Newspaper Article

Crowe's factory helped recruit workers for First World War

Butts, Ed

2014

Overview

John McArthur, a moulder at [Crowe]'s, was born in Scotland in 1878. His parents, William and Marguerite, immigrated to Guelph and lived on Liverpool Street. John married, and lived with his wife, Mary, on Tiffany Street. McArthur was 37 when he enlisted in October 1915. He had no previous military experience, and the social pressure on men his age to enlist wasn't nearly as great as on younger men. He might have decided to join the army out of a sense of duty. McArthur was an infantryman in the 13th Battalion when he died from wounds on Sept. 9, 1916. Bard Whetstone is the only Guelph-born man on the Crowe's list whose name is also on the city cenotaph. On his Attestation paper, filled out when he enlisted in August 1915, Whetstone gave Guelph as his birthplace, but mistakenly gave his year of birth as 1915. He named his wife, Isobel, who resided on Queen Street, as next of kin. Like the other Crowe's employees, Whetstone gave his occupation as moulder. The CEF Roll of Honour is still a work in progress, with researchers turning up names that had been long lost. But in the postwar years, when the Guelph cenotaph was still in the planning stage, someone made sure that Bard Whetstone's name was included in the list of Guelph's fallen. Perhaps it was his widow Isobel; or his former employers at Crowe's Iron Works.

• Publisher: Torstar Syndication Services, a Division of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
• Subject: Gordon, Robert Anderson / Howden, Thomas Stirling / McArthur, John H / Whetstone, Bard