The Soldiers War Memorial Committee was formed in 1920. The group worked with the Stratford Chamber of Commerce and collected $19,000, of the $25,000 needed to build a memorial, from the citizens of Stratford, North Easthope, Downie and Ellice Townships. The remaining cost was covered by grants from municipal councils. Sculptor Walter S. Allward was invited to submit a design for the monument.
The Stratford War Memorial was erected in 1920 and unveiled on November 6, 1922, in the heart of the City and at the converging point of the four townships. The memorial features two bronze sculptures mounted on one of three granite blocks, which are positioned on a granite base comprised of two layered slabs. The granite came from the Stanstead quarry in Quebec. The figures symbolize the triumph of right over brute force, a theme that Allward had previously explored in his sketch model The Service of Our Men–Crushing the Power of the Sword, 1918, for the proposed Bank of Commerce War Memorial, and would revisit at the Vimy Memorial in France.
The first statue is a spiritual man represented at the highest point of the base that connects the two statues, his head looking upward toward the heavens and his left hand holding a palm branch, symbolizing peace. The second statue, representing strife, walks down an incline, dragging a broken sword in defeat.
The memorial was modified in 1955 and a rededication ceremony was held on May 9, 1955. Bronze plaques bearing the names of those who died in the First World War, Second World War, and Korean War were installed on the fronts and backs of the two side blocks, covering the original engraved inscriptions, which by then had become almost illegible. In 1961, the memorial was moved to Memorial Park.
In 2018, volunteers Nancy Stotts Jones and Lorna Harris, in partnership with the Stratford-Perth Archives, installed a bronze plaque designed by Scott McKowen that describes the significance of the memorial and Allward. On November 7, 2021, the Stratford-Perth Archives launched a webpage exploring Allward’s legacy and the significance of his work in Stratford. It is part of the Allward memorial project, a four-year effort to better tell the story behind the Stratford War Memorial and its world-renowned creator.
Sculptor Walter S. Allward left school at fourteen and learned about sculpture through books and magazines at the local library and by studying replicas at a nearby museum. By twenty, he had won his first commission. One of Allward’s first projects was through Sir Edmund Walker, President of the Bank of Commerce. In 1918, Walker asked Allward for memorial ideas honouring bank employees who had served and Allward submitted two wax models sculptures. The first, The Service of Our Women—Healing the Scars of War, depicts a woman sowing seeds on rocky incline strewn with war debris, including a broken canon. The second, The Service of Our Men–Crushing the Power of the Sword, portrays a man standing over a recumbent figure with his sword cast aside, symbolizing the brute beast of willful war waged by a misguided nation. The sculptures were never used, but his proposals explored ideas that would be expressed in his future war memorials: Stratford, 1919–22; Peterborough, 1921–29; and Brantford, 1921–33.
