It’s been a century since the Westmount Armoury was built on Ste-Catherine Street West near Westmount Park — and now it’s the focus of a new exhibit presented by the Royal Montreal Regiment.
Armoury or Bust: A Century in Westmount explores the people, stories, and legacy that have shaped the regiment’s place in the Westmount community.
“When you strip away the uniforms and the medals and the weapons, it’s all about humans,” said Colin Robinson, president of the RMR Foundation and a retired lieutenant-colonel. “And the curator who put together this program and put together this exhibit really did a good job at highlighting all the personal aspects, all the community events that would happen.”
“The regiment was formed for World War I in 1914 by amalgamating three different Montreal units, two English and one French, and they all came from pre-existing homes, but when the war was over and the RMR came back as a founded unit, there wasn’t a home for it,” Robinson said. “And so it was pretty clear that as the war was winding down and all the soldiers are being returned to civilian employment and normal life, that they wouldn’t have a place to go and the risk of the regiment being disbanded was very real. So the veterans got together with a bunch of concerned citizens from Westmount and started brainstorming ways to fundraise and come up with a home for the RMR to be permanently.”
“For the time that it took to build, it’s actually quite surprising,” said Amynte Eygun, assistant curator at the Royal Montreal Regiment. “The armory was built in 209 days. For 1925 is crazy, even for today is crazy.”
The free exhibit includes a guided tour led by Eygun, sharing untold stories about the armoury and the RMR father, General Charles Basil Price.
“These kind of go through his life,” said Eygun.
“General Charles Basil Price is known as a father of the regiment,” said Robinson. “He was a World War I veteran decorated for bravery twice. He was wounded four times and he was the driving force who really made this armory happen.”
“People of Westmount were really into the band of the RMR, the brass band, and they would do performances at Westmount Park,” said Eygun. “And Price said, if you don’t give us an armory, band’s gone, what are you gonna do? No more concerts. So that was one of the big things that he was telling people is like, well, if you wanna have fun in the park and listen to our music, you do have to support us and get us an armory. So he was very stubborn.”
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A century later, the armoury remains a vital part of Westmount — supporting sports, youth programs, education, and providing aid in times of crisis.
“There’s been aid to civil power out of certain civilian emergencies, when the FLQ crisis was happening, when the ice storm, there were soldiers based here full-time to be able to help the citizens of Westmount and Montreal,” said Robinson.
The free exhibit is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily until Remembrance Day on Nov. 11.
