Guelph Cenotaph

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Horatio Nelson Vipond, born on 16th November 1897, was the fourth of the five sons (the youngest Redvers Buller was named after the British Commander in Chief during the Boer War) of local publican John Vipond and his wife Jane Brown, and was probably born in one of his father’s many pubs in Sunderland, the Villiers Hotel. Jane, his mother died in 1905 and his father in 1908, and the five boys went to live with their widowed paternal aunt and her son in Zion Street. In April 1911 William, Thomas and Horatio arrived in Canada on board the SS Corsican, with their Aunt Elizabeth, her son, also called Thomas, and Edwin and Redvers arriving a month later on the same ship’s next voyage to Canada.

The extended family settled in Merian Street, Guelph, Ontario and Horatio found work as a moulder. On 1st September 1915 he joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force becoming Private 126050 in 71st Battalion, and embarked for England on the SS Olympic on 11th April 1916. Transferred to 54th Battalion on arrival at camp at Bramshott, Hampshire he proceeded to France with the battalion arriving in Havre on 14th August making for billets at Chippewa Camp. By the end of the month they were in trenches at St. Eloi, before moving on to Albert.

It was in the front line trenches on 16th October 1916 that Private 126050 Horatio Nelson Vipond was killed when the enemy opened a heavy bombardment of whizz bangs and shells.

Horatio Vipond is remembered in Sunderland on S140.048 part 9 page 202

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance and on the Cenotaph in Guelph, Ontario.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Vipond