, and was assisted by another MP, Lloyd Harris, who served as vice-president. The design selection committee was led by Byron Edmund Walker, a prominent Canadian banker, philanthropist and patron of the arts.
The Association's public appeal quickly raised within its first months, rising to $44,000 by September 1909, eventually collecting over $65,000 through donations from various citizens worldwide. An additional federal contribution of $10,000 was supported in Canada's parliament by Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier. In a city with a population of only 30,000, the fundraising needed for the monument was a major accomplishment.
Selection committee choice
Invitations were sent out to 22 sculptors in Europe, the United States and Canada in 1908, inviting them to submit models for the proposed monument. By May 1909 either nine or ten models had been submitted. A designs committee was appointed by the association and selected the three best designs they favored from the models submitted. The committee asked a trio of outside judges, Sir Byron Edmund Walker of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Toronto, New York State Senator George Allen Davis of Buffalo and Sir George Christie Gibbons of London, Ontario to make a final decision, all of whom were considered patrons of the arts. After consideration a unanimous choice was made to award the commission to Walter Seymour Allward. The millionaire banker and philanthropist Sir Byron Walker was likely persuasive in swaying the unanimous decision to the sculptor. Walker had earlier contacted a prominent Brantford banker, praising Allward's previous works, and advised him that "because of the national character of the work I am particularly interested in the best possible outcome artistically".Lengthy delays and completion
The commission award for the memorial had been made in 1908 and a contract to Allward authorized in 1909, based on an initial cost estimate of $25,000 with the provision that the work would be completed by 1912. Also in 1909 the association purchased Alexander Melville Bell's former homestead and farm, Melville House, and transferred its ownership to the City of Brantford for conversion into a museum.Allward was assisted by his studio assistant, Emanuel Otto Hahn, another highly notable sculptor who worked on the monument with him until 1912 when Hahn left for the Ontario College of Art. The project proceeded slowly in part due to Allward's concurrent work on several other commissions at the same time, including the South African War Memorial, a major monument erected in Toronto. In April 1915 Allward reported to the committee that the two heroic figures to be mounted on pedestals had been successfully cast and that foundation work for the site had been tendered. But in regards to the central bronze casting, which was to become the largest ever created in North America up to that point, he could not estimate when it would be complete, writing in a letter "I am giving all my time to it; I cannot do more. It is an important panel and cannot be too well done". For various reasons the memorial was not completed until 1917, with World War I, material shortages, an embargo on exports of French moulding sand and transportation limitations creating lengthy delays.
Unveiling of the Memorial
The Brantford monument was finally unveiled in a driving rain on 24 October 1917 by then Governor General of Canada Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire before an audience in the thousands. The Governor General of Canada arrived in the city by train, along with the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario Sir John Hendrie, the Hon. Senator Robertson of the Privy Council, the Hon. W.D. McPherson of the Ontario Government and other notables. They were greeted by a children's chorus, honour guards, the band of the 125th Battalion and the chimes of Grace Anglican Church located only a few dozen metres from the memorial. Also in attendance in full war regalia was Chief A.R. Hill of the Six Nations Tribes of the Grand River, where Bell, not long after his arrival in Canada, had been made an honorary tribal chief.File:Bell family at memorial with Bell Mem Assoc.jpg|thumb|left|Bell in centre, with committee members, his granddaughter, Mabel Harlakenden Grosvenor; his wife, Mabel Hubbard; and his eldest daughter Elsie.
As a public holiday had been declared for the unveiling, the city's normal activities were shut down for the entire day. After the Governor-General completed his address at the monument and unveiled its shrouds, he withdrew to the city's Old Opera House due to the driving rain, along with large numbers of the crowd. The ceremonies were continued indoors in the city's opera theatre, with Bell addressing the audience again twice more at both the opera house and during a formal reception meal held at the Kerby House. Others spoke with Bell, including his former associate from the Aerial Experiment Association, J.A.D. McCurdy, Gilbert Grosvenour, president of the National Geographic Society, and other dignitaries.
Alexander Graham Bell reminded the attendees that "Brantford is right in claiming the invention of the telephone here... conceived in Brantford in 1874 and born in Boston in 1875", and later addressing the Duke, said "...on behalf of the Association...in presenting to His Excellency a silver telephone... I hope that in using it he will remember that the telephone originated in Brantford and that the first transmission to a distance was made between Brantford and Paris." In appreciation to the people of Brantford, Bell's wife, Mabel Hubbard Bell, made a contribution of $500 to the city's support fund for its soldiers then fighting in Europe.