Past Master Hugh Oddie
Past Masters John Bishop and Hugh Oddie attended the opening ceremony of "The World Remembers", hosted by the Deputy Mayor, at City Hall on Oct. 22nd.
The World Remembers is a Canadian remembrance and education project produced by Canadian actor and director RH Thomson, that will individually display the names of the WWI dead from eight participating nations over the WW1Centenary years.
The names will appear in more than sixty-five schools, universities, libraries as well as other venues in Canada, the UK and Belgium.
The names will start to appear each evening at 8.30pm at Toronto City Hall as well as at all other locations and online at
www.theworldremembers.ca
In 2014, The World Remembers will run for 22 days and will display the 292,207 names of those killed in 1914 from Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Australia and the British Indian Army. In the Canadian names-display, the Canadian names will appear at the centre of the display and the international names will appear in the surround. The international names will cross fade with the next set of names every 25 seconds.
The Canadian name in 2014 display will remain for several minutes. Each name is timed to appear at an exact minute. Families can find the moment any name will appear by using the SEARCH function on the website.
The names display created by The World Remembers and Ecentricarts of Toronto is eloquent and moving. Every fifteen minutes all names fade and are replaced for 25 seconds by WWI photographs that represent all nations involved in WWI.
The names then return for another 15 minutes. The 2014 names display will complete at sunrise November 11th.
Here are the numbers of those killed in 1914 whose names will appear in the 2014 display.
- AUSTRALIA - 74
- CANADA - 205
- BRITISH INDIAN ARMY - 7,380
- UNITED KINGDOM - 33,799
- BELGIUM - 18,669
- CZECH REPUBLIC - 34,633
- GERMANY - 94,302
- TURKEY - 3,270
- FRANCE - 99,875
The project will run in the weeks leading up to November 11th in each of the WW1 Centenary years, showing each name in the 100th year after their death. The last of the millions of names will appear at sunrise November 11th 2018.
The World Remembers is a non profit organisation with Mrs. Hilary Weston as Honorary Chair and an Advisory Board that includes Major General Richard Rohmer, the Rt Honourable Adrienne Clarkson former Governor General of Canada, the Rt Honourable Paul Martin former Prime Minister of Canada, Major General Lewis MacKenzie (Ret'd), Margaret MacMillan, Sir Hew Strachan, Jonathan Vance, Michel Blondeau, Tom Jenkins, Heather Mitchell, Pauline Couture and Stuart Coxe.
Background:
RH Thomson was our Guest of Honour and speaker at our 2013 Annual Dinner with the Honourable Company recognising his endeavorswith a donation to “The World Remembers”.
The 36th AGM of the Honourable Company of Freemen
April 14th, 2015 at The Royal Canadian Military Institute
Company Comment - Spring 2015
The Unique City
The City Livery Companies
Freedom of The City
The Constitution of Company