I Brock lore: Statue shoulder stolen in monumental prank

IBrock lore: Statue shoulder stolen in monumental prank
I
Posted by jocelyn on Apr 8thJ 2011 and f k d under LearnJTop stories. You can foUow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
1
Late one Thursday night i n 1%5,
ka#:Brod<'smshoulder
suddenly qppeared on the fmnt
lawn of Bmdc University.
It wa6 not his actud shoulder, of
course, but a Cmestone replica
fmm his statue atop the Bmdc
I
Bmdcu-pahk,
196667
Monument a t Queenston
Heights - the Legend was it had
fden off many years before
after being strudc by Cghtning.
Some frash students found it
stored a t the base of the
&m, and ddmed it for the University.
At the time it was thought that other body parts might MOW.
As the student
newzpaper The Bodgw reported: T h e Cbemtors ,
hope to recover his other
shoulder so that we can at least have mates."
That never happened, but thanks to the initiative of these early students,
Bmdc's shoulder s t i l resides on the University campus, in a unner of Jubilee
Court.
Or so the story m
The story of Brock
What really happened?How b d a piece of h x k ' s Monument end up at Bmdc
University?
After some investigating, we have mast of the answers, though there remain
some loose ends that need tying up.
The story of our University's names&?, Maj.-Gen. Er lsaac Brad<, is wlel
lmown. He was kiMed by a sniper's M e t on Oct. 13,1812 while W n g a c h a ~ ~ e
against an American invasion at the Battle of QueenstonHeights i n the W a of
Latin for "Push
1812. His last pmnoun-t
is said to have been Surgite!"
on!" - which is Bmdc University's motto.
-
Gcactly 12years later* on Oct. 13,1824, thousands of people gathered on
Queenston Heights to debcate a 135foot monument i n his honour. The
remains of Bmdc and his aide-de-camp*
Lt.-Cd. John Mwdonel, were brought
iium Fort George where they hadlain since the battle and wem reinterredi n a
vM(t below the monument. Legend has it that Mmdonel's body was bady
d e c a p s d , while Bmdc's was near perfect.
But the deceawd were not alowed to rest i n peace* for on April 17,1840, the
monument was damaged beyond repair by a temwist bomber believed to be
Msh-CanadSan Benjamin Lett. DesaSbed as a 4agihond" by none other than
Charles Didcens, Lett was i n league with Wan Lyon Madcenzie, leader of the
Llpper Canada Rebe4ion of 1837.
Publicindipation was fierce* and on July 30, thousan& gathered at Queenston
Heights to Launch the buildngof a new monument. A design ampetition was
held and architect Thornas Young war dedared the winner, but nothing
happened for more than a decade. Then at last, i n July 1853, what was left of
the dd monument was tom down, and on Oct. 13 (that date again) the corner
stone of the new monument was Ldd. Bmdc and Macdonel, who had been
movedtoagmeyadin Queenstonvibge, werephcedinavM(tbeneath.
The new monument was not, however,
Young's winning design. hstead, it was an
inposing 185-footCorinthian d u m n topped
by a statue of Bmd<, designed by another
architect dtogether*WRliamThonras. On
Oct.13 (when else?)* 1859it was officially
inwguratedbefore a crowd again numbering
in the thousands.
Disaster strikes
Formorethan 70yearssthestatueofBmdc
stood p m d y atop its monument on the
NagamEscarpment brow at Queenston
Heights. But i n 1929disaster struck On April
5, a huge thunderstormlastingalmost six
hours d e d havoc thmughout Centrd
Ontaio, causing extensive damage. Bmdc's
statue was one of the casudties -its
The scaffolding amund BFO&*s
Monument 1930
outstretched right arm broke off and came crashing down. Weighing nearly hdf
a tonne, it split into three pieces that were buried deeply i n the grwnd.
The statue may dready have been weakened by an earthquake that rattled
Magara Fdls a year and a hdf before, and an inspection of the monument
confirmed the worst. The statue was i n particularly bad shqpe, and the 1930
annud report of the Niagam Parks Commission stated: "It is renrarkable that the
head had remainedso long without fang, for the upper part of the tono was
completely shattered through the action of the elements."
1 There was no choice but to remove the
entire statue from the waist up and
lowerit to the ground. The torso and
both arms were rebuilt from scratch, but
the head, d n g to Ron Dde, former
supen'ntendant of Niagara Nationd
Hstoricd Sites of Canada, was repaired
and put back in position. In addition,
the whde monument was repainted to
mdce it more weather-proof.
Students 'reclaimed' the
torso and shouIder
The fdlen arm and the removed pieces
were then stored at the base of the
monument and promptly ignored, until
that Thunight i n 1965 when those
enterprising &odc students "redairned"
the torso and left shoulder (complete
The weathered torso of Brock's Monument
with epaulet and chest medd) for the
1930
University and p k e dit on the front
h.
The Lawn in question, inddentaly, was not the one i n front of the
Schmon Tower, which was only then under construction, but a patch of grass
h n t i n g the former refrigerator factory down the h i l where the hiversity
spent its eady years.
&odc's president, James A. Gibson, was not pleased, and wasted no time
having the stone returned to the Magara Parks Commission. But i n about 1973 it
came back again, legdly this time, as a tribute to the many individuals,
organizations, corporations and unions that helped mise $8.5 million for the
University's Foundng Fund. A plaque marking the occasion was mounted on the
stone and unveiled by C. Bruce Hil, g e n d chairman of the fund.
For several years, the stone sat i n what
was cdled Founders' Court i n the
Mackenzie Chown complex, but was
then transferred to Jubilee Court where
it still stands. There are plans t o move it
permanently indoors this spring. 'The
weather i s having a harsh effect on the
stone," says Ledey Bell (BA '88, BA 'W),
visud resources librarian at Brock
University. "Brock will findly be coming
out of the cdd."
The destination i s expected t o be
Bruce Hill vith Brock shoulder in Founder's
Brock's new Market Hdl, which dready
Court, 1974
displays a dramatic 60-foot m u d by
Canadian artist Bogdan Luca depicting images from the War of 1812, induding
one of lsaac Brock mounted on his horse Alfred.
So we know now that the stone i n Jubilee Court did not fdl i n the storm of
1929 but was removed from the monument a year later, and we dso know how
it findly came t o the University.
But questions remain. In
particular, the story of what
happened i n 1%5 i s still
incomplete, and i f anyone
reading this was involved i n
that escapade, and is
prepared t o own up and
provide further details we'd
love to hear from you. After
dl, that stone is redly, redly
heavy how on earth did
-
Piece of Bmck's Monument that now resides in Jubilee
Court
Print Friendy
Categories: L
TOPst
Tags: 1 mni, Brock h
I,