Hamilton maccarthy

   One of his sons became an engineer, another a musician and the other son Coeur de Lion a sculptor.

   This brought the line of sculptors into the fourth generation so the records are proud to explain. His daughters were fine looking women and I got to know Edith when she was living at Maclaren Nursing Home in Ottawa. It was through her that I got so many family tidbits of their lives crossing the Atlantic to her brother Leo as she called him the nights he took the family house for some night trips.

   I flew up on Valentines Day one year to receive the stickpin her father wore in his lapel. She even gave me the reading glass that once belonged to Sir John A. Macdonald. It was some time later that I got to visit with her brother who had been living in seclusion for many years. How dignified she was without being a snob. She had class and was glowing to show it when she talked to you. She loved her other brother Planty who was a pianist with his studies in New York City.

   We did not talk about her fathers work and I wonder if she knew much about what went on in the studio. I know that Hamilton had open house most weekends according to the newspaper ads I found. Going back to his education and works in England I got a hold of one of the relatives who shared the letters from Lord this and that confirming his doing a bust of them. At first I wondered at his doing so much in London and to compare it to what he did in Canada for the University of Toronto and Queens in Kingston Ontario.

   One by one I sought out these places and got photos of the works mostly busts to make my records complete, It is nothing to find the public War memorials in Ottawa for commemoration of the Boer War in Africa. His son served in that war. I learned that Leo posed for the statue that is in the park in Ottawa. In Quebec City there is a Boer War Memorial done by him and again in St. John N.B. His Samuel Champlain statue stands on the hill in Ottawa with his Indian Scout kneeling at his feet as the explorer looks over the land while the other is situated in St. John N.B

   Looking further in Montreal is the bust of Col.Gzowski in the Engineering Club. Professor Goldwin Smith got finished in marble and is at the Ontario Art Gallery. Hamlet and Shakespeare are his subjects also. Bobby Burns from Scotland and his Lady became statues

   His statue of Sir John A. Macdonald at the foot of the Ontario Parliament buildings is certainly his work. The records of the granting and raising funds for the erection are in the Public Archives in Toronto. That would make a story all by itself. He even reduced his fee by $500.00 after he got the commission. This is a very personal statue much nicer then others done by foreign sculptors.

   Statues are in Ottawa around the Parliament Buildings Alexander Mackenzie and one of Sir James Whitney at Queens Park the surprise and bonus are the two Lions at the entrance to the Public Library Brantford. A bust at Notre Dame Cemetery in Ottawa has a bust of the former Mayor Samuel Bingham and can be missed as it hides away. I have over ten pages listing his works if anyone is interested enough to want them. Where else could you find all you want to know about this robust artist for I have searched it for you?

   Hamilton belonged to every Society Club there was and knew every Politician there was to know. He did busts of Brock and all the founding members in Canada. His large bust of Brock is in Brockville on a pedestal in the park.

   Enjoy this man and follow what he tried to start in this new land of ours. He went all out and was a driving force in the establishing schools and art societies still going strong.

   Who would wonder at such a man with such a name being anything other then a success both in England where he was born and educated and in Canada by 1885?

 

   His history is long as was his life doing his only love, art, music and education. Everywhere you look there is evidence of his trying to wed all of the arts together in the education system. He had ten children, enough to keep any educator busy.

Hamilton Thomas Carlton MacCarthy 1846 - 1939

 

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