WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE AT QUEEN’S PARK
The
memorial
ensemble is at Queen’s Park on the west lawn at the side of
the
building, a small plot that fronts on the heavily-travelled
southbound lanes of Queen’s Park Crescent, Toronto
This striking
ensemble commemorates the
100th anniversary of the Rebellions of 1837-38 in the Canada. It
features a head and shoulders sculpture of Mackenzie mounted on a
soaring plinth. At the base of the plinth is a flat engraved stone,
with an inscription telling of Mackenzie’s contribution to
the
struggle for democratic reform and social advance against a
tyrannical Family Compact. Mackenzie (1795-1861) was
Toronto’s first
mayor in 1834, a member for York in the Legislature 1828-1836 and
later for Haldimand in the Legislative Assembly of Canada 1851-1858.
He is buried in the Necropolis in Toronto’s East End along
with
Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, two of his leading lieutenants who
were executed after the Rebellion.
Official
guides draw little attention to this striking monument, designed by
Walter S. Allward. Depending on the light and angle from which
one looks up
at the figure, differing aspects of Mackenzie’s character
seem to
burst out of the cast figure, giving an inesacapable impression of
Mackenzie’s fighting qualities and determination. A
reflecting pool
to mirror the ensemble was in the original plan, but Queen’s
Park
officials, to the dismay of the designer, ordered the draining of the
pool and filled it with turf and flowers. To the rear of the plinth
is a long raised platform with a bronze figure striding purposefully
against the wind, while reading intently from a large open volume.
Before him on the same ground lies a plough. The artist’s
message
appears to have been to glorify the spirit of education, the
ploughing of the soil and the forward movement against the tempest.
The
Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie and the Rebellion of
1837-38, a two-volume work by Charles
Lindsey, son-in-law
and biographer of Mackenzie, was originally published by P.R. Randall
of Toronto in 1862. Appearing some 24 years after the events,
it
contains important documentation, some of it little known. A striking
example is the full text of the draft Constitution was prepared by
Mackenzie and published in the 15 November
1837 issue of The Constitution, on the eve of the
scheduled
attack on Toronto by the rebel forces. It was to be submitted to a
convention of elected delegates from throughout Upper Canada in
Toronto to set up a provisional republican form of government on the
successful overthrow of the oligarchic Family Compact. The latter
never took place; however, the document remains as a powerful
statement with lively relevance in many of its parts for today.