Gilberts: White Bronze Company Offered Unique Headstones

Article content

Amid all the wonderful stories and mesmerizing character portraits on our annual Graveyard Tour at Maple Leaf Cemetery, I hope you get a chance to be enlightened by at least one of the “cemetery mysteries” that I find absolutely fascinating.

Article content

If I mention a rather pitiful-looking “spiritual lad” playing a young man from the late 1890s intrigued by a small, unusual bluish tombstone during a cemetery stroll a few years ago, I hope it reminds you.

Once you get to know their color and ornate ornamentation, you’ll find them in many Victorian-era cemeteries in our area and throughout North America. These curious gray-blue hollow metal tombstones are known as “white bronze.”

They are usually distinctive obelisk-shaped markers with individualized decorations and inscriptions, so no two specimens are alike. Our local Maple Leaf and St. Anthony cemeteries have several of these white bronze creations.

Most of the white bronze creations in Canada were manufactured not far from Chatham-Kent in St. Thomas. The White Bronze Monument Co. was at 110 Talbot St., on Church Street. Today, the site is partially occupied by the Mansion Towers parking lot.

Article content

The company’s president, manager and secretary, H. B. Pollock, secured in 1883 the only Canadian franchise for the products of the Monumental Bronze Co. of Bridgeport, Connecticut, which had begun operations as early as 1874.

The White Bronze Monument also made statuary and in the week following its dedication in 1883, the company was negotiating a contract to build the Cartier Monument in Quebec, a white bronze fountain for the city of Guelph and in 1885, a bronze monument white for Jumbo the elephant in St. Thomas.

The term “white bronze” was chosen to distinguish the blue-gray metal from the copper metal known as “antique bronze” and to associate the products with the aura of sculpture, refinement and longevity that the term “bronze” evoked for many Victorians. In reality, these monuments were analyzed in modern times and identified as 99% pure zinc.

Article content

The company White Bronze has classified its new headstones as virtually indestructible, corrosion-free, resistant to color changes, non-magnetic and does not support the growth of moss or lichen. And since they didn’t absorb moisture, they wouldn’t be affected by frost. Many were skeptical of these claims in the 1880s, but a casual examination of these monuments in Chatham-Kent’s local cemeteries reveals them to be true.

Although White Bronze headstones were undoubtedly works of art, they did not enjoy as much acceptance in Victorian times as more traditional natural stones. People in the 1880s feared they would be empty and unproven as a lasting monument.

On June 3, 1891, the company’s liabilities and declining sales convinced shareholders to liquidate all of the company’s assets and the White Bronze Monument Co. of St. But the new owners had little success, and on October 1, 1891, 1899, the land, facilities, machinery, tools and utensils were sold to other interests for the paltry sum of $2,000.

Article content

What an absolute shame! The distinctive white bronze monuments can be found in many older cemeteries in southwestern Ontario and beyond.

Almost without exception, they have retained their unique appearance, personal inscriptions, distinctive finials, heartfelt poems, and wonderfully evocative decorations.

Walking through cemeteries, anywhere in the world, should never be considered strange, scary or macabre, but rather a quiet, peaceful and interesting walk back to times gone by and forgotten stories.

And perhaps it is also a good time to remember that we will all be in such a place in the distant or not so distant future. Remember that we will be dead much longer than we will be alive.

Article content