page_title: Arthur, Ontario
section_title: Canada's most patriotic village
hierarchical_section_title: Arthur, Ontario / History / Canada's most patriotic village
caption_attribution_description: English: Arthur Cenotaph
context_page_description: Arthur is a community located just north of Highway 6 and Wellington Road 109 in the township of Wellington North, Ontario, Canada. Formerly an independent village, Arthur was amalgamated into Wellington North on January 1, 1999.
context_section_description: In November 1942, the Toronto Star ran a front-page headline that read "Arthur Village Gives Sons and Money to Aid the War", and recognized Arthur as the Most Patriotic Village in Canada, as one out of every seven Arthur residents fought in the Second World War. At that time 126 residents had enlisted from the population of 890. It was the highest ratio in comparison to villages of comparable sizes in Canada.  By the end of the war, 338 Arthur residents had enlisted, and 25 were killed in action.
  During the first war bond campaign of World War II, the village of Arthur was the first community in Ontario to reach its quota, which it did within a few minutes. Arthur also led the communities in Wellington for every other war and victory bond campaign and surpassed all objectives that had been set. By the end of the fourth campaign, Arthur had raised a total of $250,000 which was an amount equal to 64% of the assessed value of the village's taxable property.
  In 2002, David Tilson, MPP for Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey stated in the Ontario legislature, that because of the village of Arthur's extraordinary World War II record, the community was now being recognized as "Canada's Most Patriotic Village".
  The sacrifice of these soldiers is honoured by the Cenotaph of Arthur, located in the heart of the village. The monument was unveiled on August 6, 1923 by Mrs. David Brocklebank, whose son was killed at the end of World War I, before the largest crowd ever assembled in Arthur village. After the unveiling the Toronto Star described the cenotaph as "a war memorial whose design and beauty cannot be equaled as yet in the Province." On the cenotaph are engraved the names of the 193 men who enlisted in World War I (including the 40 who were KIA), as well as the 363 men and women who enlisted in World War II, among whom 25 made the ultimate sacrifice. One unique feature of the cenotaph was that when it was being designed a decision was made to build the monument with stones gathered from local farms. It was later discovered that the memorial was the first fieldstone Cenotaph Memorial built in the province.
  Some of the men that enlisted from the Arthur area were British Home Children that were sent here from orphanages in the UK. Between 1869 and 1948 over 118,000 orphaned and abandoned children up to the age of 16 were sent to Canada to work as farm hands and domestic servants.
caption: Arthur Cenotaph
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-P41", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2011:07:13 14:04:27", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-P41", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2011:07:13 14:04:27", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2482", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "16598", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:07:13 14:04:27", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:07:13 14:04:27", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "47/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2304", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1728", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2276", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}