A GLANCE AT THE PHOTOGRAPH

CREDITS:
Archives of Ontario, Acc 12851, F 1075, H871, AO 6825.

This is one of very similar two photographs in the Archives of Ontario’s Hammond Collection identified as “A.S. Forester’s [sic] Garden, Aug. 1924.” Also in the collection is the previous image in this postfolio: “Home of A.S. Forester [sic], August 1924.”

The photographer is M.O. Hammond, who was born in Clarkson, ON, in 1876. At 14 he became that village’s correspondent for the Oakville Star, and at 17 moved to Toronto to go to Central Business College. Later he worked for The Globe, eventually becoming its Queen’s Park reporter. Hammond was also a keen amateur photographer whose subjects included family members (often in a garden setting), people in the arts and letters, and scenes from his travels. The Hammond Collection also contains several photos taken in Oakville in 1925 and 1926. Hammond died in 1934 at the age of 58.

QUICK COMMENTS:
A.S. Forster is seated in an extensive side garden. His house and the birch near it–as seen in the photo identified as “Home of A.S. Forester [sic], August 1924”–are visible in the distance. As in the other photo, Forster occupies only a small part of the whole composition; Hammond has achieved considerable depth of field; and many details of this portion of the home landscape show clearly.

Although the house, albeit drastically changed by vinyl siding and a front addition, is still standing at 242 Queen Mary Drive, this extensive side yard is gone.



A SERIES OF QUESTIONS:
When was Queen Mary Drive constructed?
How large was the A.S. Forster property in the 1920s and what road did it front on?
Where was the “Old Forster House”?
Where was “Forsters Bush”?
Have you seen similar garden benches?