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Editorial Notice: This page is a design study published by Haven Casket & Monument. We have no ties to the Banting family, the Banting estate, the University of Toronto, or Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries. The notes here are based on public sources.
Frederick Banting Grave: Mount Pleasant Cemetery Memorial Design
Quick Facts
| Subject | Sir Frederick Grant Banting (medical scientist, co-discoverer of insulin, Nobel laureate) |
| Born | November 14, 1891 in Alliston, Ontario |
| Died | February 21, 1941 in Newfoundland (in a wartime air crash) |
| Buried | Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Memorial Form | Companion upright granite marker shared with his wife Henrietta |
| Stone | Polished grey granite |
| Notable | 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The only Canadian to be knighted while still in office (1934) |
Photo: Nick Number · Licensed under CC BY 4.0 · Source on Wikimedia Commons
Where is Frederick Banting buried?
Sir Frederick Banting is buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, Ontario. The cemetery is at 375 Mount Pleasant Road in midtown Toronto. Banting is buried with his wife, Henrietta Elizabeth Ball Banting (1912 to 1976), in a shared family plot. Mount Pleasant is a National Historic Site of Canada. It is open every day, free to the public.
Memorial Design Analysis
Frederick Banting’s grave is a polished grey granite upright marker. It is a companion memorial. The stone is shared with his wife Henrietta. The design is very plain for a Nobel Prize winner. The inscription gives only their names, life dates, and a short identifying line. There is no mention of insulin. No Nobel Prize. No university name. No medical symbols. This restraint is common in Canadian scientific memorials. The work itself is the public legacy. The grave is for the family.
The marker uses the standard Canadian upright tablet form that became common after the Second World War. The stone is a medium height. The face is polished granite. The lettering is sans serif. The base is modest. The shared companion design was completed when Henrietta was buried beside him in 1976. That was 35 years after Banting’s wartime death.
Banting died in 1941 in a Royal Canadian Air Force plane crash off Newfoundland. He was serving as a medical officer during the Second World War. His Mount Pleasant burial reflects two choices. First, the family chose Toronto because Banting had taught at the University of Toronto and lived in the city. Second, after the war, the family added Henrietta to the same marker. The result is a quiet companion memorial that fits Mount Pleasant’s mid 1900s section.
Why Banting’s memorial is studied
Frederick Banting’s grave is a key example of restraint in Canadian memorial design. The subject’s public legacy is huge. Insulin saves millions of lives every year. The 1923 Nobel Prize that Banting shared transformed Canadian medical research. But his grave shows none of that. A modest granite tablet gives only the basic facts. This is a Canadian editorial choice. Public legacy lives in the work, not the stone.
A companion memorial is one shared stone planned for both spouses. This format became one of the most common Canadian memorial styles after 1950. Haven’s specialists help families plan companion stones in advance. We can match the lettering, plan the proportions, and agree on the design now. That makes adding the second name simple when the time comes.
Explore Haven’s memorial collection →
Editorial Notice: Haven Casket & Monument has no ties to the Banting family or the University of Toronto.