Featuring expressive classical figures within modern compositions, Allward's monuments evoke themes of memory, sacrifice, and redemption.

[3] It brought the sculptor fame and led to Allward later creating the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France, his most renowned work.

This early training, supplemented by modelling classes at the New Technical School, prepared Allward for his lifelong career as a monumental sculptor.

At each end of the memorial there are two female figures mounted on granite pedestals representing Humanity, one sending and the other receiving a message.

The most important and famous commission Allward received was for the monument to commemorate Canadians killed in the First World War, a project which would occupy him from 1921 till the memorial's unveiling, by King Edward VIII, on 26 July 1936.

Allward had made 150 design sketches before submitting the final plan which won the commission from the Canadian federal government.

[9] In June 1922, Allward set up a studio in London, England and toured for more almost two years to find a stone of the right colour, texture, and luminosity for the memorial.

[10][11] The first figure to be completed was Canada Bereft, which stands at the top of the front wall of the Vimy Memorial and recalls traditional depictions of the Virgin Mary in mourning.

[1] The figures atop the pylons represent the universal virtues of charity, faith, honour, hope, justice, knowledge, peace, and truth.

[13] The final step called for carving the names of 11,285 Canadians who were killed in France and are buried in unknown sites on the memorial's walls.

[17] On 30 June 1938, he was recognized by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in a motion before the House of Commons of Canada which stated "that this house desires particularly to express its appreciation of the services of Mr. Walter S. Allward, who, as the designer and Canadian War Memorials architect of the memorial at Vimy, has given to the world, a work of art of outstanding beauty and character.

Through the years to come the Vimy Memorial will remain the symbol of Canada's efforts in the war, and its tribute to those who, on the field of battle, sought to preserve the free institutions of mankind.

He was first elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1903, and his bronze diploma work of 1920, The Storm, was acquired for the National Gallery of Canada.