Previous Lot Next Lot

Auction: 23113 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 576

(x) A Great War M.C. group of four awarded to Lieutenant S. MacQ. Sproule, Canadian Engineers, late Canadian Army Service Corps, who erected the 1st Canadian Division Memorial at Vimy Ridge

Military Cross, G.V.R.; 1914-15 Star (35554 Cpl. S. M. Sproule. Can: A.S.C.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. S. M. Sproule.), good very fine (4)

M.C. London Gazette 15 February 1918:

'For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in charge of a working party building a plank road. The hostile shelling was extremely heavy on all roads & communications, and the infantry were forced to retire. He, with his Sappers, continued to remain, repaired the damaged caused by the shells, and rendered the road passable for immediate traffic. His gallant conduct was the greatest inspiration and example to the men under him.'

Stanley MacQuana Sproule was born at Montreal in 1889 and educated in Montreal where he graduated from the Department of Architecture at McGill University in 1912. He articled with Brown & Vallance in 1912-14 until the outbreak of the Great War (Biography of Canadian Architects, refers). Sproule joined the 1st Reserve Park, Canadian Expeditionary Force in September 1914 and went to France in April 1917. Promoted Lance-Corporal in the field in June 1917, he was commissioned into the 3rd Field Company, Canadian Engineers on 29 June 1917. Attached to the 20th Light Railway Train from 18 January-6 February 1918, he was wounded in action on 9 September 1918 and was released in May 1919.

Returned to work as a draftsman with Brown & Vallance from 1919-25, he left Canada and moved to New York City in late 1925. Sproule worked for several firms including Andrew J. Thomas (in 1925-27), for L. A. Goldstone (in 1927-30) and for Charles A. Platt (in 1930-31), who was the master of the Georgian Revival style and designer of palatial houses in New England and the American mid-west. Sproule tried his hand at practicing in New York under his own name from 1933, but returned to Montreal in 1935 and later opened his own office there. He was among twenty-three entrants who submitted designs in the competition for the headquarters of the Province of Quebec Assoc. of Architects in 1939, and he received Second Prize for his scheme (R.A.I.C. Journal, xvi, Dec. 1939, 263). In 1949 he presented a scheme for an extensive flour mill complex on the Montreal waterfront and this group of buildings still stands as of 2022. Sproule died in Montreal on 18 July 1965; sold together with copied research.

Some of his drawings are available to access via https://www.ccc.umontreal.ca/fiche_projet.php?lang=en&pId=4977

Subject to 5% tax on Hammer Price in addition to 20% VAT on Buyer’s Premium.

Sold for
£1,100

Starting price
£550