Dillon helps preserve sculpture of Canadian champion for human rights

Photo courtesy Hampton John Peters Humphrey Foundation.

Dillon Consulting has helped preserve a statue of John Peters Humphrey, principal author of the United Nations’ (UN’s) Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), in his hometown of Hampton, N.B.

Humphrey—who was born in 1905 and became the first director of the UN’s Division of Human Rights in 1946, two years before the UN General Assembly adopted the UDHR—has long been honoured in Hampton’s town square with a wooden monument of his likeness as both an adult and a child. Over the years, exposure to weather took a toll on the structure.

Dillon sponsored the Hampton John Peters Humphrey Foundation’s project to preserve the sculpture in bronze and replace the wooden and sandstone bench with one made of stone. The firm completed the detailed design of the bench foundation and provided tendering and construction management for the restoration of the bench and the site.

The updated statue was unveiled on Apr. 30, which would have been Humphrey’s 118^th birthday.