Historical Stones of
Toronto's Mount Pleasant
Cemetery
​Guy Simonds:
Plot H, Lot 573
Born April 23, 1903
Died May 15, 1974
Born in Surrey, England in April 1903, Simonds came to Canada with his parents when he was nine years old. In 1925, he graduated from Royal Military College, first in his class. During the Second World War, Simonds became Canada’s youngest General and led the 2nd Canadian Corps drive through north-western Europe. On May 5, 1945, the First Canadian Army under Simonds’ command marched into Holland where the unconditionall surrender of the German forces was accepted. The “Liberator of Holland,” as Simonds was called, was also described by Field Marshall Viscount Montgomery as “the best product of the allied side.” Following the end of hostilities, Simonds took command of the Canadian Defence College and the Staff College. He was then appointed Chief of the General Staff and became Colonel-in-Chief of the Toronto-based Royal Regiment of Canada. In the business world, Simonds was President of United Ceramics, Frontenac Floor and Tile, and the Toronto Brick Company. He was also Vice-President and a Director of Commercial Life and Halifax Insurance. Following a long illness, General Guy Simonds, C.C., C.B., C.B.E, D.S.O, died on May 15, 1974. Three days later a funeral service was held at Grace Church-on-the-Hill followed by a procession, during which the body was borne to Mount Pleasant Cemetery on a flag-draped gun carriage. At the cemetery there was a full military burial service, complete with rifle salute.
​Isaac Hughes and Thomas Moor
Plot H, Lot 27
The North-West Rebellion (or the North-West Resistance, Saskatchewan Rebellion, Northwest Uprising, or Second Riel Rebellion) of 1885 was a brief and unsuccessful uprising by the Métis people under Louis Riel, and an associated uprising by First Nations Cree and Assiniboine, of the District of Saskatchewan against the government of Canada. The Métis believed that Canada had failed to protect their rights, their land and their survival as a distinct people. Riel had been invited to lead the movement but he turned it into a military action with a heavily religious tone, thereby alienating the Catholic clergy, the whites, nearly all of the Indians and most of the Métis. He had a force of a couple hundred Métis and a smaller number of Indians at Batoche in May 1885, confronting 900 government troops. Despite some notable early victories at Duck Lake, Fish Creek and Cut Knife, the rebellion ended when the Métis were defeated at the siege of Batoche. The remaining Indian allies scattered. Riel was captured and put on trial. He was convicted of treason and despite many pleas across Canada for amnesty, he was hanged. Riel became the heroic martyr to Francophone Canada and ethnic tensions escalated into a major national division that was never resolved. Thanks to the key role that the Canadian Pacific Railway played in transporting troops, Conservative political support for it increased and Parliament authorized funds to complete the country's first transcontinental railway. On May 16, 1887 a memorial erected in memory of Privates Thomas Moor and Isaac Thomas Hughes, both of whom died as a result of action at Batôche during the Northwest Rebellion, was unveiled in the presence of 400 members of the late private’s regiment, Toronto’s Tenth Royal Grenadiers. 271 Grenadiers under Lieutenant H. J. Grasett participated in the action. The 18-year-old Moor was killed in action on May 9, 1885 while Hughes, age 20, succumbed on September 1, 1885 to wounds inflicted during an encounter on May 12.
