C.W. JEFFERYS

Statue on plinth, northwest corner Old Yonge St. and Mill St. Toronto

Up the path past the Hoggs Hollow sign, you will find a statue of C.W. Jefferys holding paint brushes, resting comfortably in an area of Toronto where he once lived.

Charles William Jefferys (1869-1951) was a prolific painter, illustrator, muralist, engraver, designer, writer, lecturer and teacher. He apprenticed in lithography and is known chiefly for his work on historical themes, many of them published in The Picture Gallery of Canadian History. Outlines of some of these drawings are engraved on the plinth. His murals appear in the Chateau Laurier, Manoir Richelieu and the Royal Ontario Museum. Jefferys taught drawing and painting at the University of Toronto, and a plaque in his memory can be seen on the campus near the Medical Sciences Building. He designed and did working drawings for the famous Clifton Gate Pioneer Memorial Arch in Niagara Falls, erected to the memory of the pioneers and especially to the martyrs of the Rebellions of 1837-38 in Upper and Lower Canada. This celebrated monument fell to the wrecker’s hammer, but some of the sculptures remain preserved in the garden of Mackenzie House, Bond St., Toronto.