Beechwood Cemetery | |||||||||||
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Location | 280 Beechwood Avenue Ottawa, Ontario K1L 8A6 | ||||||||||
Area | 64.7 hectares (160 acres) | ||||||||||
Architect | Moses Chamberlain Edey; Robertson Martin Architects | ||||||||||
Architectural style(s) | Neo-Gothic | ||||||||||
Governing body | The Beechwood Cemetery Foundation; The Beechwood Cemetery Company | ||||||||||
Website | Beechwood Cemetery website | ||||||||||
Designated | 2001 | ||||||||||
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Beechwood Cemetery is the national cemetery of Canada, located in Vanier, Ottawa, Ontario. Over 82,000 people are buried in the cemetery, including Governor General Ramon Hnatyshyn, Prime Minister Robert Borden, and several members of Parliament, premiers, Canadian Armed Forces personnel and veterans, Royal Canadian Mounted Police personnel, Canadian Security Intelligence Service intelligence officers, and Hockey Hall of Famers, alongside other notable Canadians. In addition to being Canada's national cemetery, it contains the National Military Cemetery of the Canadian Armed Forces [1] and the National Memorial Cemetery of the RCMP. [2]
Beechwood has received various honours and designations because it is recognized as an example of 19th-century rural cemeteries and as a place of national significance and importance as a depository of Canadian history. It was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada in 2001. The cemetery has served as the National Military Cemetery of Canada since 2001 [3] and has served since 2004 as the RCMP National Memorial Cemetery. [4] Governor General Michaëlle Jean opened the Beechwood National Memorial Centre on 7 April 2008. [5] In 2017, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's National Memorial Cemetery was established at Beechwood. [6]
Pipe Major Sergeant Tom Brown is the "on call" piper of the National Military Cemetery at Beechwood, where he can perform up to a dozen outdoor funerals a year. [7]
When new military colours are received or a unit is disbanded, colours are treated with utmost respect to military service and are never destroyed. After being carried on parade for the last time, the colour party presents the colours prior to the ceremony in which they are laid up for safekeeping in the Hall of Colours. Designed by Robertson Martin Architects, the Hall of Colours features a memorial stained glass window featuring an oak tree in leaf honouring Canadian military chaplains. [8] The Hall of Colours was supported by a donation of $50,000 from Dominion Command of the Royal Canadian Legion. [9]
The retired colours of Canada's army, air force, and naval regiments are mounted at ceiling level in the Hall of Colours in the National Memorial Centre. [10] They include:
Canadian soldiers who were killed in the line of duty and war veterans have been buried in Beechwood Cemetery since the North-West Rebellion of 1885. The cemetery contains the National Military Cemetery which consists of two sections managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, a Veterans Section owned by Veterans Affairs Canada, and the National Military Cemetery of the Canadian Forces, created in 2001 and owned and managed by the federal Department of National Defence.
The first monument in the cemetery was erected by members of the 2nd Ottawa Field Battery in the 1870s. The sculptured sandstone cairn is dedicated to the memory of their former commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel John B. Turner. [12] Erected in the 1870s by members of the 2nd Ottawa Field Battery, a sculptured sandstone statue on shaft is dedicated to the memory of a former commander, Captain James Forsyth. [13]
The cemetery inspired a classic Canadian poem "In Beechwood Cemetery" by Archibald Lampman with its memorable final line, "They know no season but the end of time." [14]
Moses Chamberlain Edey designed the cemetery entrance gates in 1891. [15]
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is responsible for the graves of 98 Commonwealth (mainly Canadian) service personnel of World War I and 113 of World War II. The commission also maintains the Ottawa Cremation Memorial, in a shelter adjoining the newer of the veterans' plots, which lists 26 personnel who were cremated in Canada and the US in World War II. [16]
Noted for its Neo-Gothic architecture, the mausoleum at Beechwood was built by Canada Mausoleums Ltd. in the early 1930s. After a few years of operation, in a time of depression and financial difficulties, the mausoleum became the property of the cemetery. The building features stained glass windows designed by noted stained glass artist James Blomfield.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission erected a memorial, known as a Cross of Sacrifice, incorporating a bronze sword inlayed in a granite cross in memory of the war dead buried in the cemetery's field of honour. [17]
On 5 March 2009 Environment Minister Jim Prentice introduced legislation [18] to designate Beechwood as the National Cemetery of Canada due to "its location here in our national capital, Beechwood serves as a focal point for our national memorial events, including Remembrance Day, and it is an appropriate place to conduct state burials." This was done to "serve as an important symbol of Canadian unity and pride and a means of preserving and promoting Canada's rich history and our diversity." [19] The bill was passed on March 6. [20] The bill received royal assent on April 23, 2009. [21]
The multi-faith aspects include a monument to Our Lady of Fatima, Élisabeth Bruyère, St. Marie-Marguerite d'Youville, St. Charbel (for the Lebanese community) and a pagoda in the Chinese section of the cemetery and an Aboriginal Tribute Garden. [9] [22]
A full list of notable individuals buried at Beechwood can be found on the cemetery's website. [23]
List by death year:
Mount Pleasant Cemetery is a cemetery located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and is part of the Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries. It was opened in November 1876 and is located north of Moore Park, a neighbourhood of Toronto. The cemetery has kilometres of drives and walking paths interspersed with fountains, statues and botanical gardens, as well as rare and distinct trees. It was originally laid out by German-born landscape architect Henry Adolph Engelhardt, inspired by the European and American garden cemeteries of the 19th century, and with influences from Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston.
Parliament Hill, colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern bank of the Ottawa River that houses the Parliament of Canada in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It accommodates a suite of Gothic revival buildings whose architectural elements were chosen to evoke the history of parliamentary democracy. Parliament Hill attracts approximately three million visitors each year. The Parliamentary Protective Service is responsible for law enforcement on Parliament Hill and in the parliamentary precinct, while the National Capital Commission is responsible for maintaining the nine-hectare (22-acre) area of the grounds.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations military service members who died in the two World Wars. The commission is also responsible for commemorating Commonwealth civilians who died as a result of enemy action during the Second World War. The commission was founded by Sir Fabian Ware and constituted through royal charter in 1917 as the Imperial War Graves Commission. The change to the present name took place in 1960.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a tomb situated before the National War Memorial in Confederation Square, Ottawa, Ontario. The tomb is dedicated to Canadian service members, and holds the remains of an unidentified Canadian soldier who died in France during the First World War; selected from a Commonwealth War Grave near Vimy, in the vicinity where the Battle of Vimy Ridge took place. A similar memorial was installed in June of 2024 at the National War Memorial in St. John's, Newfoundland to contain the unidentified Great War remains of a soldier of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.
Notre Dame Cemetery, is a Catholic cemetery in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Opened in 1872, it is the most prominent Catholic cemetery in Ottawa. The cemetery's western edge is located in Vanier, just south of Beechwood Cemetery. Its eastern limit is St. Laurent Boulevard. The cemetery is the final resting place for more than 114,000 people.
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The Ceremonial Guard is an ad hoc military unit in the Canadian Armed Forces that performs the changing the guard ceremony on Parliament Hill and posts sentries at Rideau Hall, with the National War Memorial being sentried by the National Sentry Program (NSP), which is carried out by different regiments and other units in order of precedence throughout the summer until mid-November.
Hamilton Livingstone "Billy" Gilmour was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. A winger, Gilmour played for the Ottawa Hockey Club in the Canadian Amateur Hockey League. Two of his brothers, Suddy Gilmour and Dave Gilmour, also played with Ottawa. He was a member of five Ottawa Stanley Cup championship teams in 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906 and 1909. He also played competitively for the McGill Redmen and Montreal Victorias. He retired from competitive ice hockey in 1909, but returned to play two games for Ottawa in the 1915–16 season.
George Taylor Richardson was a Canadian ice hockey player, businessman and soldier. Richardson played hockey for Queen's University and the 14th Regiment of Kingston, and was considered one of the finest amateurs of his time. He is enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and is the namesake of the George Richardson Memorial Trophy. Richardson was part of a prominent business family that owned and operated a grain processing business in Kingston, Ontario. He joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the First World War, and died in action in Belgium.
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Canadian war memorials are buildings, monuments, and statues that commemorate the armed actions in the territory encompassing modern Canada, the role of the Canadian military in conflicts and peacekeeping operations, and Canadians who died or were injured in a war. Much of this military history of Canada is commemorated today with memorials across the country and around the world. Canadian memorials commemorate the sacrifices made as early as the Seven Years' War to the modern day War on Terror. As Newfoundland was a British Dominion until joining Confederation in 1949, there are several monuments in Newfoundland and Labrador and abroad which were dedicated to Newfoundland servicemen and women.
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