Fonds DEC - de Carle family fonds

Lancelot de Carle (1825-1905) served his apprenticeship as a stonecutter with his uncle Benjamin de Carle in his native Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England, and emigrated to Canada following his marriage in 1853. He worked at his trade for several years in Lancaster village, Glengarry County, Canada West (1856-58) and at Waterloo (now Cataraqui) adjacent to Cataraqui Cemetery outside Kingston (1859). In 1861 he established what became the Brockville Cemetery Memorial Works on Railroad Street in Brockville. He assumed management of the Brockville Cemeteries as an adjunct to his business on 1 July 1871 and relocated the business to a site adjacent to the cemeteries on what is now Highway 2 just west of Brockville. He had worked as a draughtsman with the Grand Trunk Railway while still in Lancaster, and in the 1870s and 1880s he worked on railway projects in the Port Arthur (Thunder Bay) area of Ontario and in Manitoba. The memorial business became increasingly the responsibility of his sons Leopold (d. 1917) and Charles W. (1858-1928), with the former operating the shop and the latter responsible for correspondence and bookkeeping. Leopold's son Victor (1885-1939) became a partner in the firm with his uncle Charles following his father's death. Fred W. Grant, who started as an apprentice on 4 January 1932, acquired a half interest in the business in 1939 following the death of Victor de Carle. The firm did not operate from August 1943 to May 1945 while Grant was serving with the RCAF, but upon his return from the Second World War he purchased the remaining interest in the business from Victor's widow Laura de Carle, and sold the business upon retirement.