CANADA - SEXTONdigital - Dalhousie University

JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF I JOURNAL DE LA SOCIETE POUR L'ETUDE DE L' 

ARCHITECTURE!~ 

CANADA 

VOL. 31 > N• 1 > 2006

THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE IN CANADA is a learned society 

devoted to the examination of the role of the built environment in Canadian society. Its membership includes 

structural and landscape architects, architectural historians and planners, sociologists, ethnologists, and 

specialists in such fields as heritage conservation and landscape history. Founded in 1974, the Society is currently 

the sole national society whose focus of interest is Canada's built environment in all of its manifestations. 

The Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, published twice a year, is a refereed journal. 

Membership fees, including subscription to the Journal, are payable at the following rates: Student, $30; 

lndividual,$50; Organization I Corporation, $75; Patron, $20 (plus a donation of not less than $100) . 

Institutional subscription: $75. lndividuel subscription: $40. 

There is a surcharge of $5 for all foreign memberships. Contributions over and above membership fees are welcome, 

and are tax-deductible. Please make your cheque or money order payable to the: 

SSAC > Box 2302, Station 0, Ottawa, Ontario, K1P 5W5 

LA SOCIETE POUR L'ETUDE DE L'ARCHITECTURE AU CANADA est une societe savante qui se 

consacre a \'etude du rcile de l'environnement bati dans Ia societe canadienne. Ses membres sont architectes, 

architectes paysagistes, historiens de !'architecture et de l'urbanisme, urbanistes, sociologues, ethnologues 

ou specialistes du patrimoine et de l'histoire du paysage. Fondee en 1974, Ia Societe est presentement Ia seule 

association nationale preoccupee par l'environnement bati du Canada sous toutes ses formes. 

Le Journal de Ia Societe pour /'etude de /'architecture au Canada, publie deux fois par an nee, est une revue dont les 

articles sont eva lues par un comite de lecture. 

La cotisation annuelle, qui comprend l'abonnement au Journal, est Ia suivante: etudiant, 30$; individuel, SO$ ; 

organisation I societe, 75$; bienfaiteur, 20$ (plus un don d'au moins 100$). 

Abonnement institutionnel : 75$. Abonnement individuel : 40$ 

Un supplement de 5$ est demande pour les abonnements etrangers. Les contributions depassant l'abonnement 

annuel sont bienvenues et deductibles d'impcit. Veuillez s.v.p. envoyer un cheque ou un mandai postal a Ia : 

SfAC >Case postale 2302, succursale 0, Ottawa, Ontario, K1P 5W5 

www.canada-architecture.org 

The Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada is produced 

with the assistance of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of 

Canada and the Canada Research Chair on Urban Heritage, UQAM. 

Le Journal de Ia Societe pour /'etude de /'architecture au Canada est publie 

avec I' aide du Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada et de 

Ia Chaire de recherche du Canada en patrimoine urbain, UQAM. 

Publication Mail 40739147 > PAP Registration No. 10709 

We acknowledge the financial assistance of the Government of Canada, 

through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP), toward our mailing costs. 

ISSN 1486-0872 

(supersedes I remplace ISSN 0228-0744) 

EDITING, PROOFREADING, TRANSLATION I REVISION LINGUISTIQUE, TRADUGION 

MICHELINE GIROUX-AUBIN 

ASSISTANT EDITOR !ADJOINT A LA REDACTION 

MARTIN DROUIN 

GRAPHIC DESIGN I CONCEPTION GRAPHIQUE 

MARIKE PARADIS 

PRINTING I IMPRESSION 

MARQUIS IMPRIMEUR INC., MONTMAGNY (QC) 

COVER I COUVERTURE 

Rockwood Villa, Kingston, by George Browne, t 84t. 

(PHOTO: PETER COFFMAN) 

PAGE MAKE-UP I MISE EN PAGES 

B GRAPHISTES 

JOURNAL EDITOR I REDACTEUR DU JOURNAL 

LUC NOPPEN 

Chaire de recherche du Canada en patrimoine urbain 

lnstitut du patrimoine 

Universite du Quebec a Montreal 

CP 8888, succ. centre-ville 

Montreal, (QC) H3C 3P8 

(514) 987-3000 x-25621 I : (514) 987-7827 

e: noppen.luc@uqam.ca 

WEB SITE I SITE WEB 

LANA STEWART 

Lana Stewart 

Parks Canada 

25, Eddy Street, 5th Floor 

Gatineau, QC KIA OMS 

(819) 997·6098 

e: lana.stewart@pc.gc.ca 

EDITOR OF NEWS & VIEWS I 

REDACTRICE DE NOUVELLES ET COUPS D'CEIL 

HEATHER BRETZ 

CPV Group Architects & Engineers Ltd. 

Calgary, Alberta 

e : HeatherB @cpvgroup.com 

PRESIDENT I PRESIDENT 

PIERRE DU PREY 

Department of Art 

Ontario Hall 

Queen 's University 

Kingston, ON KZL 3N6 

(613) 533 -6166 1 I : (613) 533-6891 

e : pduprey@post.queensu.ca 

VICE-PRESIDENTS I VICE-PRESIDENT(E)S 

ANDREW WALDRON 

Architectural Historian, National Historic Sites Directorate 

Parks Cana da 

5'" Floor, 25 Eddy Street 

Hull, QC KIA OMS 

(819) 953-5587 I I : (819) 953-4909 

e: andrew.waldron@pc.gc.ca 

LUCIE K. MORISSET 

~tudes urbaines et touristiques 

~cole des sciences de Ia gestion 

Universite du Quebec a Montreal 

C.P. 8888, succ. Centre-ville 

Montreal, QC H3C 3P8 

(514) 987-3000 x 4585 1 I: (514) 987-7827 

e: morisset.\ucie@uqam.ca 

TREASURER I TRESORIERE 

JULIE HARRIS 

Julie Harris 

342, Maclaren St. 

Ottawa, ON K2P OM6 

e : jharris@contentworks.ca 

SECRETARY I SECRETAIRE 

MARIE-FRANCE BISSON 

Ecole de design, UQAM 

Case postale 8888, succursale «Centre-vi lle» 

Montreal (Quebec) 

H3C 3P8 

(514) 987 3000 # 3866 

e: docomomo@er.uqam.ca 

PROVINCIAL REPRESENTATIVES I 

REPRESENTANT(E)S DES PROVINCES 

GEORGE CHALKER 

Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador 

P.O. Box 5171 

St. John's, NF At( SVS 

(709) 739-1892 1 I : (709) 739-5413 

e: george@heritagefoundation.ca 

TERRENCE SMITH LAMOTHE 

1935 Vernon 

Halifax, NS B3H 3N8 

(902) 425-0tOt 

THOMAS HORROCKS 

ADI limited 

1133 Regent Street, Suite 300 

Fredericton, NB E3B 3Z2 

(506) 452-9000 I I : (906) 452-7303 

e: thd @adi.ca I horto@reg2.health.nb.ca 

CLAUDINE DEOM 

2078, avenue Claremont 

Montreal, QC H3Z 2P8 

t I I: (514) 488·4071 

e : cdeom@supernet.ca 

SHARON VATTAY 

11 Elm Avenue, Apt #3 22 

Toronto, Ontario M4W 1 N2 

(416) 964-7235 

svattay @chass.utoronto.ca 

TERRENCE J. SINCLAIR 

Heritage Branch 

Saskatchewan Department of Municipal Affairs, 

Culture and Hou sing 

430-1855 Victoria Avenue 

Regina, SK S4P 3V7 

(306) 787-5777 I I : (306) 787·0069 

e: tsinclair@mach.gov.sk.ca 

L. FREDERICK VALENTINE 

CPV Group Architects & Engineers Ltd. 

Suite 500 110-12th Avenue SW 

Calgary, AB T2R OG7 

(403) 262·551 11 I: (403) 262·5519 

e: fval @cpv-architecture.com 

DANIEL MILLETTE 

511 -55 Water Street 

Vancouver, BC V6B 1A1 

t I I : (604) 687-4907 

e : lucubratio@yahoo.com 

KAYHAN NADJI 

126 Niven Dr. 

Yellowknife, NT X1A 3W8 

t I I : (867) 920-6331 

e: kayhan_nadji @gov.nt.ca 

SHELLEY BRUCE 

25 Forks Market Road # 401 

Winnipeg, MB R3C 4S8 

(204) 983-2221 

ANNE HOWATT 

P.O. Box 2311 

Charlottetown, P.E.I. CIA 8C1 

(9 02) 626-8076 

e: ahowatt@upei.ca

CONTENTS I TABLE DES MATIERES 

JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF j JOURNAL DE LA SOCIETE POUR L'ETUDE DE L' 

ARCHITECTURE!~ 


ANALYSES I ANALYSES 

ESSAIS I ESSAYS 

CONFERENCE I LECTURE 

RAPPORT I REPORT 

> PETER COFFMAN 

St. John's Anglican Cathedral and 

the Beginnings of Ecclesiological Gothic 

in Newfoundland 

> STEVEN MANNELL 

Toronto's Tower of Pure Water: 

A Lost Civic Vision 

> BARRY MAGRILL 

Challenging "Amateur Architecture" in the 

Diocese of British Columbia 1875-1900 

> J. DOUGLAS STEWART 

The Shamrock and the Maple Leaf: 

The Irish Roots of George Browne's 

Canadian Architecture 

> RoN WILLIAMS 

French Patterns in Western Canadian 

Landscapes 

> ANDREW WALDRON 

The Studio Building, 25 Severn Street, 

Toronto, Ontario 

3 

23 

35 

43 

55 

65 

VOL . 31 > No 1 > 2006

ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

ST. JOHN'S ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL 

AND THE BEGINNINGS OF ECCLESIOLOGICAL GOTHIC 

IN NEWFOUNDLAND 

PETER COFFMAN is currently in the final stages 

of a doctorate in the Department of Art at 

>PETER COFFMAN 1 

Queen's University in Kingston. He has published 

on numerous aspects of English medieval and 

Canadian Gothic Revival architecture. 

The Anglican cathedral of St. John 

the Baptist in St. John's, Newfoundland 

(fig. 1), is a quintessentially Eng - 

lish Gothic building of the thirteenth 

century, built six hundred years later 

and three thousand miles from England. 

Notwithstanding its remote location in 

one of the most impoverished corners 

of the British Empire, it was designed 

by the most famous and prolific architect 

of Victorian England, George (later 

Sir George) Gilbert Scott. The existence 

of such an extraordinary monument in 

such an unlikely place is due to the convergence 

of a number of social, religious, 

economic, and architectural factors that 

have never received scholarly attention. 

The goal of this paper is to redress that 

neglect by examining events leading to 

and including the cathedral's first building 

campaign, which occurred from 1847 

to 1850. 

FIG. 1. ST. JOHN'S ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL. FROM THE SOUTH. I PETER COFFMAN 

As late as 1836, there was only one Anglican 

church in the city of St. John's. That 

church (fig. 2) was an extremely modest 

affair that would later be described as 

"a wooden shed of the most monstrous 

description." 2 The process that eventually 

led to its replacement by Gilbert 

Scott's cathedral was triggered by a 

growing sense of crisis in the Established 

(i .e. Anglican) Church with respect to its 

colonial affairs. That sense of crisis was a 

central theme of the 1838 annual meeting 

of the Society for the Propagation of 

the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), which 

had been founded at the beginning of 

the eighteenth century to serve the interests 

of the Established Church abroad.' 

According to their annual report of 1838, 

Britain had planted colonies in places as 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 > 3-22 

3

P ETER COFFMAN > ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

,- 

t·-_a 

·"' ' 

4 H .. 

! 

.... "l 

' 

..... 1 

.. , 

... 

'

PETER COFFMAN > ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

FIG. 3. ROMAN CATHOLIC BASILICA AND CITY OF ST. JOHN'S. I PETER COFFMAN 

FIG. 4. ROMAN CATHOLIC BASILICA. FROM 

THE (LITURGICAL) WEST. I PETER COFFMAN 

exterior, while relatively austere decoratively 

(presumably due to the extremes 

of weather experienced in St . John's), 

is immensely impressive (figs. 4-5). The 

interior is richly adorned with a massive, 

flat, coffered ceiling above an elaborate 

cornice supported by a variation on the 

Corinthian order (fig. 6). In its style and 

monumentality, it is linked to some of the 

most important churches in the Roman 

Catholic world, such as St. Peter's in Rome 

and St. John in lateran (the latter, like 

Fleming's church, uses a giant order in the 

interior), two churches with some of the 

deepest, oldest roots in the Roman Catholic 

tradition. Monumental and majestic, 

loudly announcing its affiliation to Rome, 

and towering above everything else in 

the city, the basilica would have seemed 

to Wix and his contemporaries the very 

embodiment of the Catholic menace. 

The lone church building that the Anglicans 

of St. John's could offer as an architectural 

rebuttal to Dissent and Romanism was a 

wooden church (fig. 2) on the site of the 

present cathedral.' 6 Extremely anxious to 

build a second Anglican church in St. John's, 

Wix issued a challenge to readers of his Journal 

to make donations towards that goal: 

FIG. 5. ROMAN CATHOLIC BASILICA. FROM THE (LITURGICAL) SOUTH. ! PETER COFFMAN 

"You will , at least, contribute your mite diocese at that time included Newfoundtowards 

the erection of a second church land) as growing evidence of the Church's 

in the capital of this island, where, taking scandalous neglect of her colonial duties. 

his stand upon the world to come, the The time for action had come: 

Christian missionary may effect a moral, 

a spiritual movement, in the mass of [.. .] there is a strong and growing conviction 

ignorance, superstition, idolatry, and various that something must be done; that things 

wickedness by which he is surrounded. 17 

must not be suffered to remain where they 

are; that this country will be deeply sinful 

At their 1838 annual meeting, the SPG cited before God if it permits the dependencies of 

Wix's Journal as well as several touching the empire to grow up in practical atheism, 

stories of spiritually starved fishermen told and in all the wickedness necessarily resulting 

by Nova Scotia Bishop John Inglis (whose 

from such a state [ ... ]. 18 5 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006


FIG. 6. ROMAN CATHOLIC BASILICA. INTERIOR. I PETER COFFMAN 

FIG. 7. ST. THOMAS ANGLICAN CHURCH, ST. JOHN'S. I PETER COFFMAN 

FIG. 8. DESIGN FOR ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN'S, 

BY HENRY PURCELL. I CATHEDRAL ARCHIVES 

By the time that alarm was sounded, the 

Church had already begun taking action. 

Wix's campaign for a second church in 

St. John's had been successful, resulting 

in the building of St. Thomas Church in 

1836, which still stands (fig. 7) . 19 More dramatic 

action followed with the creation 

of the diocese of Newfoundland in 1839, 

and arrival of the first bishop, Aubrey 

George Spencer, the following year. 

A bishop requires a cathedral, and it was 

immediately apparent to Spencer that the 

"wooden shed" he had inherited was not 

up to the job. Given that he was "surrounded 

by a Roman-Catholic population 

numerically superior, and of a most proselytizing 

spirit," Spencer thought it advisable 

that any new church "partake of a 

cathedral character" in order to project 

the right image to the public. 20 Such a 

building, he believed, could be built for 

around £4000, a quarter of which the 

colony might be expected to raise itself. 

As the church of St. Thomas had absorbed 

some of the numbers formerly trying 

to fit into the original church, Spencer 

recommended that a smaller building 

constructed from durable materials (i.e. 

stone) would be preferable to a bigger 

one that would be vulnerable to fire and 

"the deleterious qualities of these hyperborean 

climates." 2 ' 

The resulting design (fig. 8), commissioned 

from a Cork native working in 

Newfoundland named James Purcell, is 

an example of the historically inaccurate 

Gothic idiom popularized by the Church 

commissioners in England, who, in 1818, 

had been granted one million pounds to 

alleviate the shortage of Anglican church 

space throughout Britain." That by 1840 

the so-called "commissioners' Gothic" was 

already considered out of date in England 

matters little, since Spencer's church was 

never built. Stone was purchased, the 

cornerstone was laid, and the project 

languished-as did, evidently, its patron, 

who found the Newfoundland climate 

too rigorous for his delicate health. His 

transfer to the See of Jamaica in 1843 was 

"welcomed as a relief from a burden under 

which he was evidently sinking." 23 

The man selected as Spencer's successor was 

the Rev. Edward Feild (1801 -1876). Born in 

Worcester, Feild had received his B.A. and 

M.A . from Oxford, 24 the birthplace of the 

Tractarian ideals of the Oxford Movement. 

That movement, and its architectural equivalent, 

the Cambridge Camden Society, had 

had a profound impact on Feild-and they 

were about to have a profound impact on 

Newfoundland. 

Feild was steeped in the architectural 

theories of the Cambridge Camden 

Society (later renamed the Ecclesiological 

Society), which had been formed by 

a group of Cambridge undergraduates 

in 1839. Their aim was to promote precise, 

"scientific" study of English Gothic 

church architect Jre in order to facilitate 

the creation of worship spaces that would 

be appropriate to the High Church liturgy 

advocated by the members of the 

Oxford Movement (also known as " Tractarians"). 

According to the Cambridge 

Camden Society, the Church of England 

was the true, holy "Catholic" Church (by 

which they meant " universal," as originally 

intended; thus the frequent references 

to Roman Catholics as "Romanists" 

or " Papists," rather than "Catholics" ). 

Gothic-which was understood to be a 

native English style-was its natural and 

correct architectural expression. 

6 


PETER COFFMAN > ANALYSIS I AN ALYSE 

One of the Society's goals was to establish 

appropriate guidelines for the building 

of churches in the colonies. They began 

addressing the issue with a series of articles 

published between 1847 and 1850 

entitled "Colonial Church Architecture" 

in their periodical, The Ecclesiologist. 

The series began in response to a request 

from the bishop of Colombo, Ceylon (now 

Sri Lanka), for aid in adapting Gothic for 

a cathedral in a tropical climate. In addition 

to Ceylon, 25 articles in the sporadic 

fourteen-part series discussed churches 

proposed, planned, and built in Tasmania/6 

Adelaide, 27 Guiana/ 8 Calcutta, 29 

Sydney, 30 Newfoundland, 31 Fredericton 32 , 

and Cape Town." The articles are a series 

of ad hoc case studies rather than a systematic 

exploration of the topic, but certain 

general principles do emerge. That 

the style must be Gothic was a premise, 

rather than a point of argument. "Middle 

pointed" (better known today as "Decorated" 

Gothic) was preferred, although 

"first pointed" (Early English) was certainly 

acceptable if that was all that 

funds would allow. While English Gothic 

models had to be adhered to as strictly 

as possible, allowances could and indeed 

should be made for local climatic conditions 

(especially in extreme instances 

like Colombo) and the availability of (or 

lack thereof) local building expertise and 

craftsmen. Stone was the preferred material, 

but alternatives such as brick or even 

wood could be used when necessary. If 

scarcely better than its wooden predeceslocal 

building traditions offered any use- 

ful lessons in building for local circum- 

stances, such lessons could be adopted. 

Feild arrived in St. John's in 1844, full 

of missionary zeal for the High Church 

liturgy and its Gothic architectural expres- 

sion. Like Spencer, he found the existing 

wooden church hopelessly inadequate, 

and prospects for re-building seemed 

bleak. "With respect to our Cathedral," 

he wrote to his close friend and fellow 

clergyman William Scott in England, "the 

prospects are dark and disheartening." 34 

The main problem, unsurprisingly, was 

money. A considerable sum had already 

been spent by Bishop Spencer on materials. 

According to Feild, £3,764.14.3 

[3746 pounds, 14 shillings, 3 pence] had 

been paid for cut stone, with a further 

£500 still owing on the last instalment.' 5 

The stone-already cut into windows, 

doors, pinnacles, and buttresses according 

to James Purcell's design-had been 

imported from lreland.' 6 At that stage, 

Purcell was still under contract as cathedral 

architect, a position that he maintained 

until October of 1844. 37 By that 

time, both money and will seemed to 

have evaporated. "The fact is there are 

no more means to complete or proceed 

with it," Feild wrote to Scott, "and I can 

see no disposition on the part of the people 

to come forward with additional subscriptions 

at all adequate to the object.'' 38 

Or, as Feild put it rather more colourfully 

to the SPG, "Our projected Cathedral 

seems to have died a natural or unnatural 

death through want of funds, and of 

love. The subject now is never raised even 

in talk." 39 

While Feild doubtless regretted the want 

of funds, he wholeheartedly shared in 

the want of love. As a high churchman 

and supporter of the Cambridge Camden 

Society, Feild found Purcell's design to be 

sor, and lamented to William Scott: "No 

pillars are contemplated, but a flat roof 

of 100ft. by 50! no chancel or choir, no 

font, no tracery in any windows." 40 

Feild appealed directly to the Cambridge 

Camden Society for architectural advice, 

sending them drawings of Purcell's design 

in 1845. Their response is now lost, but 

the crux of it is clear from a letter Feild 

wrote to William Scott: 

I have now to beg you to convey my 

respectful and earnest thanks to the 

Committee of ye Camden Society, who 

made and forwarded the report on the 

drawings of our Cathedral by Mr. Purcell. I 

of course anticipated ye sentence. No one 

who had ever seen a decent church could 

tolerate such an abortion. 4 1 

Purcell's drawings had apparently been 

assessed by Benjamin Webb himself, one 

of the founding members of the Cambridge 

Camden Society. 42 Instead of pursuing 

Purcell's design, Webb suggested 

that Feild adopt the church of St. Michael, 

Longstanton, as a model (a standard recommendation 

of the Camdenians when 

faced with the question of churches in 

the colonies). Feild doubted that they 

could even afford to emulate that modest 

model, and expressed increasing frustration 

at the Society's inability to assist 

on the question of how to make use of 

the existing building materials in a more 

ecclesiologically acceptable church: 

The information which I received from 

the Camden Society was nothing more 

than I myself knew before I consulted 

them-viz that the plans were in every 

respect abominable. This was the sum and 

substance of all ye information I got-and 

this I needed not: but what I might do or 

attempt with the materials (which I desired 

to know) on this point I got no information 

or advice at all. 43 

Many other obstacles stood between Feild 

and the church he desired. His High Church 

vision, and its Gothic architectural manifestation, 

while vigorously supported by the 

SPG and the Cambridge Camden Society, 

met with considerable resistance in the 

colony of Newfoundland, both from his 

flock and even his own clergy. His association 

with the Cambridge Camden Society 

was regarded with deep suspicion in Newfoundland. 

His appointment-without his 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

7


consent or even knowledge-as a patron 

of that society filled him with dismay: 

$ 0UlH SIOC Hlllr;. 

You know how shamefully and perseveringly 

that Society is attacked in t he Newspaper s 

which are ye authorities here, and do all 

ye mischief [...]. I hear that I have been 

attacked in the Record Newspaper for 

having a regular Tractarian Curate [...] and 

that charge alone would alienate I know 

how many of these ignorant and excited 

fishmongers from me and ye Church. 44 

TH£ .HAABOUR 01- ST JOHNS 

In a subsequent letter, Feild reminded 

Scott: "We are dealing remember here 

with cold, coarse, calculating, covetous 

colonists-a race of men not seen or 

understood in England." 45 

By October of 1845, Feild reported to the 

SPG that the feelings in St. John's were 

so negative towards the Church and himself 

that the only viable option seemed to 

be temporary withdrawal to that most 

remote (at least from Newfoundland) 

part of his diocese, Bermuda. 46 Although 

Feild found the Governor of Bermuda 

uncooperative, he had had enough of 

the opposite problem in Newfoundland: 

"Here the Governor is my warmest friend 

and the people generally despise or 

dislike me." 47 

By that time, any dream of an ecclesiologically 

correct Anglican cathedral in 

St. John's must have seemed hopeless to 

Feild. In an extraordinary plot twist, Feild's 

opportunity arrived by stealth, cloaked in 

a social, economic, and material disaster 

unparalleled in the history of Newfoundland. 

On June 9, 1846, at approximately 

8:00a.m., a fire was started by an overflowing 

glue pot in the shop of a cabinetmaker 

named Hamlin, on George Street. 48 

The fire quickly spread to Queen Street, 

where the wooden buildings served as 

ready kindling. A brisk west wind spread 

the flames to "Bennett's and Stewart's 

The silver lining for Feild was that he could 

start planning a new church unencumbered 

by his predecessor's intentions. To do so 

would cost money, and, considering the 

scale of the destitution in St. John's, there 

was no reason to believe that there would 

be much available. Feild set his sights correspondingly 

low: 

What I mean to attempt is a mere oblong 

building [without tower, or bell turret) from 

120 to 125ft. long and from 58 to 60 wide 

inside-a clerestory and two aisles: with a 

large arch in ye East end for a chancel at some 

future time. I think the Church of St. Wilfred in 

Pugin's book is nearly what I should attemptm 

inus the tower, chancel, etc. 51 

The book by Pugin that Feild refers to 

is The Present State of Ecclesiastical 

Architecture in England, published in 

1843 and containing three illustrations 

of St. Wilfrid, which Pugin was building 

at Hulme, near Manchester. 5 2 Feild also 

made reference to St. Wilfrid in corre- 

spondence with the SPG, stating that its 

ground plan and elevation seemed to 

him "the best adapted to our purpose 

of any 1 know." 53 St. Wilfrid (figs. 10-11) is 

a modest but meticulously correct Gothic 

oil vats," 49 at which point it was realized 

that virtual annihilation of the city was 

inevitable. Attempts to create firebreaks 

by blowing up buildings were unsuccessful. 

By nightfall, the city of St . John's 

was largely destroyed (fig. 9), although 

coincidentally neither the Roman Catholic 

cathedral nor Wix's church of St. Thomas 

was damaged. Remarkably, the only 

deaths were one artilleryman and two 

civilians who perished attempting to blow 

up a house as a firebreak. The human toll 

was otherwise colossal; it is estimated 

that 12,000 people were left homeless, 

and forced to huddle together out of 

doors on the Barrens until temporary 

shelters could be erected. Fortunately, 

the weather was warm. 

Initially at least, Feild felt the enormity of 

the calamity as strongly as anybody. "Is it 

a judgement for our sins? he asked Scott. 

Alas! how well deserved." 50 Both Feild's 

wooden cathedral and the building materials 

for Purcell's cathedral were totally lost 

in the fire. Inept and inadequate as both 

seemed to Feild, they were an embarrassment 

of riches compared to what was left. 

;; MILLS ~. 

C;A&J..'D I»J.£1t} 

8 



~ 

~ 

.. 

~ 

.. 

--• I 

s 

[Q 

a-· Tifl1'nfmJi1fiTnTrm:. 

!;; ~ 

~=:Jll _lJllJJJl1JJilllUJ11UJ:i. 

II: ·~ 

z 

0 

liiJ 

% 

~ I @ = 

1' ~ ... I I 

·IE 

u ·+~ 

.. .. 

ffi 

~ '~ 

FIG. 10. A.W.N. PUG IN, ST. WILFRID'S CHURCH. PLAN. I PUG IN. ON THE PRESENT STATE OF ECCLESIASTICAL 

ARCHITEGURE IN ENGLAND 

FIG. 11. A.W.N. PUG IN, ST. WILFRID'S CHURCH. EXTERIOR. I PUGIN. ON THE PRESENT STATE OF ECCLESIASTICAL 

ARCHITEUURE IN ENGLAND 

parish church with nave, aisles, clerestory, 

chancel, and a tower on the northwest 

corner. The style is Early English Gothic. 

While not at all cathedral-like, St. Wilfrid 

mated that, due to the scarcity of skilled 

With such modestly encouraging devellabour 

and materials in Newfoundland, 

costs would be double what they were in 

England. 54 Considering Feild's immediate 

plan was to build a version of St. Wilfrid 

without a tower or chancel, his fundraising 

expectations were obviously (and 

understandably) quite modest. 

Some help, however, was forthcoming. 

The Record reprinted a letter from Feild 

to the SPG in which he speculated that at 

least £8000 would be necessary to build 

a plain church in stone. It was announced 

that the SPG had, in response, opened a 

"Special Fund for the rebuilding of the parish 

church of St. John [sic] ." 55 It was subsequently 

announced that the Standing 

Committee of the Society for Promoting 

Christian Knowledge (SPCK) had placed 

£2000 at Feild's disposal for the rebuilding 

of his church, the one condition being 

that at least one third of the seats in the 

new church be set aside for the poor " in 

did have the virtue of being built, according 

to Pugin, for only £5000. Feild estisuch 

a manner as the Bishop may deem 

most expedient." 56 The archbishop of 

Canterbury, William Howley, also made 

a "most liberal donation" towards the 

building of new church . 57 

opments, Feild continued to consider 

the question of how the new cathedral 

ought to be built. He appealed to the SPG 

for "an experienced, honest architect or 

builder, who can understand our difficulties, 

modify plans, and adapt our materials." 

58 For the funds available, which 

were expected to be less than £10,000, 

Feild envisaged being able to create "a 

plain oblong building, 50 or 60 feet by 

120 or 100." 59 The exterior, he concluded, 

would have to be "of a simple and severe 

character," but the interior must still be 

meticulously adapted for the High Church 

liturgy. 60 At some point in the summer of 

1846, the SPG sent drawings to St. John's 

for consideration as designs for the cathedral. 

The drawings do not survive, but the 

response to them of Archdeacon Thomas 

Bridge, who was acting on Feild's behalf 

while the latter was on a visitation, does: 

"The plans are in themselves pretty, but, 

if I may give an opinion, the style of the 

churches represented in them is too rural 

for a metropolis (and such St. John's is) 

which may reasonably be expected to be 

much improved in respect of the character 

of church buildings, on its being 

restored." 61 

That seems to strike a d iscordant note 

with the modesty of Feild's expectations, 

which consisted of an incomplete version 

of Pugin's St. Wilfrid. Bridge had, however, 

reason to believe that the financial 

prospects of the project might be 

brighter than he, or Feild, or anyone else, 

had dared to believe. Rumours of a financial 

windfall had reached St. John's, and 

Bridge was very cannily positioning the 

Church such that they might catch it. 

Shortly after the fire, a Committee for the 

Relief of the Sufferers at the late Conflagration 

at St. John's, Newfoundland, had been 

formed in London, headed by Lord Mayor 

John Johnson. On July 27, the Committee 

sent a petition to Queen Victoria, asking 

her to "command that a collection be made 

in all churches and chapels for the relief of 

the sufferers." 62 On September 3, Earl Grey, 

Secretary of State for the Colonies, wrote 

to the Government of Newfoundland: 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

9


I have to acquaint you that Her Majesty has 

been pleased to issue Her Royal Letters 

to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, 

authorizing their Graces to adopt proper 

measures for promoting subscriptions in 

their respective provinces for the relief 

of the sufferers by the recent fires at 

St. John's, Newfoundland. 6 3 

Word of the Queen's letter reached Newfound 

land while Feild was on a visitation. 

The initial response came from Bridge, 

in the letter cited above to the SPG. His 

argument touched a nerve apparently 

still as raw as it had been in the time of 

Edward Wix: 

It is believed here that there is to be 

a Queen's Letter [ .. .] . I hope it may be 

possible to make some arrangements for 

the disposal of the Collections under it, by 

which a portion of them may be applied 

to the restoration of the church. That, I 

think, would be right and just, seeing that 

the great bulk of those who will share in 

the Relief supplied for those who have 

suffered temporal loss by the late fire, will 

not belong to our Communion, whilst all the 

contributions under a Queen's Letter will, of 

course, come from members of it. 64 

In short, that was Anglican money, and 

there was a limit to how much of it should 

go to Roman Catholics, however destitute. 

One month later, Bridge wrote again to 

the SPG to express his disappointment 

that the Queen's letter had been issued 

without a stipulation that a portion of 

it be set aside for the rebuilding of the 

church. He reiterated his main argument-that 

the funds raised would be 

entirely contributed by members of the 

Church of England, while the vast majority 

of the St. John's residents who stood 

to benefit from them would be Roman 

Catholics. 65 Moreover, Bridge pointed out, 

the Board of Commissioners appointed in 

St. John's to dispense relief money could 

not be counted on, as they consisted of 

two Romanists, one Presbyterian, and 

three Congregationalists. Even if they 

were so disposed to do what Bridge considered 

the right thing by the Anglican 

Church, they would be equally inclined 

to appropriate an equivalent sum for the 

rebuilding of the Roman Catholic convent, 

which was the only other religious build- 

ing destroyed in the fire. On that point 

there could be no doubt: "I presume it 

would not be agreeable to our Brethren 

at home, and I confess it would not be 

to me, that any portion of a Collection 

made exclusively in our Churches should 

be so applied." 66 

Bridge concluded: 

Would it be possible since the Queen's Letter 

has been issued, without the stipulation in 

it which is so desirable, for some steps to 

be taken, before the Collections get into 

the hands of the "Philistines" here, that a 

portion of them shall be appropriated to the 

restoration of our church? The Romanists 

among us suppose that the Queen's Letter 

is to be altogether for the Church ; many 

have said so to meB 7 

Feild, meanwhile, had returned to 

St. John's, and, having doubtless been 

informed by Bridge of the magnitude and 

urgency of the opportunity, decided to 

travel to England. 68 While still in St. John's, 

Feild drew up a memorial to be sent to 

Earl Grey, in which it was argued that the 

only place of worship destroyed in the 

fire was the Anglican church (technically 

true, if one does not consider a convent 

a "place of worship"). that the subsequent 

destitution of the Anglican community 

in St. John's made it impossible 

for them to fund a replacement building 

themselves, that the special appeal made 

in England on behalf of the church was 

undermined by the larger appeal being 

made on behalf of those who had suffered 

temporal loss, and finally (but perhaps 

most importantly of all), that"[ .. .] 

the collections to be made under the 

authority of the Queen's Letter will be 

gathered wholly from members of the 

Church of England, whilst a very large 

majority of those to whose benefit they 

will be applied here will not be of that 

communion." 69 

Promising news had already reached 

Bridge. In October, he reported to Earnest 

Hawkins of the SPG that he had 

received "cheering intelligence" regarding 

the Queen's letter contributions. 70 By 

mid-December, Bridge was rejoicing that 

Lord Grey had determined that a portion 

of the Queen's letter funds should 

go towards the church, and that while 

he would leave it to the Government in 

Newfoundland to determine the amount, 

he would recommend that a portion not 

exceeding one third of the total be so 

used. 71 

The final deal was struck during Feild's trip 

to England. No official record of the meeting 

between Feild and Grey exists, but a 

letter of December 21 informed Feild that, 

while Lord Grey was "very much engaged" 

that day, he would be happy to meet with 

him at 3:00 p.m. the following afternoon. 72 

A subsequent letter from Grey to Feild, 

dated December 22, states: 

[ ... ] under the c ircumstances, as I am 

aware that the parties who applied for the 

Queen's Letter did mention the rebuilding of 

the church as one of the objects for which 

the collection was desired, and also that it 

was one particularly referred to by many 

Clergymen in their Sermons preceding the 

Collections, I shall think it right to direct the 

Governor to reserve for this purpose one half 

of the total amount of the Collections. 73 

10 



It is difficult to assess to what degree 

the arguments given may be taken at 

face value. It is clear from Bridge's letters 

that the Queen's letter itself contained 

no stipulation regarding the 

rebuilding of the church. Indeed, the 

one surviving transcription of the original 

petition to the Queen by the mayor's 

committee does state that the collection 

was needed "for the relief of the sufferers, 

and for rebuilding the Episcopal 

church." 74 That would seem unequivocal, 

but the issue is muddied by the fact that 

the petition is inserted into the House of 

Commons Papers, Reports &c not in its 

proper chronological place, which would 

be July 1846, but in November of that 

year-immediately after the memorial to 

Grey that pointed out the non-Anglican 

affiliations of the majority of the fire sufferers. 

This is not to say that the original 

petition was tampered with retroactively 

in order to support an argument that had 

suddenly grown heated, but it would be 

reassuring to have earlier corroborative 

evidence on record. As for the claim that 

many of the clergymen who raised the 

funds had mentioned the rebuilding of 

the church in their sermons, it is impossible 

with existing documents to get to 

the truth of that matter. One wonders 

how much closer Feild and Grey came to 

that truth from inside the latter's London 

office. 

One thing that can be ascertained for 

certain is that some citizens of St. John's 

did not find the arguments convincing. 

Among the first to voice his displeasure 

was the Roman Catholic bishop, Michael 

Fleming. In a letter to a Mr. J. O'Connell, 

which was subsequently forwarded to 

Lord Grey, Fleming pointed out that the 

Anglican building that had burned was to 

be replaced anyway, and that it "was not 

intrinsically worth £200." In return, Feild 

was to be given half of the Queen's letter 

funds, which at that point (May, 1847) 

totalled £29,000 and was still climbing 

(thus making Feild's share £14,500). 75 Lord 

Grey instructed the Governor of Newfoundland 

(by then Sir Gaspar Le Marchant) 

"to ascertain [...]to what extent the 

information received by Bishop Fleming 

[... ] is accurate or erroneous," and to 

"afford the Bishop of Newfoundland 

[i.e. Feild] every necessary opportunity 

for controverting or correcting Bishop 

Fleming's statements." 76 Feild replied 

that, while it was true that a new church 

had been planned, the fire had wiped out 

the means of those whose subscriptions 

would have built it. Moreover, Feild 

argued: 

It is not true that our old churc h was not 

worth £200. This statement is very far 

indeed from being a correct one. To prove 

that it is not correct, it may suffice to say 

that the church was accommodated with 

decent and sufficient pew sittings for BOO 

persons, and was supplied with all usual and 

necessary appendages and furniture. 77 

It is a mystery why Feild failed to make 

the potentially more compelling argument 

that the building materials from the 

planned church could not have survived 

the fire, and thus all the project's assets 

were effectively wiped out. However, his 

remarks seem to have satisfied Lord Grey, 

who raised no further objections. 

The Relief Committee in St. John's, however, 

still had objections. It was "with 

feelings of much regret" that Governor 

Le Marchant was required to forward 

to Lord Grey another objection to the 

appropriation, which he then proceeded 

to undermine by explaining that only 

eleven of forty members of the Committee 

had been present to draft it, and 

only nine of those eleven had supported 

the petition, and all of those nine were 

either Romanists or Dissenters. 78 The petition 

attempted to argue that the Queen's 

letter monies would be better spent on 

those made destitute by the fire, and that 

a "building in every way adequate may be 

erected for a reasonable sum" of £5000- 

£6,000.79 Grey's perfunctory reply was 

that he found no argument that "requires 

or would justify a change in the decision 

which I have already communicated to 

you [ ... ]."•o 

The committee tried one more time, 

sending a memorial to Lord Grey that 

seethed with indignation. Entitled "The 

memorial of certain of the Middle Class in 

St. John's, Sufferers by the Conflagration 

of 9'h June," the precision and vigour with 

which it presented its objections merit its 

quotation at length: 

[ .. . ] Your memorialists now have the 

unpleasant task of remarking upon the 

extraordinary procedure of the Episcopal 

Bishop of St. John's , in reference to the 

monies raised under the Queen's Letter 

[ ... ] (T]hat the replacing of an old wooden 

building overvalued at 500 /., which was 

to have been taken down within a year or 

two, by a stone cathedral, the foundationstone 

of which was laid nearly three years 

before the fire, at which time Bishop 

Spencer returned thanks to the Almighty 

for inclining the hearts of his church to 

contribute the means for its erection, the 

materials of which were paid for and on the 

spot; that Bishop Feild, should, under these 

circumstances, have placed the distress 

of 12,000 persons in equal balance with 

the object of his ambition, is a matter of 

surprise to all, of injustice to many of his 

own denomination, and of serious injury 

to the cause of religion he is sworn to 

protect. 81 

Lord Grey politely acknowledged receipt 

of the memorial, saying that he had laid 

the petition before the Queen, but for 

reasons previously stated, was not able to 

advise her Majesty to comply with itY 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

11

P ETER C OFFMAN > ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

FIG. 12. ST. GILES, CAMBERWELL, 

BY GEORGE GILBERT SCOTI.I PETER COFFMAN 

Doubtless, the issue was beyond argument 

by that time. The final decision had 

been made almost a year earlier, during a 

private meeting between Lord Grey and 

the bishop, in the first dark afternoon folexpertise 

was primarily in planning and 

building rather than architectural design. 

The firm enjoyed fair success as builders 

of workhouses, although Scott-the son, 

grandson, nephew, brother, cousin, and 

uncle of clergymen-became increasingly 

attracted to ecclesiastical commissions. His 

first church commission was for a parish 

church in Lincoln, about which he would 

later observe, "I cannot say anything in its 

favour, excepting that it was better than 

many then erected." 85 It was built in 1839, 

the same year that the Cambridge Camden 

Society was founded, leading Scott to 

reflect "I only wish I had known its founders 

at the time." 86 Six more church commissions 

followed-"all agreed[ ...] in the 

meagerness of their construction," Scott 

later confessed-before he was stirred to 

a more serious contemplation of Gothic by 

the work of the Cambridge Camden Society 

and the writings of Pugin: "Pugin's 

articles excited me almost to a fury, and 

I suddenly found myself like a person 

awakened from a long feverish dream, 

which had rendered him unconscious of 

what was going on about h im." 87 the north porch, the pitch of the roof, 

the pinnacles at the base of the spire, 

the arrangement of the spire lights, the 

belfry windows, and the placement of 

the flying buttresses. By the standards 

of The Ecc/esiologist, however, that was 

a glowing review. 

Scott's reputation as a Gothic designer 

was consolidated by his triumph in the 

competition for the Nikolai-Kirche in 

Hamburg (1844) . It established him as 

the foremost Gothic architect of the day 

(save for Pugin), but it also got him into 

trouble in The Ecclesiologist: 

[... ] Now this building, as designed for the 

wor ship of one of th e worst sections of 

an her etical sec t [ ... ] hardly comes under 

our notic e. Mr. Scott's lithograph present s 

a north-west view , and we are b ound to 

confess that the spire is beautiful, and 

well managed [...]. But the question arises, 

how must w e charac t erize t he spirit that 

prostitutes Christian arc hitecture to suc h 

an use? 90 

lowing the winter solstice. All subsequent 

That stinging rebuke-entirely on ideodialogue 

was diplomatic showmanship . 

Where all else had failed, fire would at 

last succeed . Edward Feild would get his 

Gothic cathedral. 

Having procured funding for a reasonably 

ambitious building, Feild needed an 

at least equally ambitious architect. He 

found one in George Gilbert Scott (1811- 

1878). How Feild made the acquaintance 

of Scott is not known (he was no relation 

to William Scott 83 ), but it was probably 

through mutual contacts at the Cambridge 

Camden Society, which at that 

time viewed Scott as an architect of considerable 

promise. George Gilbert Scott 

opened his independent architectural 

practice in 1835. 84 Much of his early work, 

including St. John's Cathedral, was done in 

partnership with William Moffat, whose 

Scott's newly learned devotion to Gothic 

brought him the commission for the 

Martyr's Memorial in Oxford (1842-1844), 

resulting in a design that he later found 

imperfect, but still believed "was better 

than any one but Pugin would then 

have procured." 88 In the same years, Scott 

built what he considered to be his first 

truly good church: St. Giles, Camberwell 

(fig. 12) . A lithograph of the design was 

sent to the Cambridge Camden Society, 

which deemed it (in The Ecc/esiologist) 

a "magnificent" design. 89 Their praise 

was not unqualified: they objected to 

the shortness of the chancel, remained 

unconvinced of the appropriateness of 

the hexagonal apse (Lichfield being the 

only English medieval precedent), and 

objected to the placement of the transept 

doors, the size of the windows in 

logical grounds, not architectural onesintroduced 

a note of tension between 

Scott and the Ecclesiological Society 

that never disappeared. In fact, as Gavin 

Stamp has observed, 9 ' Scott was held in. 

particularly high regard by the Society, 

but he was always hypersensitive to criticism-and 

there was also some truth to 

Scott's complaint that the Ecclesiologists 

represented an uneasy mix of constantly 

shifting ideals and unshakable belief in 

their own infallibility. In spite of the fact 

that they frequently changed their minds 

in matters of taste and propriety, they 

were always equally convinced that they 

were right. "There was no class of men", 

Scott wrote, "whom the Cambridge Camden 

Society held in such scorn, as those 

who adhered to their own last opinion 

but one." 92 JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

12

P ETER CoFFMAN > ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

FIG. 14. ST. JOHN'S ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL. FIRST DESIGN, 

BY GEORGE GILBERT SC OTT. I ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS 

Scott's views on the national and denominational 

meanings of Gothic were ideally 

suited to the situation in Newfoundland. 

What that colony needed was an emphatic 

visual statement of England and its Established 

Church, and, for Scott, that was precisely 

what Gothic provided. Scott was a 

prolific writer throughout his career, and 

his encyclopaedic knowledge of medieval 

architecture left him in no doubt that England, 

primarily through the Church, had 

developed its own distinct Gothic idiom, 

and that this idiom was the national style. 

"England produced a style of her own," 

wrote Scott (quoting E.A. Freeman), "inferior 

to none in purity of Gothic principle, 

and surpassing every other in the matchless 

beauty of its detail." 93 Indeed Gothic 

was, for Scott, "the only [style] which we 

can, as Christians or as Englishmen, call 

our own [.. .]." 94 In Remarks on Secular 

and Domestic Architecture (1857), Scott 

observed that the Gothic Revival was "the 

it must have been written some time in 

the late 1840s, making it exactly contemporary 

with the construction of Scott's 

cathedral in St. John's. Thus, it is a reflection 

of Scott's ideas at the very moment 

his first cathedral was being built. In it, 

Scott argued that, contrary to the impression 

that may be formed by the superficial 

observer, Gothic was not the style of 

the Roman Church. Admittedly, Gothic 

arose during the Roman Church's greatest 

period of domination, but Scott was "not 

[...] shaken in [his] conviction that it arose 

rather in spite of, rather than as a consequence 

of, that usurped domination and 

its accompanying errors." 99 Gothic, after 

all, was a product of countries north of the 

Alps, and it was Rome herself that set up 

a "Pagan standard before the eyes of the 

world" 100 by replacing old St. Peter's Basilica, 

an act that completed the "unchristianizing" 

of art begun in the Renaissance. In 

England, by contrast, that " paganization" 

Finally, Scott concluded : 

I t hink, then, it can hardly be denied, that 

the influence of Rome had no concern in 

the rise of pointed architecture; t hat the 

increasing corruption of the Roman Church 

was accompanied by a decline in the purity 

of our Northern architecture; and that its 

final extinction was brought about directly 

by the example and influence of Rome 

herself. 102 

As a piece of polemics, that is not perfectly 

convincing. Indeed, one merely has 

to disentangle Scott's apparently wilful 

conflation of "Rome" as the geographical 

seat of the Popes and "Rome" as an ideologically 

unified belief system, and the 

whole argument begins to unravel. In the 

tortured ingenuity of its arguments, not 

to mention the sheer unlikeliness of its 

premise, Scott's essay parallels a sermon 

that had been delivered and published 

revival of our own national architecture," 95 of art was much slower to take hold, and: a few years earlier by Newfoundland 

and that it had brought church architec- "[...]we accordingly find, at Oxford and Archdeacon Thomas Bridge, entitled The 

ture " back to our true national type," 96 elsewhere, buildings designed in medieval Two Religions; or, The Question Settled, 

and was "essentially national" (his italics)Y 7 taste dating down to the Great Rebellion Which Is the Oldest Church, the Anglican 

Of particular interest is an essay entitled [... ] clearly showing that it was still held or the Romish? 103 As the title implies, the 

On the claims of Romanists (as such) upon by many to be the architecture of our own argument was that the Anglican Church, 

Pointed ArchitectureY 8 Published in 1850, church [...] ." 101 

rather than the Roman, was the "original" 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N 1 > 2006 

13


Church in that its authority was based in 

scripture rather than in generations of 

subsequent Church teaching and tradition. 

True venerability, according to such argument, 

belonged to the Church of England; 

that gave it a prior claim to authority just 

as Scott had argued it had a prior claim to 

Gothic. That similarity of outlook is one 

of the things that made Scott the perfect 

architect for Feild's cathedral. Gothic, to 

Scott, was not the architecture of Rome: 

it was the architecture of England and of 

the English Church, and had stood historically 

in direct opposition to Rome. That was 

precisely the statement that needed to be 

made, in visual, architectural terms, by the 

Anglican cathedral in St. John's-particularly 

in light of the lengthening shadow of the 

Classical, "pagan" Romanist cathedral that 

continued under construction unscathed by 

the fire of 1846. 

Analysis of Scott's design for St. John's 

Cathedral is made more difficult by the 

building's complicated history of building 

and rebuilding campaigns. Construction 

was begun in 1847 and the nave, 

which was to serve for thirty years as 

the entire church, was consecrated in 

1850. There was no further activity until 

1880, by which time both Fei ld and Scott 

were dead. By 1885, the crossing, transepts, 

and choir had been completed 

under the direction of George Gilbert 

Scott Jr., the original architect's son. The 

younger Scott's work appears to have 

followed his father's plans quite closely. 

The nave, meanwhile, was destroyed in 

a fire of 1892, eventually to be rebuilt 

by C.P. Hopson of Toronto in 1902-1903. 

Once again, Sir Gilbert Scott's original 

plan seems to have been followed quite 

closely, although not in every detail. Thus, 

the cathedral as it stands today is very 

much a building in the spirit of Sir George 

Gilbert Scott, but, to gain a better understanding 

of the letter of his intentions, it 

is necessary to examine some of his surviving 

drawings of the building. 

What may be one of Scott' s earliest 

designs for the cathedral in St. John's is 

shown on a floor plan labelled "Newfoundland. 

Plan showing proposed 

arrangement" (fig. 13). It is signed "Geo. 

Gilbert Scott. Architect. 20 Spring Gardens, 

London." Undated, it is a modest 

oblong with aisles, chancel, vestry, and 

south porch. Its strong resemblance 

to Pugin's St . Wilfrid suggests that this 

FIG. 16. ST. JOHN'S ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL INTERIOR 

CHOIR ELEVATION, BY GEORGE GILBERT SCOTT. I 

ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITEOS 

model was still in Feild's mind-which, 

in turn, suggests that this drawing may 

date from before December 22, 1846 

(the date of Feild's momentous meeting 

with Lord Grey). It is probably safe 

to assume that the aisles, chancel, and 

vestry would have been clearly articulated 

on the exterior, as the Ecclesiologists 

would have demanded and as they 

are at St. Wilfrid's. There appears to be 

little in the way of elaborate articulation. 

The nave piers consist of round cores with 

four attached shafts. The most intriguing 

feature of the drawing is the relatively 

massive compound piers of the chancel 

arch. Immensely bigger than the nave 

piers, they would seem to be intended 

as support for a tower, although there 

are no corresponding piers at the opposite 

corners of the chancel-and in any 

event that would be a very odd location 

for a tower, completely without medieval 

authority. Most likely, those piers 

reflect the plan explained by Feild to 

Scott: " What I mean to attempt is a mere 

oblong building (without tower, or bell 

turret) from 120 to 125ft. long and from 

58 to 60 wide inside-a clerestory and 

two aisles: with a large arch in ye East end 

for a chancel at some future t ime." 104 Thus 

14 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N" 1 > 2006


FIG. 18. SOUTHWELL MINSTER, NOTIINGHAMSHIRE. NORTH CHOIR PIER. I PETER COFFMAN 

the main function of the massive piers is 

probably not to support the chancel arch, 

but to become the western crossing piers 

of a future eastern arm. 

Other drawings by Scott, preserved in the 

Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of 

British Architects, show increasingly ambitious 

plans. A drawing entitled " St. John's 

Newfoundland. First Design for Church" 

(fig. 14), shows a long nave, with aisles 

and south porch, apparently aisleless transepts 

of full height, a monumental crossing 

tower with a squat spire, and a choir with 

what may be aisles (or may more likely be 

a vestry). Substantial buttresses articulate 

the bays and corners of the building. The 

style throughout is Early English Gothic. 

Additional drawings show some of the 

details that Scott planned for the cathedral. 

Figure 15 is an exterior elevation 

of the north side. Details are suggested 

rather than explicitly rendered, and were 

evidently still in the process of being 

worked out. The choir is substantially 

more elaborate than the nave (this is in 

strict observance of Ecclesiological principles), 

with cusped and multi-light windows 

as opposed to the latter's lancets. 

The transept fa 2006 

15


FIG. 19. ST. JOHN 'S ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL. NAVE INTERIOR BEFORE 1880. I CATHEDRAL ARCHIVES 

FIG. 20. ST. JOHN'S ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL. NAVE EXTERIOR BE 

FORE 1880. 1 CATHEDRAL ARCHIVES 

than high and upright. There is no continuous 

vertical articulation : the shafts 

of the piers end at the capitals, and the 

shafts marking the bays of the clerestory 

are corbelled out. The main arcade is 

thick and richly moulded. Fortunately, all 

of those features are retained exactly in 

Hopson's 1902 rebuilding, so the present 

nave is as decidedly English a space as its 

predecessor. 

That strongly English quality is equally 

evident on the exterior of Scott's design 

(fig. 20). The east end (not built until 

after Scott's death) is a sheer, cliff-like 

mass, reminiscent of northern models like 

Lincoln and York Minster. The graduated 

lancets of the west end recall northern 

English prototypes such as the famous 

"Five Sisters" windows in the north transept 

of York Minster (fig. 21). The deeply 

recessed but relatively diminutive west 

door is also an English type, seen at such 

places as the cathedrals of Wells, Ripon, 

and York Minster. 

The Englishness of the design needs 

emphasizing for two reasons . First, it is 

precisely the solution required by the 

situation that so troubled Wix and other 

Newfoundland clergymen who found 

themselves isolated in a sea of popery. 

The Roman Catholic cathedral might have 

been rising longer and higher, but at last 

the established Church had a strong public 

symbol and identity-a visual brand, if 

you will-that was demonstrably English 

and Anglican. Second, St. John's Cathedral 

stands at the tail end of a phase of 

ecclesiology that was heavily antiquarian-copyist, 

in the language of the 

day-rather than innovative. Scott's nave 

was finished in 1850, the same year that 

William Butterfield would begin work 

on All Saints, Margaret Street, a building 

that would vastly enlarge the formal 

palette of the Ecclesiological Society and 

the Church of England. Both Italian and 

Early French Gothic would soon leave a 

strong mark in the designs of such Gothic 

Revival architects as Butterfield, George 

Edmund Street, 108 and even Scott himself.' 

09 Indeed, in one of the very few 

scholarly references to St . John's Cathedral, 

David Brownlee has referred to 

"French spirit" of Scott's design. 110 Such 

a characterization, however, can only be 

rooted in an imperfect knowledge of the 

medieval models upon which the building 

is based, and of the social, religious, and 

political circumstances that caused it to 

be introduced into Newfoundland. Scott 

was confused about neither. According 

to him, adaptability was a hallmark 

of Gothic, but it should never lose its 

national and spiritual essence: 

Our architecture should everywhere be 

both English and Christian, but should have 

in it that intrinsic pr inc iple of life which 

would admit of its ready adaptation to the 

climate of the torrid or the frozen zone, to 

the scorc hed plantations of Jamaica or the 

icy rocks of Labrador. The style should be 

essentially one, but it should posses an 

elasticity which would render it suitable to 

t he most varied external conditions. 111 

Scott apparently regarded St. John's 

Cathedral as something of a showpiece 

in his portfolio. It was displayed in the 

Architecture Room at the exhibition of 

the Royal Academy in 1848, 112 exhibited 

again at the Free Architectural Exhibition 

in 1849,' 13 and also appeared in the 

Illustrated London News on June 23, 1849 

(fig. 22). That illustration is perhaps the 

best surviving impression remaining of 

Scott's plans for the whole cathedral. The 

pure Early English of the earlier drawing 

16 


PETER C OFFMAN > ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

FIG. 21 . YORK MINSTER. NORTH TRANSEPT EXTERIOR. I PETER COFFMAN 

(fig. 14), while perhaps appropriate for 

the rugged, hyperborean environment 

of Newfoundland, had been transformed 

into a more complex arrangement of tall 

lancet windows (the definitive characteristic 

of Early English) and more expansive 

windows in the east end inspired by Decorated 

Gothic models such as the east window 

of Lincoln Cathedral. Scott's design, 

admittedly, is not "pure" Decorated: 

the tracery is of the heavy "plate" type 

rather than the more slender "bar" variety-possibly 

a concession to the rigours 

of the Newfoundland climate. 

In 1848, Scott's design was the subject 

of a lengthy article in The Ecc/esiologist' 14 

that began with a brief summary of the 

history of Anglican church buildings in 

St. John's. The original church, which 

had become the cathedral in 1839, had 

been "a wooden shed of the most monstrous 

description. "' 15 Archdeacon Wix 

had been responsible for the building of 

another wooden church (St. Thomas), "of 

somewhat better form [.. .] though the 

intention was certainly better than the 

effect."' 16 After the creation of the diocese 

of Newfoundland, a cathedral was 

commissioned, " piously, we own, rather 

than decorously, by Bishop Spencer."'" of William Scott, as G.G. Scott explained 

It was, unfortunately, "a sham Gothic in a letter to Feild in 1847: 

conventicle a few degrees worse than 

the church in [.. .] S. Pancras"" 8 (also Subsequent to your Lor dship's departure 

illustrated and ridiculed in Pugin's book some little discussion arose as to the 

Contrasts). The far superior church under style, Mr. William Scott thinking that a 

construction in the aftermath of the fire somewhat more advanced period of Gothic 

of 1846 was "a remarkable illustration Architecture might with some modification 

of the actual value of severe tempo- have been preferable, and I was led to take 

ral visitations."" 9 After the fire, half of more trouble in designing the architectural 

the money from the Queen's letter had features of the choir from a wish to show 

been "quite properly" apportioned by how a progression in point of ornamental 

Lord Grey for the cathedral, "yet not character might be obtained in the parts 

without sundry reclamations, especially not now undertaken, and that though the 

from the noisy Hiberno-Romanists, who present portion of the work might be more 

form the majority of the Newfoundland simple and less developed than could be 

colonists." 120 

wished, this object might be avoided in 

proceeding eastward 122 

The Ecc/esiologist then proceeded to analyze 

and comment upon the design itself. For Scott (i.e. the architect, not the 

"The style, they noted, is First-Pointed clergyman), that blend of Early English 

[Early English] of the latest phase in the and Decorated probably represented an 

nave and transepts: transitional towards ideal synthesis rather than a compromise. 

Middle-Pointed [Decorated] in the While he considered Decorated the apogee 

of Gothic (as indeed did Pugin and 

choir."' 21 That stylistic combination had, 

in fact, come about initially at the urging the Ecclesiological Society), Early English 


17


was, in his view, a style that "may well be 

the pride of Englishmen." ' 23 Thus, Scott 

concluded, "it may be reasonable to wed 

the grandeur of one with the elegance 

of the other." 124 Scott would also have 

been well aware that an earlier medieval 

nave joined to a later east end was by no 

means an unusual arrangement in English 

cathedrals, Lincoln being perhaps the 

most notable example (in addition to the 

one closest in design to Scott's cathedral 

at St . John's). 

The review in The Ecclesiologist was 

generally favourable, although they 

expressed disappointment in the design's 

lack of originality-a criticism that would 

have been unimaginable just a few years 

earlier while the Ecclesiologists still 

favoured copyism over innovation (Scott's 

complaint of the Society's contempt for 

anyone who "adhered to their own last 

opinion but one" evidently had some justification). 

The Society concluded: " The 

walls are of immense thickness: and the 

church by its durability and solid size, as 

well as by its unmistakable English and 

authenticated character, will, when it 

is completed according to the present 

designs, fully and very creditably represent 

our Church in one of the most cheerless 

of its seats." 125 

Be that as it may, completing the cathedral 

to Scott's designs was never going 

to be an easy matter. Scott himself never 

set foot in Newfoundland. To act as clerk 

of Works, he sent the Scotsman William 

Hay (1818-1888), who had trained under 

John Henderson in Edinburgh . Hay 

would remain for several years in British 

North America, and have a very successful 

career that would include work 

in Newfoundland, Ontario, Bermuda, 

and his native Scotland. 126 He was also 

a committed Gothicist who would contribute 

a heartfelt obituary of Pugin to 

the Anglo-American Magazine in 1853. 127 

18 



Feild reported to the SPG in 1847 that 

Hay had arrived in St. John's, "but single 

handed except for his wife-no mason 

or labourer.'' 128 Hay and Feild seemed to 

maintain a good working relationship 

throughout the building campaign. "His 

ambition, I believe", wrote Feild, "is to do 

the work well." 129 

Although Scott produced drawings for 

the whole cathedral, the intention from 

the start was to complete the nave only 

and leave the rest to another generation.130 

That the cathedral was thus "commenced 

in faith" was warmly praised by 

The Ecclesiologist.' 31 

Even on the nave, 

however, progress was halting. By January 

of 1848, Feild reported to the English 

clergyman Cecil Wray that the south aisle 

walls, although they had been built to 

a height of some fifteen feet, still only 

reached the level of the nave floor due to 

the steep southward slope of the site. 132 

Moreover, the climate was proving a formidable 

challenge: "I am sorry to say that 

the frost has already done considerable 

complete the task thanks to recent donadamage 

by splitting many stones, which 

it seemed impossible could ever break 

or split[ ... ]. The builder who is a clever 

sensible Scotch man would not be persuaded 

the frost would have the power 

and effect which he now witnesses and 

deplores." 133 

By the spring of 1849, money was running 

out. Feild believed that the day would soon 

come when he would have to dispense with 

William Hay's services, "merely because I 

cannot pay him."' 34 By late 1849, Feild 

reported to Earnest Hawkins that the walls 

were complete, the aisle roofs finished, and 

that the nave roof would be done "in about 

three weeks." 135 Money remained a problem, 

and more fundraising was needed: "I 

have told Mr. W. Scott I should try to send 

you a sketch; will not our walled up aisles, 

and boarded tower arch, and no more 

money awake sympathy?" 136 

By that time, the entire share of the 

Queen's letter money (in excess of 

£16,000). as well as donations from 

numerous sources such as the SPG and 

SPCK (and very possibly several others 

whose records are lost) had produced not 

a cathedral but a nave-and an incomplete 

one at that. 

In June of 1850, The Ecclesiologist triumphantly 

reported: "We are happy 

to be able to announce the great forwardness 

of the cathedral of Fredericton, 

and the nave of S. John's Cathedral, 

Newfoundland, which is to be fitted 

with a temporary choir at its east end for 

immediate use ." 137 

Finally, in October of 1850, Feild was able 

to report to Lord Grey that the cathedral 

in St. John's (or more precisely, its nave) 

had been consecrated on St. Matthew's 

Day (September 21), and was now "in 

constant use." 138 The cost had been great, 

and indeed Feild had only been able to 

tions of considerable sums by private 

friends and the SPCK. Feild assured Lord 

Grey that all the funds had been "faithfully 

(I dare not say in every case wisely) 

spent." 139 He enclosed an account of the 

consecration from The Times, which 

boasted that, were the church ever to 

be completed according to its architect's 

plans, "no ecclesiastical edifice in British 

North America could rival it."' 40 In reply, 

Lord Grey declared that it afforded 

him "much satisfaction to learn that 

the cathedral church at St. John's has 

been consecrated, and that the building, 

though not completed, is now in constant 

use."141 

Officially satisfied Lord Grey may have 

been, but unofficial opinion in the office 

of the secretary of State for the Colonies 

appears to have been less than universally 

impressed with the process by which 

Feild established his Gothic foothold 

in Newfoundland. In January of 1850, 

Newfoundland Governor Le Marchant 

sent a letter to Lord Grey accompanying 

Feild's report on the nearly ready, yet still 

cash-strapped cathedral. Included was a 

report from William Hay, detailing £1446 

worth of work remaining to be done.' 42 

On the back of Le Marchant's letter is a 

hand-written internal memo from Arthur 

Blackwood, Senior Clerk, to H. Merivale, 

under-secretary of State for the Colonies. 

It reads: 

Mr. Merivale 

It would seem that the £16000 which has 

been spent on the Cathedral is insufficient 

to complete the Building, & that the Bishop 

does not know where the rest of the money 

is to be found to finish the interior & make 

it serviceable. Two good Stone Churches 

might have been built for that money. 

Acknowledge? 

ABd 23/ 1/50 143 

To a civil servant comfortably ensconced 

in V ictorian London, the job of building 

a thirteenth-century English cathedral 

on a rocky, remote, windswept, impoverished 

North Atlantic island must have 

looked fairly easy. This study has, hopefully, 

demonstrated otherwise. 

NOTES 

1. I would like to thank the many people who 

have helped me in the preparation of this 

article, and of the larger project of which it 

is a part. In particular, I would like to thank 

Malcolm Thurlby and Pierre du Prey for 

constant good advice and support. Shane 

O'Dea's knowledge of Newfoundland architecture 

is matched only by his generosity in 

sharing it. J. Mordaunt Crook and John Elliott 

provided invaluable advice during my research 

in England. Thanks are also due to the Royal 

Institute of British Architects for permission 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N•· 1 > 2006 

19


to reproduce Scott's drawings of St . John's 

Cathedral. I am extremely grateful to the 

IHR (Institute of Historical Research) Mellon 

Foundation, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, 

the Social Sciences and Humanities 

Research Council of Canada, and the dean 

of Arts and Science at Queen's University for 

research funding. Particular thanks go to Julia 

Mathieson, former cathedral and current diocesan 

archivist in St. John's, without whom this 

article would not have been possible. 

2. « Colonial Church Architecture, Chapter VI : 

St. John's Cathedral, Newfoundland », The 

Ecclesiologist, no. 65, April 1848, new series 

no. 29, p. 275. 

3. See Report of the Incorporated Society for the 

Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts for 

the year 1838, London, SPG, 1838. 

4. Idem: 22. 

5. Wix, Edward, 1836, Six Months of a Newfoundland 

Missionary's Journal from February 

to August, 1835, London, Smith, Elder. 

6. Wix: 6. 

7. Population Returns, 1836 (Centre for Newfoundland 

Studies). 

8 . Darcy, J.B., 2003, Fire upon the Earth: The Life 

and Times of Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming, 

O.S.F., St. John's, Creative Publishers. 

9. O'Fiaherty, Patrick, 1999, Old Newfoundland, 

St . John's, Long Beach Press. 

10. Wix: X. 

11. Wix:X. 

12. Wix: IX. 

13. See O'Neill, Paul, 1993, «Who Designed the 

Roman Catholic Basilica?>>, Newfoundland 

Quarterly, vol. LXXXVIII, no. 1, p. 7-13 . 

14. It now shares that distinction with "The 

Rooms," a combined provincial art gallery, 

museum, and archives. 

15. The building, erroneously in the present 

author's view, has also been labelled "Romanesque 

Revival." See Ricketts, Shannon, Leslie 

Maitland, and Jacqueline Hucker, 2003 [2"d 

ed.]. A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles, 

Peterborough, Broadview Press, p. 94. 

16. See Rowe, C. Francis, 1989, In Fields Afar: A 

Review of the Establishment of the Anglican 

Parish of St. John's and its Cathedral, St . John's, 

Seawise Enterprises Ltd. 

17. Wix : 257. 

18. Report of the Incorporated Society for the 

Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 

for the year 1838, London, SPG, p. 23-24. 

19. See History of St. Thomas' Church, 1836-7961, 

based upon "The History of St. Thomas' and 

its Rectors," by the late H.W . LeMessurier, 

C.M.G., published in 1928. As amended and 

added to by the Centenary Historical Committee, 

R.G. MacDonald, Chairman (1936). 

20. Spencer, Aubrey George, 1842, The Church of 

God: A Sermon on Acts XX. 28, preached in 

the Parish Church of St. John's, Newfoundland, 

on Good Friday, 7842, by Aubrey George, Lord 

Bishop of Newfoundland, St . John's, p. LXX, 

J.W. Mcoubrey. 

21 . Ibid.: LXXI. 

22 . On the Commissioners Churches, see Port, 

Michael, 1961, Six Hundred New Churches, 

London, SPCK; Liscombe, Rhodri Windsor, 

1979, « Economy, Character and Durability: 

Specimen Designs for the Church Commissioners, 

1818 »,Architectural History, vol. 13, p. 43- 

57; Carr, Gerald, 1973, « Soane's Specimen 

Church Designs of 1818: A Reconsideration», 

Architectural History, vol. 16, p. 37-54; Clark, 

Kenneth, 1928, The Gothic Revival: An Essay 

in the History of Taste, London, chap. V. 

23. Tucker, H.W ., 1877, Memoir of the Life and 

Episcopate of Edward Feild, D. D . Bishop of 

Newfoundland 1844- 1876, London, W .W . 

Gardner, p. 29. 

24. Rowley, Owsley Robert, 1928, The Anglican 

Episcopate of Canada and Newfoundland, 

Milwaukee and London, A . R. Mowbray & 

Co., p. 217. 

25. The Ecclesiologist, 1847, vol. 7, p. 168-171; 1847, 

vol. 8, p. 88-92. 

26, The Ecclesiologist, 1847, vol. 8, p. 86-88. 

27. The Ecclesiologist, 1847, vol. 8, p. 141-142. 

28. The Ecclesiologist, 1847, val. 8, p. 142-147; 

1848, vol. 9, p. 181-187; 1849, vol. 10, p. 193- 

194. 

29. The Ecclesiologist, 1848, vol. 8, p. 265-271 ; 

1849, val. 10, p. 193. 

30. The Ecclesiologist, 1848, val. 8, p. 271-274; 

1850, vol. 10, p. 327-330. 

31 . The Ecclesiologist, 1848, vol. 8, p . 274-279; 

1849, vol. 9, p. 215-217. 

32. The Ecclesiologist, 1848 vol. 8, p . 361-363; 

1849, vol. 10, p . 192-193. 


34. Letters of Bishop Edward Feild to the Rev. William 

Scott, Diocesan Archives of Eastern Newfoundland 

and Labrador (DAENL), 100.43, box 

Six Hundred New Churches 2, file 4 . Tran 

scribed by Tim Power under the direction of 

Shane O'Dea. Letter dated July 11, 1844. 

35. DAENL, Feild to William Scott, August 22, 

1844. 

36. DAENL, Feild to William Scott, August, 1844. 

37. Thomas Bridge to Ernest Hawkins, secretary of 

the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 

in Foreign Parts, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland 

and Labrador (PANL). "G" Series: 

letters Read before the Society: reel 249. Letter 

dated August 24, 1846. 


39. DAENL, Feild to Ernest Hawkins, June 19, 

1845. 


41 . DAENL, Feild to William Scott, May 20, 1845. 

42. Ibid. 

43. DAENL, Feild to William Scott, March 10, 

1846. 

44. DAENL, Feild to William Scott, May 20, 1845. 

45. DAENL, Feild to William Scott, June 5, 1845. 

46. DAENL, Feild to Earnest Hawkins, October 9, 

1845. 

47. Ibid. 

48. Prowse, D.W., A History of Newfoundland, 

originally published St. John's, 1895; re-published 

Portugal Cove, Boulder Publications, 

2002, p. 458. 

49. That account is taken from the Newfoundlander 

of June 18, 1846; quoted in Prowse: 

458-459. 


51. Ibid. 

52. A .W .N. Pugin, 1843, On The Present State of 

Ecclesiastical Architecture in England, London, 

St. Barnabas Press. St. Wilfrid is illustrated in 

plates Ill, VII and XIV. 

53. DAENL, Feild to Earnest Hawkins, June 12, 

1846. 


55. The Record, July 13, 1846, no. 1,965. 

56. The Record, August 13, 1834, no. 1,972. 

20 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N 1 > 2006

PETER C OFFMAN > ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

57. Report of the Incorporated Society for the 

Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 

for the year 1848, London, 1848. Feild was 

offering this recollection as a tribute to the 

recently deceased Howley. 

58 . DAENL, Feild to Hawkins, June 12, 1846. 

59. Ibid. 

60. DAENL, Feild to Hawkins, August 7, 1846. 

61 . PANL, Bridge to Earnest Hawkins, August 24, 

1846. 

62 . House of Commons Papers, Reports &c, 

vol. XXXVI, no. 54, p. 59. 

63. House of Commons Papers, Reports &c, 


64. PANL, Bridge to Earnest Hawkins, August 24, 

1846. 

65. PANL, Bridge to Hawkins, September 7, 1846. 

66. Ibid. 

67. Ibid. 

68. PANL, Bridge to Hawkins, September 10, 

1846. 


vol. XXXVI, no. 35 enclosure, p. 45. 

70. PANL, Bridge to Hawkins, October 26, 1846. 

71 . PANL, Bridge to Hawkins, December 16, 

1846. 

72. DAENL, no. 668, box 4, file 4, letter 9. 

73 . Idem: letter 10. 

74 . House of Commons Papers, Reports &c, 

vol. XXXVI, no. 54 p. 59. 


vol. XXXVI, no. 59, p. 63 . 

76. Ibid. 


vol. XXXVI, no. 76 p. 84-85. 


vol. XXXVI, no. 79. p. 88. 


vol. XXXVI, enclosure 1, no. 70, p. 95. 




vol. XXXVI, enclosure 2, no. 81 . 

82 . 1bid. 

83 . The architect had a brother, also named William 

Scott, also a clergyman. The two William 

Scotts are, however, different people- George 

Gilbert's brother was vicar of Abthorpe, while 

Feild's friend and colleague was vicar of Christ 

Church, Hoxton. 

84. Strangely, no recent, comprehensive monograph 

has been written on Scott. The standard 

reference is Cole, David, 1980, The Work of 

Sir Gilbert Scott, London, The Architectural 

Press . Basic data on Scott and his descendents 

can be found in Fisher, Geoffrey, Gavin Stamp 

& others, Catalogue of the Drawings Collection 

of the Royal Institute of British Architects: 

The Scott Family, p. 13-16. As Gavin Stamp has 

said, the best biography on Scott remains the 

architect's own (Scott, George Gilbert, 1995 

[1 " ed. London, 1879]. Personal and Professional 

Recollections, new ed. Stamford, Paul 

Watkins. 

85. Scott, 1995 : 85. 

86. Idem : 86. 

87. Idem : 88. 

88. Idem : 90. 

89. The Ecclesiologist, 1942, vol. 1, no. 4, p. 68. 

90. The Ecclesiologist, 1845, vol. 4, p. 184. 

91. Stamp, Gavin, 2001, « George Gilbert Scott 

and the Cambridge Camden Society >>, in A 

Church as it Should Be: The Cambridge Camden 

Society and its Influence, Donnington, 

Shaun Tyas. 

92 . Scott, 1995: 206. 

93 . Scott, George Gilbert, 1850, " On the Question 

of the selection of a single variety of 

Pointed Architecture for modern use, an of 

which variety has the strongest claims on such 

selection," A Plea for the Faithful Restoration 

of our Ancient Churches .. . to which are 

added some Miscellaneous Remarks on other 

subjects .. . , London, p. 95-96. 

94. Idem : 112-113. 

95 . Scott, George Gilbert, 1857, Remarks on 

Secular and Domestic Architecture, London, 

J. Murray, p. 10. 

96. Idem : 12. 

97. Idem: 16. 

98. From Scott, 1850: 39-51 . 

99. Idem : 40. 

100. Idem: 43. 

101 . Idem: 44. 

102. Idem : 44. 

103. Bridge, Thomas, 1841 , The Two Religions; or, 

the Question Settled, Which Is the Oldest 

Church, the Anglican or the Rom ish?, London, 

Gilbert and Rivington Printers. 

104. DAENL, Feild to Scott, June 23, 1846. 

105. See Scott, George Gilbert, 1878, Lectures on 

the Rise and Development of Gothic Architecture, 

London, J. Murray, p 157-158. 

106. On the theme of variety in English medieval 

architectural design, see Thurlby, Malcolm, 

and Yoshio Kusaba, 1991 , « The Nave of Saint 

Andrew at Steyning: A Study of Variety in 

Design in Twelfth-Century Architecture in 

Britain », Gesta, vol. XXX, no. 2, p. 163-175. 

107. Several such photographs are now available 

online from the Centre for Newfoundland 

Studies at Memorial University. One that 

clearly shows the fillet is : Centre for Newfoundland 

Studies, Coli- 137, 2.02.012 . See 

[http://www.library.mun.ca/qeii/cns/photos/ 

geogfindaid.php#Arrange]. 

108. On G.E. Street, and on the influence of Early 

French Gothic on the English Gothic Revival 

more generally, see Brownlee, David, 1984, 

The Law Courts: The Architecture of George 

Edmund Street, New York, Cambridge, 

Mass. 

109. At, for example, the polychrome stone and 

brick Midland Grand Hotel, St. Pancras. 

110. Brownlee, David, 1993, >, The Artist's Workshop: 

Studies in the History of Art 38, Washington, 

D.C., National Gallery of Art, p. 156-173. 

111 . Scott, 1850: 115. 

112. The Ecclesiologist, vol. 8, 1848, p. 360, comments: 

" We cannot conceive why the hanging 

committee should have placed this design 

in the highest row, while so many works of 

far inferior merit and interest occupy advantageous 

positions." 

113. That was apparently an exhibition set up by 

and for architects to the exhibition of the 

Royal Academy, which was widely considered 

by the profession not to do architecture 

justice. See The Ecclesiologist, 1849, vol. 9, 

p . 303. 


115. Idem : 274. 

116. Idem : 275. 

117. Idem : 275. 

118. Idem : 274. 

119. Idem : 271 . 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N ~ 1 > 2006 

21

PETER C OFFM AN > ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

120. Idem : 276. 

121. Idem : 277. 

122. G.G . Scott to Feild, August 3, 1847. 

123. G.G. Scott, 1850 : 96. 

124. Idem : 98. 

125. The Ecclesiologist, 1848, vol. 8, p. 278. 

126. On Hay's work in Ontario, see MacRae, 

Marion, and Anthony Adamson, 1975, Hallowed 

Walls: Church Architecture of Upper 

Canada, Toronto, Clarke, Irwin. On his work in 

Bermuda, see Magrill, Barry, 2004, « ' Development' 

and Ecclesiology in the Outposts of 

the British Empire: William Hay's Gothic Solutions 

for Church Building in Tropical Climates 

(1840-1890) >>, Journal of the Society for the 

Study of Architecture in Canada, vol. 29, 

nos. 1-2, p . 15-26. 

127. Hay, William, 1853, , Anglo 

American Magazine, January-July, p. 70-73. 

128. DAENL, Feild to Hawkins, May 10, 1847. 

129. DAENL, Feild to Hawkins, July 25, 1848. 

130. A certain amount of confusion seemed to 

occur over that, but was cleared up in a letter 

from G.G. Scott to Feild on August 3, 1847. 

131 . The Ecclesiologist, 1848, vol. 8, p. 278. 

132. Lambeth Palace Library, MS 1604, Edward 

Feild to Cecil Wray, January 26, 1848. 

133. Ibid. 

134. DAENL, Feild to Hawkins, May 21 , 1849. 

135. DAENL, Feild to Hawkins, October 17, 1849. 

136. DAENL, Feild to Hawkins, November 15, 1849. 

137. The Ecclesiologist, 1850, vol. 11 , p. 54. 


vol. XXXVI, enclosure, no. 101. 

139. Ibid. 

140. The Times and General Commercial Gazette, 

Saturday, September 28, 1850, no. 78. 

141 . House of Commons Papers, Reports &c. 

vol. XXXVI, no. 102. 

142. House of Commons Papers, Reports &c. 

vol. XXXVI, no. 99. 

143. Public Records Office, no. 548, January 3, 

1850, >. 

22 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > No 1 > 2006

ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

TORONTO'S TOWER OF PURE WATER: 

A LOST CIVIC VISION 

STEVEN MANNELL is Professor in the School of 

Architecture at Dalhousie University, teaching in 

the areas of design and technology, and is principal 

>STEVEN MAN NELL 

of Steven Mannell Architect of Halifax. In addition 

to his ongoing study of twentieth-century public 

works and waterworks, he is active in the field of 

modern heritage. His book Atlantic Modern: The 

Architecture of the Atlantic Provinces 1 950-20:0 

was published by Tuns Press in 2004. 

THE DISTRICT NO. 3 OVERHEAD TANK AS PROPOSED BY POMPHREY AND HARRIS WITH BRICK AND STONE CLADDING, 

VIEWED FROM THE SPADINA ROAD BRIDGE, SHOWING THE TUNNEL PORTAL AND VALVE HOUSE BUILDINGS IN THE CENTRE 

OF THE VIEW, WITH STEPS GIVING ACCESS FROM THE RESERVOIR TOP DOWN INTO THE RAVINE PARK. J PHOTOMONTAGE, RENOER· 

lNG AND DIGITAL MODEL: BEN JAMIN CHECKWITCH, STEVEN MAN NEll, WILLIAM RAWLINGS. BASE PHOTO: ARTHUR GOSS. SOURCE: CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVES, RGB, 

SERIES 721TEMS 1166 & 1167 

ABSTRACT 

The Toronto Water Works Extension 

(TWWE) project of 1913-1955 proposed 

a comprehensive water supply and distribution 

system in the context of a vision 

of public works as a great civic deed, 

demanding a great civic architecture. The 

St. Clair Reservoir was the first completed 

element of the TWWE, comprising a covered 

reservoir topped by a public park 

giving on to a developed ravine landscape. 

Organized in relation to views 

from new civic roadworks-the Spadina 

Road Bridge and the boulevarded St. Clair 

Avenue-the intended climax of the reservoir 

landscape was the ornamental 

St. Clair overhead tank. The proposed 

rich dressing of brick, limestone, and 

copper masks a large steel water tank, 

giving monumental architectural expression 

to prosaic engineering function in 

a manner that would characterize the 

architecture of the TWWE. The cancellation 

of the tank project by Toronto's 

Board of Control indicates a deep gulf 

between Harris and his political overseers 

regarding the value and importance of 

monumental architectural expression to 

the TWWE project and to public works 

in general. A contemporary reconstruction 

of the tank, using architectural CAD 

modeling and renderings constructed in 

accordance with archival documents, reveals 

the rich architectural expression of 

the tank design, while photomontages 

using archival photographs of the reservoir 

demonstrate the full civic vision of 

the reservoir landscape as a whole. 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N • 1 > 2006 > 23-34 

23

STEVEN M ANNELL > ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

FIG. 1. THE TOWER OF PURE WATER: DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UN BUILT DISTRICT 

NO.3 OVERHEAD TANK, VIEWED FROM ABOVE SHOWING THE FRONT FA~E OF 

THE TANK FACING THE PLAYING FIELDS ON TOP OF THE ST. CLAIR RESERVOIR. THE 

DOORWAY WITH BROKEN PEDIMENT AND MONUMENTAL URN ISATTHE BASE; THE 

ROOFTOP CUPOLA ACCOMMODATES THE ROOF ACCESS LADDER. ! RENDERING AND DIGITAL 

MODEL: BENJAMIN CHECKWITCH, STEVEN MANNEll WilliAM RAWliNGS 

LA K ~ 

Toronto & ~lii'Oistric:ts 

::~= - 

FIG. 2. GENERAL LAYOUT OF WATER WORKS EXTENSION, FROM THE 1913 COMMISSIONER'S 

REPORT. DARK GRAY CIRCLES ARE VICTORIA PARK (LEFT) AND SCARBOROUGH HEIGHTS 

(RIGHT). LIGHT GRAY CIRCLES ARE PARKDALE (LE FT) AND ST. CLAIR (TOP).I DIAGRAM R.C HARRI~ 

1913, REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF WORKS ON ADDITIONS AND EXTENSIONS TO THE TORONTO WATfRWORKS PUMPING 

AND DISTRIBUnON PlANT, TORONTO, CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVES PLATE NO. 1 

INTRODUCTION The cancellation of the tank project by tute one of the most beautiful areas in 

The Toronto Water Works Extension (TW 

WE) project of 1913-1955 proposed not 

only a comprehensive water supply and 

distribution system, but also embodied a 

highly developed vision of civil engineering 

and public works as great civic deeds, 

demanding a great civic architecture.' 

The St. Clair Reservoir was the first completed 

element of the TWWE, comprising 

a covered reservoir topped by a public 

park and giving on to a developed ravine 

landscape. The complex was organized in 

relation to the view from the monumental 

new bridge carrying Spadina Road to 

its intersection with the proposed civic 

tecture and landscape vision of the TWWE 

Toronto's Board of Control indicates the 

boulevard of St. Clair Avenue. The archideep 

gulf between Harris and his political 

overseers regarding the value and 

importance of monumental architectural 

expression to the TWWE project, and to 

public works in general. 

PRELUDE: THE TORONTO WATER 

WORKS EXTENSION PROJECT 

In 1913, newly installed Toronto works 

commissioner R.C. Harris presented his 

Report of the Commissioner of Works on 

Additions and Extensions to the Toronto 

Waterworks Pumping and Distribution 

Plant. Urgently prepared in rebuttal to 

the 1912 Report of the Board of Water 

Toronto." 2 Harris's report further sug- 

Commissioners sponsored by Harris's disgested 

linking the new waterworks to 

a proposed encircling carriage drive and 

parkway system for the city. 

The civic dimension was very dear to Harris. 

He had a hand in various manipulations 

of the Bloor Viaduct design process 

before becoming commissioner of works, 

and there is much evidence for his ongoing 

close relations with key figures in 

the Guild for Civic Art.' The Guild was a 

progressive planning advocacy group, including 

such architects as Edmund Burke 

and John Lyle, dedicated to implementing 

City Beautiful ideals in Toronto. Projects 

included: 

was the product of the collaboration of graced predecessor Charles Rust, Harris's • The G u i I d's 19 0 9 Report on a 

architect Thomas Canfield Pomphrey with 1913 Commissioner's Report proposed Comprehensive Plan for Systematic 

his patron, commissioner of works R.C. 

Harris; the climax of that collaboration 

construction of a duplicate waterworks 

just beyond the eastern city limit at Vic- 

Improvements in Toronto; 

was the ornamental St . Clair overhead toria Park. A vision of public works as civic • The Civic Plan Commission of 1911, 

tank, proposed for the southern prow of 

works pervaded the Commissioner's Rethe 

reservoir at the head of the ravine, 

which would have dominated views from 

the ravine and from the Spadina Bridge. 

port: "It is proposed to erect handsome 

buildings, which, in conjunction with the 

park district and the beach, will constirecommending 

ornamental space on 

roadways, boulevards between curb 

and sidewalks, and the beautification 

of St. Clair Avenue (by 1909, St. Clair 

24 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N ' 1 > 2006

S TEVEN M ANNELL > ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

Fla . .._Dl•l••m •howin& cleval ion of willu dlatrkh and 1be lnluconnccdon ol the 

~~~~nt a nd new w&tH t upply IJ'ttana. 

FIG. 3. ELEVATION SCHEMATIC OF THE TWWE PROJECT OF 1926. THE ST. CLAIR RESERVOIR 

AND DISTRICT NO. 3 OVERHEAD TANK ARE AT THE UPPER LEFT. I DIAGRAM WlLLIAM GORE, 

1929, • FOURTEEN MILUON DOllAR EXTENSIONS TO TORONTO'S WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM •. CONTRAO RECORDS AND 

ENGINEERING REVIEW, VOL 43, JUNE 19, P. 728, FIG. 2 

FIG. 4. PLAN OF THE TWWE DISTRICTS, FROM THE 1926 REPORT. DISTRICT NO. 3 IS TONED BLUE 

AT THE UPPER LEFT. I DIAGRAMo H.G. ACRES AND WILLIAM GORE, 1916, REPORT ON PROPOSED EXTENSIONSTO 

THE WATER WORKS SYSTEM, TORONTO, CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVES. RG 1 REPORTS. BOX 4, PLATE 1 

was the main east-west street at the 

northern limit of the city); 

• Study of alternative alignments of the 

Bloor Viaduct (1911 ); 

• A proposal for a Don Valley Parkway 

(1912); 

motives, and would be accompanied by 

significant improvements in social and 

market conditions in the city.• As well, 

Harris was certainly intimate with the 

contemporary report prepared by Cousins 

and the Harbour Commission on the 

future of the waterfront and port, which 

proposed a continuous belt of parks with 

scenic boulevard carriage drives along the 

• A proposal for a system of encircling western waterfront, then swinging south 

parks and parkways with boulevard 

carriage drives (1913). 

Harris also sat on the Civic Transportation 

Committee with the Hydro-electric Power 

Commission of Ontario's chief engineer 

across the Toronto Harbour islands and 

lagoons before returning to Woodbine 

Beach at the east. 5 

WATER SUPPLY PROBLEMS IN 

NORTHWESTERN TORONTO 

jor block west of the eventual site), just 

below St . Clair Avenue. 6 Upon submission 

ofthe drawings for approval in 1924, the 

City Architect wrote to Harris: "The suggested 

masonry housing is not specified, 

though shown on the drawing." 7 This suggests 

that the tank was considered and 

developed in ornamental terms, with an 

intention for decorative form, an impulse 

in keeping with recent trends in public 

works thinking. That tank proposal was 

killed by the Board of Control in June 1924 

due to (in Harris's words) the "strong protest 

from property owners in the area."" 

Other sites were mooted along the alignment 

of St. Clair Avenue, but none were 

developed due to the commissioner's 

F.A . Gaby and the Toronto Harbour Commission's 

chief engineer E.L. Cousins. The 

group produced the 1915 Report to the 

Concerns regarding water pressure and 

supply interruptions in the northwestern 

perception of likely neighbourhood 

opposition. 

Civic Transportation Committee on Radi- pumping District 3 were raised througha/ 

Railway Entrances and arrangements out the late teens and early twenties. THE ST. CLAIR RESERVOIR 

within the city, advocating a major east- 

west electric-powered commuter rail line 

along waterfront, connecting to a northsouth 

line up Yonge Street to Summerhill 

Avenue. Ridership increases of 500 to 1000 

percent were predicted to result from the 

use of electric-rather than steam-loco- 

That district was largely above the level 

ofthe main reservoir at Rosehill, and thus 

dependent on steam and later electric 

pumps for supply, rather than gravity 

feed. The Works Department's in-house 

studies resulted in a proposal for a water 

tank located on Bathurst Street (one ma- 

War and recession had combined to place 

the 1913 report on hold. Finally, in 1925, 

an external consulting engineer's report 

was commissioned from H.G. Acres and 

William Gore. Their report, issued in 1926, 

declared: " The scheme above described 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N" 1 > 2006 

25


~~ 

ground and leave the ravine lands, worthless 

in the eyes of both city officials and 

the Eaton trustees. 12 

FIG. 5. SITE PLAN LAYOUT OF THE GROUNDS AND BUILD 

INGS ATOP THE ST. CLAIR RESERVOIR AND OF THE 

SPADINA ROAD BRIDGE. I DRAWING: H.G.ACRES & CO. LTD. 

AND GORE. NASMITH & STORRIE, 1929. WATER WORKS EXTENSION: ST. 

ClAJR RESERVOIR CONTRAG DRAWINGS. TORONTO, CITY OF TORONTO 

DEPARTMENT OF WORKS; SHEET R·l 

is substantially in harmony with the conception 

of the Commissioner of Works, 

as outlined in his 1913 Report." • However, 

the waterworks project had become 

FIG. 6. PLAN LAYOUT OF THE ST. CLAIR RESERVOIR SHOW 

ING HEXAGONAL LAYOUT OF CONCRETE COLUMNS. I 

DRAWING: H.G. ACRES & CO. LTD. AND GORE, NASMITH & STORRIE, 1929, 

WATER WORKS EXTENSION: StCLAIR RESERVOIR CONTRACT DRAWINGS, 

TORONTO, CITY OF TORONTO DEPARTMENT OF WORKS; SHEET R-3 

• A new filtered water tunnel across the 

lakefront from Victoria Park to John 

Street and Parkdale; 

St. Clair Avenue was a hot point for the 

activities of the Guild for Civic Art. The 

Guild's summary of accomplishments 

ranks the widening of St. Clair as number 

one in importance among the successes 

of its early years, along with the establishment 

of boulevards at the centre and 

between curb and sidewalk along St. Clair 

as number five in importance. 13 For Harris, 

the St. Clair site offered an opportunity 

to bring together in one project his multiple 

obsessions of waterworks, bridges, 

boulevard streets, and public parks. The 

park character of the reservoir design was 

confirmed in a letter from Gore to Harris 

dating from early 1926, before the Water 

Works Extension report was issued : "The 

whole will be sodded over and sidewalks 

and flower pots could be placed on same. 

The whole area will be closed with an ormuch 

more comprehensive than in 1913 • No changes to the existing Island filtration namental fence." 14 By 1929, the civic ambiand 

proposed an overall strategy for the and pumping works (centre south). 10 tions of the design were more ambitious: 

entire city. The full scope of the 1926 

" The reservoir has been made to conform 

scheme comprised: Together with the development of St. Clair to extensive improvements in roads and 

Avenue as the city's northern boulevard, 

bridges in the vicinity, and the grounds 

• A new duplicate waterworks (includ- the establishment of Lakeshore Boule- are to be laid out and planted for use as 

ing filtration, pumping and reservoirs) 

at Victoria Park, the eastern edge of 

the city; 

• A new Sunnyside pumping plant with 

surge tower at the western edge of 

the city, adjacent to the new Lakeshore 

Boulevard with its amusement 

parks, beach, and bathing station; 

• A new reservoir and overhead tank 

at St. Clair and Spadina, at the north 

edge on the city's central axis; 

• A new surge tower at the existing 

John Street pumping station, at the 

centre of the city; 

vard at the southwest, and the proposed a public park." ' 5 

north-south carriage drives, the waterworks 

projects mark out the key points 

Road bridges were as prominent as waterof 

a diagram of an encircled, quadrate 

Toronto. 

The proposed development of the 

St. Clair site comprised two waterworks 

components, a reservoir serving pumping 

District 2, and an overhead tank-serving 

district 3." The St. Clair and Spadina site 

was identified as early as 1925 for the reservoir 

location by Acres and Gore, and 

was finally purchased from the estate of 

Sir John Eaton in 1930, after the reservoir 

had been tendered. The expropriation 

process was controversial due to the 

city's initial attempt to take only the high 

works in Harris's vision of a renewed Toronto. 

Design of the Prince Edward Viaduct 

(1909-1919) involved significant collaboration 

with architects and designers outside 

of the Works Department, much public 

debate about alignment and image, and 

some degree of political interference.•• Perhaps 

in an effort to maintain tighter control 

of the very many bridges projected for 

the near future, Harris moved to develop 

in-house capacity for bridge design. By the 

late 1920s, the Works Department's designers 

had developed a characteristic bridge 

design based loosely on the Viaduct, with 

steel truss substructure surmounted by 

26 


S TEVEN MANNELL > ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

FIG. 7. VIEW OF RESERVOIR AND BRIDGE UNDER CONSTRUCTION. I PHOTO: ARTHUR Gos~ CITY OF 

TORONTO ARCHM~ RG8. SERIES 6S. ITEM 71 

FIG. 8. VIEW OF INTERIOR OF RE SERVOIR UNDER CONSTRUCTION, SHOWING HEXAGONAL COL 

UMN GRID. I PHOTO: ARTHUR GOS~ CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVE~ RGS. SERIES 6S. ITEM 81 

concrete road deck, pylons, and rails. De 

ployed in various situations around the city, 

the consistency of the language of those 

bridges reinforced the systematic nature of 

public works in Harris's vision of the city. 

At the St. Clair site, the in-house engineers 

of the Works Department designed a steel 

truss and concrete bridge to replace the old 

wooden trestle on Spadina Road south of 

St. Clair, simultaneous to the reservoir design 

process of 1927 to 1929. The Spadina 

Road Bridge provides an appropriate frame 

and viewing platform for the reservoir park, 

along with a grand approach to the new 

boulevard of St. Clair Avenue. The reservoir 

and bridge were tendered together as one 

contract in 1929, w ith Nelson River Construction 

the successful bidder.' 7 Included 

in the contract were just two visible architectural 

elements, the tunnel portal and 

gatehouse buildings, along with steps and 

terraces and the foundations for an octagonal 

overhead tank, though not the tank 

itself.' 8 In describing the completed design, 

Gore noted that "[t)he tunnel portal has 

DISTRICT 3 OVERHEAD TANK 

In a letter from Gore to Harris in June 

1927, the architectural ambitions of the 

tank were established: " The tank will be 

protected from frost and heat by a building 

to an architect's design conforming 

with the gate house and pipe tunnel portal 

of the service reservoir and suitable 

to the surroundings." 20 During the period 

from late 1928 through early 1929, the 

language, layout, and detail of the Victoria 

Park works were finally resolved to 

the satisfaction of Harris, who was both 

particular and demanding in his review 

of drawings, and very concerned to avoid 

plain, workmanlike buildings. By mid-1931, 

Harris had become anxious to view the 

tank design. In September 1931, William 

Storrie replied to Harris: "Our architect 

Mr. Pomphrey is on holiday at the present 

time and as soon as he comes back we will 

have this matter attended to." 2 ' 

Harris was compelled to repeat his rebeen 

that "Within the next few days we hope 

to place before you the design which we 

have selected out of a number of sketches 

that have been prepared for this Water 

Tower." That letter also noted that the 

tank plan had been changed to a dodecahedron 

from the original octagon, 

based on the advice of the steel tank 

manufacturer. 22 

THOMAS CANFIELD POMPHREY 

Thomas Canfield Pomphrey was apprenticed 

as an architect in Scotland 

before immigrating to Toronto, where 

he worked for John Lyle and Darling & 

Pearson, among other firms. He was badly 

wounded in the right shoulder during 

the war and spent a number of years in 

convalescent hospitals before resuming 

his practice in Toronto. In 1925, Pomphrey 

and William Ferguson won the competition 

for the Toronto Cenotaph and, from 

1927 (at the latest), he was staff architect 

for Gore, Nasmith & Storrie.2' 

featured architecturally and provides quest for architectural drawings a numthat 

access both inside and out to the reservoir ber of times, including twice in January Pomphrey's relationship to Commissioner 

and grounds."' 9 1932; Storrie replied on January 20, 1932 Harris appears to have undergone a 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N 1 > 200 6 27


T 

T 

I 

FIG. 9. VIEW OFTHE VALVE HOUSE (UPPER LEVEL) AND TUNNEL PORTAL (LOWER LEVEL) ATTHE 

CROOK OF THE RESERVOIR. I STEVEN MANNELL 

FIG. 10. DETAIL OF THE ORNAMENTAL STONEWORK AT THE TUNNEL 

PORTAL PEDIMENT. I STEVEN MANNELL 

significant shift in course of the TWWE 

project. In October 1932, Harris complained 

to the engineers that Pomphrey 

alone had signed approval on drawings: 

"Will you please ensure that in future 

this approval is indicated on the drawings 

by a member of your firm and not 

by just one of the staff." 24 By the mid- 

1930s, however, Harris had a very different 

attitude towards Pomphrey. The 

commissioner of buildings had written 

to Harris, concerned that "[f]rom time to 

time Mr. Pomphrey of Messrs. Gore, Nasmith 

& Storey [sic] makes decisions on 

the Job in respect to materials and details, 

or interprets the specifications [.. .]1 

would be glad to know if this meets with 

your approval," to which Harris replied : 

"Mr. Pomphrey [...]when advising on the 

aforesaid work will request the presence 

of your Inspector so that he may be fully 

informed;" 25 an oblique but nonetheless 

definitive delegation of decision-making 

authority. From that point forward, Pomphrey 

was to be considered Harris's agent 

in all matters architectural-a delegation 

of authority that he never bestowed on 

the engineers, on a project where he 

otherwise insisted that all approvals be 

issued over his signature alone. 

THE TOWER OF PURE WATER 

The valve house and pipe tunnel portal 

buildings delineated in the 1929 reservoir 

contract drawings are the first expressions 

of the monumental architectural 

language to be deployed in the TWWE. 

Ornament conforms to a fairly generalized 

neo-classical manner, using such 

devices as urns, deep rustication, and 

prominent pediment forms, and contains 

none of the stylized references to water 

supply engineering process that characterize 

the later buildings at Victoria Park. 

In the plumpness of form and depth of 

modeling, the decorative carving of the 

portal has affinities to the details of Ferguson 

and Pomphrey's Toronto cenotaph 

of 1925. 

The overhead tank at St . Clair was intended 

to be a centrepiece of the Water 

Works Extension project, and its design 

was developed by Pomphrey under 

Harris's careful scrutiny over a period of 

three years following the tender of the 

reservoir. Situated on a triangular earthen 

prow at the south end of the St. Clair Reservoir, 

the tank was to command views 

from both the new Spadina Road Bridge 

and from the eventual Ravine Park below. 

William Storrie noted, somewhat laconically: 

"In keeping with the surroundings 

this tank is of an ornamental type [...]In 

general the building is to be faced with 

brick of first quality grey stock with stone 

base, pilasters and trim cut from the best 

quality Queenston limestone." 26 As proposed 

in the 1932 contract drawings, a 

standard steel water tank (capacity of 

460,000 gallons, or five million pounds 

of water) is encased by vertical limestone 

pilasters, projecting above the tank top in 

copper-capped finials. Continuous, deep 

relief copper spandrel panels bearing the 

"TWW" device are set between the pilasters, 

flanked by panels of yellow brick. 

The north side, facing the playing fields 

atop the reservoir, features a rusticated 

limestone portal, topped by a broken 

pediment with monumental urn. Towards 

the ravine and bridge, the tank presents 

a continuous projecting bay housing a 

28 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N 1 > 2006


tion of the St . Clair tower design in 1932, 

a large line drawing of the tower elevation 

takes the place of the Victoria Park 

rendering in articles on the TWWE, with 

the tower now acting as the exemplar of 

architectural quality and ambition. 29 

FIG. 11 . DISTRIG NO. 3 OVERHEAD TANK: WORKING DRAWING 

ELEVATION AND SEGION SHOWING THE STEEL TANK 

CONCEALED BEHIND A MASONRY MASK. I DRAWING H.G 

ACRES & CO. LTD. AND GORE, NASMITH & STORRIE, 1929, WATER WORKS 

EXTENSION: Sf ClAIR RESERVOIR CONTRAG DRAWINGS, TORONTO, CITY OF 

TORONTO DEPARTMENT OF WORKS; SHEET R-1 01 

FIG. 12. DISTRICT NO. 3 OVERHEAD TANK; DIGITAL MODEL 

SHOWING THE MASONRY MASK PARTLY REMOVED 

TO REVEAL THE STEEL WATER TANK. I RENDERING AND 

DIGITAL MODEL: BENJAMIN CHECKWITCH. STEVEN MANN Ell, 

WILLIAM RAWLINGS 

The matter of the name of the tank runs 

somewhat counter to the rhetoric of the 

architecture. In February 1932, Harris's 

assistant James Milne proposed "The 

St . Clair Water Tower," which Harris re 

jected as misleading: "I think that the 

name given to this tower should indicate 

the purpose of the tank, i.e., the district 

to be served, and to this end the structure 

might be designated 'District No. 3 

Water Tower."' Milne's chastened reply 

was: "District No.3 Water Tower is a very 

descriptive and most suitable name." 3 D 

roof access ladder extending above the Victoria Park pumping station, though 

parapet and culminating in a small dome the strong blue-green vertical panels of A FAMILY OF TOWERS IN THE 

and flagpole. copper vividly signal the reserve of pure TWWE 

water stored within the tower. 27 ----------------- 

The classical language and the brick, limestone, 

and copper material palette of the 

overhead tank relate to those of the adjacent 

tunnel portal and the valve house, 

but with variations signalling the future 

direction of development of the architectural 

language of the TWWE. Deeply 

modeled horizontal limestone mouldings, 

neo-Greek urns, and heavy rustication 

around the tower doorway are carried 

over from the tunnel portal. Wall surfaces 

of the tower are brick panels framed by 

slightly projecting limestone pilasters, anticipating 

the Victoria Park filter building; 

other foreshadowing elements are the 

limestone finials that extend the pilasters 

above the roofline, and the metal decorative 

elements: flat incised copper panels 

and bronze grillage. Unlike the later 

Commissioner Harris's satisfaction with 

the design of the tower is expressed 

somewhat indirectly in articles on the 

TWWE published in engineering journals 

in the late 1920s and 1930s. Water filtration, 

pumping, and distribution are the 

principal focus of those articles, along 

with discussion of structural and material 

issues, and construction logistics. Architectural 

expression is touched upon only 

lightly in the texts, as in William Gore's 

1929 mention that "The architectural appearance[ 

.. . ] should be quite pleasing." 28 

That article was accompanied by a large 

reproduction of a lovely inkwash rendering 

of the plan and elevation of the filter 

and administrative building at Victoria 

Park, done in beaux-arts manner. As the 

The creation of expressive towers out of 

operational necessity is a theme of the 

architecture of the TWWE. There are no 

purely honorific towers, rather each tower 

is incited by some necessary aspect of the 

purification or distribution of water: 

• The overhead storage tank at St. Clair is 

the founding tower design from 1932, 

and was to contain a reserve of water 

at high level to ensure pressure and 

supply in a power outage. As described 

above, the tank was to provide a monumental 

and visible sign of the vast 

subterranean reservoir; the column of 

water within expressed in bright bluegreen 

verticals of the oxidized copper 

panels on eleven of the twelve faces. 

buildings at Victoria Park, the decorative lead image in the article, dominating its • The surge tanks at John Street (on 

elements of the tower do not give figural first page, the filter building rendering an octagon plan, designed 1933) and 

rhetorical expression to the elements of 

engineering process. There are no carved 

equivalents to the stylized turbines of the 

unequivocally declares the central role of 

monumental architectural expression in 

the TWWE project. Following the comple- 

Sunnyside (Parkdale-on a round plan, 

designed 1934, redesigned 1938) both 

contain a regulating chamber allowing 


29


for variations of pressure in the main 

waterfront distribution tunnel. 

• The alum feed tower at the Victoria 

Park pumping station, designed 1934, 

is a rectangular prism with battered 

walls housing two gravity feed alum 

flocculant hoppers and the associated 

head pump equipment. At the 

very top of the tower is a tall room 

with no defined function, featuring 

tall, round arched windows that act 

as a beacon on the landscape when 

illuminated after dark. 

An explicit architectural hierarchy among 

the towers is clear, and was consciously established. 

The alum tower and overhead 

tank were intended as high-order expressive 

architecture, rendered in panels of 

yellow brickwork (traditionally referred 

to in Toronto as "grey" or "stone" brick), 

framed by substantial limestone pilasters 

and cornices, with copper flashings and 

decorative panels and bronze ornamental 

screens, and Harris insisted on closely 

following their design development. The 

surge tanks were lower-order work, rendered 

in red utility brick with minimal 

flashing and stone detailing. That differentiation 

was established by direct order 

of the commissioner, well before any concerns 

for fiscal retrenchment. In March 

1932, Harris wrote to the engineers: "It 

has been decided to erect the surge tanks 

at John Street and Parkdale pumping 

stations without embellishments." The 

consultants were forced to write back to 

clarify such instruction, as a masonry skin 

was essential to protect the tanks from 

the elements, and certain "decorative" 

stone elements in fact had key structural 

or weather protection roles. 31 

Towers also play significant roles in the composition 

of other waterworks designed by 

Pomphrey for Gore, Nasmith, Storrie around 

the same period, at Calgary and Ottawa. 

Those are both associated with the gravity The Cenotaph's geometry follows that of 

feed of alum flocculant to the screened intake 

water. High-level viewing balconies are London, which manifests the axis mundi 

Lutyens's prototypical 1920 Cenotaph in 

another shared feature, though they were between the centre of the earth and dome 

not part of the public tour routes through of the sky through entasis of the sides towards 

a point 1000 feet in the sky, and with 

the works. In those waterworks, as at Victoria 

Park and St. Clair, the tower is a device for the steps and string courses following a 

organizing and orienting the overall composition. 

For Pomphrey, the tower is not an of the earth. 32 Towers are also a recurring 

curve centred 900 feet below the surface 

element of the literal, physically habitable theme in waterworks development more 

public space of the architecture; instead, generally, including such icons of water 

the towers acted in a manner analogous supply as Chicago's Water Tower. The role 

to the folly temple or hermitage of the of the tower in the image of water supply 

as a public service is emphasized in a 

English garden tradition, providing a focus 

for distant views and a place for imagined number of early twentieth-century publications, 

including numerous articles in The 

inhabitation. Any tower is a symbolic connection 

of earth to sky; in the context of the American City and the 1890 Architectural 

TWWE, where the overwhelming majority Competition for Water Towers sponsored 

of the physical construction is hidden below 

ground in the form of main and sup- 

by The Engineering Record. 33 

ply tunnels, and underwater in the form of THE END OF THE TANK 

the intake crib and tunnel, the tower also 

symbolically connects distribution and use of Design work on the District No. 3 overwater 

back to the sky and its clouds and rain, head tank was completed by early 1933, 

closing the hydrological cycle. That cosmo- and tenders were returned in September 

logical understanding of the TWWE towers of that year. 34 Construction (or not) of the 

provides a point of linkage to Ferguson and tank quickly became highly controversial, 

Pomphrey's Cenotaph in terms of symbolism. w ith Toronto's Board of Control unwilling 

30 



lo' ill. ld \Va rer Tower fur Uhnrkl Nu. 3 . 

FIG. 14. LINE DRAWING OFTHE FRONT ELEVATION OF THE DISTRICT 

NO. 3 OVERHEAD TANK. THIS IMAGE REPLACED THE VICTO 

RIA PARK RENDERING AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ARCHI 

TECTURAL AMBITIONS OFTHE TWWE IN THE ENGINEERING 

PUBLICATIONS OF THE EARLY 1930S. I DRAWJNG WIWAM STORRIE. 

1935, c THE TORONTO WATERWORKS EXTENSIONS •. ENGINEERING JOURNAl. 

VOL XVIII, N0. 2, FEBRUARY, P. 71 , FIG. 18 

to support the estimated $62,000 cost of 

the ornamental cladding (out of a total 

low bid of $113,347). Commissioner Harris 

composed a rare, signed memo to file, 

describing the events following upon his 

being "summoned to appear before the 

Board of Control" to justify the expenditure.35 

He immediately met with his senior 

staff engineer Mr. Powell, and William 

Storrie, to discuss strategy. 

The Toronto Telegram supported the opposition 

w ith the headline "Bill for Camouflage 

a Trifle Large." The local residents 

and the Toronto Star were generally in 

favour of the cladding scheme, as being 

"a credit to the city and to the fine district 

in which it will be erected," but at a time 

of economic difficulty, many felt the local 

district alone should bear the cost of 

the dressing. Given that the tank was intended 

to serve a different district of the 

city entirely, it was an ironic proposition. 

Harris had done little to ensure strong 

local support. A . E. LePage, in support of 

the tank also wrote to the mayor: "the 

ratepayers of the Hill should have the 

privilege, through the newspapers, of 

FIG. 15. THE FAMILY OF TOWERS IN THE TWWE. FROM LEFT: DISTRICT NO.3 OVERHEAD TANK, REAR ELEVATION OF THE DIGITAL 

MODEL SHOWING THE PROJECTING BAY AND CUPOLA HOUSING THE ROOF ACCESS LADDER; THE ALUM FEED TOWER AT 

VICTORIA PARK; THE SURGE TOWER AT THE JOHN STREET PUMPING STATION; AND THE SURGE TOWER AT THE PARKDALE 

f SUNNYSIDE PUMPING STATION. I FROM LEFTo RENDERING AND DIGITAL MODEL Of DISTRICT NO.3 TANKo BENJAMIN CHECKWITCH. STEVEN MANN ELL. 

WilliAM RAWLINGS. PHOTO OF JOHN STREET SURGE TOWER: ARTHUR GOSS, CITY Of TORONTO ARCHIVES, RGB, SERIES 6S, ITEM 13. PHOTOS Of VICTORIA PARK ALUM 

FEED TOWER AND PARKDALE SURGE TOWER: STEVEN MANN ELL 

seeing the designs, with and without ornamentation, 

together with a plan showing 

its exact location." 36 

On September 27, Harris sent a memo to 

the Board of Control along with a book 

of photos of exposed steel water tanks, 

provided by the fabricator. Regarding the 

exposed tanks, he wrote: "A few of these 

structures have been built in the United 

States. I have not seen any of them and 

therefore cannot advise as to their appearance. 

The designs however do not appeal 

to me." In regards to a more modest 

"dressed" tank, he advised : "[ ... ] we have 

made further study of the design and 

have concluded that modification cannot 

be made without such sacrifice of appearance 

as to make it relatively unsightly." 37 

Harris's rather haughty tone did little 

to appease the Board of Control. Consequently, 

on September 30, "in view 

of the existing financial conditions, the 

Board decided not to award a contract 

for this work [ ... ] and directed the commissioner 

of works to give the question 

of design further study with a view to 

having a new specification prepared for 

a less elaborate design." 38 The consulting 

engineers prepared drawings for an unadorned 

steel tank, but Harris preferred 

to cancel the tank altogether for the time 

being. Time proved to be the enemy of 

the tank, however. Designed to provide 

thirty minutes of pressure and supply during 

power outages, the need for the tank 

became increasingly reduced as both the 

number and the duration of power outages 

dropped steadily and dramatically 

through the late 1930s and early 1940s. 

By the time the Victoria Park works were 

operational in 1941, the data in the Works 

Department's annual reports show that 

power interruptions had become negligible, 

eliminating the problem the tank 

was meant to solve. 39 

The foundations had been constructed 

under the 1929 reservoir contract, and 

were diligently maintained, protected by 

a timber hoarding. Commissioner Harris 

passed away in 1945, having jealously 

protected the tank foundations through 

the intervening years. His vision of the 

Water Works Extension was maintained 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N" 1 > 2006 

31


FIG. 16. EXTENDED FAM ILY OF WATERWORKS TOWERS DESIGNED BY POMPHREY AND GNS. FROM LEFT: LEMIEUX ISLAND WATER 

WORKS, OTIAWA; GLENMO RE WATER WORKS, CA LGARY. I STEVEN MANNELL 

by his immediate successors as commissioner 

of works, most of w ho had w o rked 

closely with Harris in the original vision 

and execution of the project. In 1947, 

the Ward 4 Committee of Women Voters 

wrote to Commissioner G.G. Powell 

complaining of the unsafe and unsightly 

condition of these foundatio ns, asking 

that they be removed. Pow ell instead o r 

dered the foundations to be prot ected 

by new hoardings. Evidently, even at t hat 

late date, Commissioner Harris's dream 

for the tower of pure w ater remained 

alive. 40 

BUILDING THE VIRTUAL TANK 

In a posthumous effort to red re ss the 

commissioner's frustrations, the archival 

model of the District No.3 overhead tank 

has been constructed in strict accordance 

w ith the 1933 contract drawing s, and is 

a full, three-d imensional representatio n 

of all physical elements of the tank . The 

model was constructed in Vector Works, 

a 3D CAD (computer-aided design) program, 

then exported to 3D Stud io MAX 

for fine tuning and rendering. The t exture 

and material maps are based on scans of 

the present state of the materials of the 

gatehouse and tunnel portal building 

at the St . Clair site, and of materials at 

the V ictoria Park filtration plant. Views 

of the model were then rendered and 

mapped onto scans of site and archival 

photographs us ing PhotoShop. Model 

construction is by Benjamin Checkwitch 

and material maps, renderings, and photomontages 

by William Rawlings, graduate 

students in the School of Architecture 

at Dalhousie University. 

A rchival models and digital reconstructions 

offer an opportunity to honour 

the fullness of an original design, uncovering 

particulars and qualities that 

may not be immediately evident in the 

surviving documents. In the case of the 

overhead tank, the building was fully designed 

and construction drawings were 

complete when the project was cancelled, 

so little interpolation was required in 

t he modeling. In effect, we carried out 

digitally what had been intended as a 

physical and material act in the 1930s, 

and the work was very literal-minded 

FIG. 17. HONOURABLE MENTION DESIGN FOR A WATER 

TOWER BY "ALERT" (0. VON NERTA, WASHINGTON 

D.C.), FROM THE 1893 ENGINEERING RECORD COM· 

PETITION FOR WATER TOWER, PUMPING AND POWER 

STATION DESIGNS. I DRAWI NGo !ENGINEERING RECORD EOITORSL 

1893, WATER TOWER, PUMPING AND POWER STATION DESIGNS, NEW 

YORK, ENGINEERING RECORD 

FIG. 18. FERGUSON & POMPHREY, COMPETITION-WINNING 

DESIGN FOR THE TORONTO CENOTAPH, 1925. I 

SOURCE: CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVES, FO NDS 2008, SERIES 372, 

SUB-SERIES 41, ITEM 250 

3 2 


STEVEN MANNELL > ANALYSIS I ANALYSE 

FIG. 19. RENDERED CAD MODEL OF THE DISTRICT NO. 3 OVERHEAD TANK AS PROPOSED BY POMPHREY AND HARRIS WITH BRICK AND STONE CLADDING, COLLAGED INTO ARCHIVAL PANORAMIC 

PHOTOGRAPHS BY WORKS STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER ARTHUR GOSS. AERIAL VIEW FROM THE CORNER OF ST. CLAIR AVENUE AND SPADINA ROAD, SHOWING THE PLAYING FIELDS ON TOP OF 

THE RESERVOIR. I PHOTOMONTAGE. RENDERING AND DIGITAL MODEL: BENJAM IN CHECKWITCH. STEVEN MANN ELL. WILLIAM RAWLINGS. BASE PHOTOGRAPH: ARTHUR GOSS. CITY Of TORONTO ARCHIVES, RG8, SER IES 65, ITE MS 1 57·1 58 

FIG. 20. THE DISTRICT NO. 3 OVERHEAD TANK AS PROPOSED BY POMPHREY AND HARRIS WITH BRICK AND STONE CLADDING, 

VIEWED FROM THE SPADINA ROAD BRIDGE, SHOWING THE TUNNEL PORTAL AND VALVE HOUSE BUILDINGS IN THE CEN 

TRE OF THE VIEW, WITH STEPS GIVING ACCESS FROM THE RESERVOIR TOP DOWN INTO THE RAVINE PARK. I PHOTOMONTAGE, 

RENDERING AND DIGITAL MODEl: BENJAMIN CHECKWITCH, STEVEN MANNELL WilliAM RAWLINGS. BASE PHOTO: ARTHUR GOSS. SOURCE: CITY OF TORONTO 

ARCHIVES, RG8, SERIES 72 ITEMS 1166 & 1167 

rechecking of all the material notes on 

the original drawings confirmed the model, 

and overturned our preconceptions. 

Similarly, the scale of the tank had become 

loosely associated with the scale of 

the existing Parkdale surge tank; once the 

rendered model views were montaged 

into the site photographs, it became clear 

that the District No. 3 overhead tank was 

at least half again as large as we had envisioned, 

with a corresponding increase 

in our sense of its monumental presence 

on the site. 

NOTES 

FIG. 21. THE SAME VIEWPOINT AS ABOVE, SHOWING THE " UNADORNED" STEEL TANK, AS PROPOSED BY THE BOARD OF 

CONTROl. I PHOTOMONTAGE, RENDERING AND DIGITAL MODEL: BENJAMIN CHECKWITCH, STEVEN MANNELL. WILLIAM RAWLINGS. BASE PHOTO: ARTHUR GOSS, 

CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVES, RGS, SERIES 72 ITEMS 1166-1167 

and somewhat pedantic. Yet, there were 

real discoveries to be made in the process. 

The exquisite quality of the original 

ink on linen construction drawings tend 

to focus the observer on their inherent 

qualities as artefacts, and distract from 

an appreciation of the building that the 

drawings were intended to project into 

the world. After some time working with 

the drawings, one tended to envision the 

tank in terms of its outlines and linear 

surface renderings, or with some effort it 

could be pictured as a grey-toned object. 

Material rendering of the model with 

colour and texture was startling-we 

were completely unprepared for the vivid 

blue-green verticals of the copper spandrels, 

which at first seemed lurid. A fast 

1. For an overview of the Toronto Water Works 

Extension project along with a detailed account 

of the Victoria Parks Water Works component 

ofthe project, see Mannell, Steven, 1999, «The 

Palace of Purification», Journal of the Society 

for the Study of Architecture in Canada, 

vol. 24, no. 3, p. 18-26. The author wishes to 

acknowledge the generous financial support 

of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research 

Council. As well, important assistance has been 

provided by the Water Supply Division of the 

City of Toronto Works and Emergency Services 

Department, The City of Toronto Archives (especially 

Lawrence Lee, Sally Gibson and Mark 

Cuddy), and Wayne Reeves. Manda Vranic of 

the Metro Toronto Archives and Records Centre 

(now City of Toronto Archives) identified 

the contract documents and drawings related 

to the overhead tank at the St. Clair Reservoir 

during research for the 1995-1997 MTARC 

(Metropolitan Toronto Archives and Records 

Centre) exhibition Pipe Dreams: The History 

of Water and Sewer Infrastructure in Toronto; 

these were brought to the author's attention 

by Wayne Reeves and Lawrence Lee. 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N" 1 > 2006 

33


2. Harris, R.C., 1913, Report of the Commissioner 

of Works on Additions and Extensions to the 

Toronto Waterworks Pumping and Distribution 

Plant, Toronto. For the preceding report: The 

Board of Water Commissioners, Report Upon 

the Existing Water Works System and Upon an 

Additional Water Supply, Toronto, 1912. 

3. Reports, articles, clippings, diagrams, and 

sketches relating to the Civic Plan Commission, 

the boulevard design for St. Clair Avenue, the 

Don Valley Parkway, and other proposals are 

found loose among the Toronto Guild of Civic 

Art papers in The Baldwin Room, Toronto Reference 

Library. 

4. Harris, R.C., F.A . Gaby, and E.L. Cousins, 1915, 

Report to the Civic Transportation Committee 

on Radial Railway Entrances and Rapid Transit 

for the City of Toronto, Toronto. 

5. Toronto Harbour Commissioners, Toronto Waterfront 

Development 1912-1920, Toronto, 191-? 

6. City of Toronto Archives (CTA), Series 13, Water 

Supply Section Correspondence, file 136. 

7. Taylor, Thomas, internal Works Department 

memorandum to G.G Powell, April 23, 1924. 

CTA, series 13, file 136. 

8. Harris, R.C., letter to James C. Forman, Esq., commissioner 

of assessment, April 22, 1925. CTA, series 

13, file 136. 

9. Acres, H.G ., and William Gore, 1926, Report on 

Proposed Ex tensions to the Water Works System, 

Toronto, p. 4. 

10. Acres and Gore: 3-4, 36-38. 

11 . Acres and Gore: 4, 35, 38. 

12. See correspondence, press clippings, and extracts 

from minutes of the Board of Control 

in CTA, series 13, file 781 . Of course, Toronto's 

ravine systems now form the basis of the city's 

only coherent parks network; ironically, the 

preservation of the ravine lands is entirely due 

t o the early t w entieth century sense of their 

worthlessness. 

13. Guild papers, Baldwin Room, Toronto Reference 

Library. 

14. Gore, William, letter to R.C. Harris, May 7, 1926. 


15. Gore, William, 1929, « Extensions to Water 

Works at Toronto », The Canadian Engineer, 

vol. 57, no. 2, July 9, p. 154. 

16. Fo r a brief discussion of the viaduct design process, 

see Mannell : 22. 

17. Correspondence related to the bidding and 

contract award for the reservoir and bridge 

are contained in CTA, series 13, file 261 . 

18. H.G. Acres & Co. Ltd. and Gore, Nasmith & Storrie, 

1929, Water Works Extension: St. Clair Reservoir 

contract drawings, Toronto, City of Toronto 

Department of Works. 

19. Gore, William, 1929, « Extensions to Water 

Works at Toronto >, The Canadian Engineer, 

vol. 57, no. 2, July 9, p. 154. 

20. Gore, William, letter to R.C. Harris, June 28, 1927. 


21 . Gore, William, letter to R.C. Harris, September 

2, 1931. CTA, series 13, file 138. 

22. Storrie, William, letter to R.C Harris, January 20, 

1932. CTA, series 13, file 137. 

23. Mannell, Steven, and Wayne C. Reeves, 1997, 

Thomas Canfield Pomphrey: Vita and Works, 

(unpublished paper). 

24. Harris, R.C., letter to William Gore, October 4, 

1932. CTA, series 13, file 261. 

25. Gillies, K.S., commissioner of buildings, letter to R.C. 

Harris, November 2, 1933; Harris, R.C., letter to K.S. 

Gillies, November 6, 1933. CTA, series 13, file 141. 

26. Storrie, William, 1935, « The Toronto Waterworks 

Extensions », Engineering Journal, 

vol. XVIII, no. 2, February, p. 70-71. 

27. H.G. Acres & Co. Ltd., and Gore, Nasmith & Storrie, 

1933, Water Works Extension: Overhead 

Tank District No.3 Contract Drawings, Toronto, 

City of Toronto Department of Works. 

28. Gore, William, 1929,

ESSAI I ESSAY 

CHALLENGING "AMATEUR ARCHITECTURE" 

IN THE DIOCESE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA 1875-1900 

BARRY MAGRILL is a Ph.D. candidate in the 

Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory 

>BARRY MAGRILL 1 

at the University of British Columbia. His areas 

of interest include nineteenth-century architecture 

and social formations as well as medieval European 

architecture and sculpture. 

In the last quarter of the nineteenth 

century, "untutored" architects continued 

to work in Western Canada despite 

the increasing professionalization of 

architectural practice. 2 Those informally 

trained builders-cum-architects and enthusiasts-for-hire 

were constructed as 

"amateurs" by a process of professionalization 

in architectural practice. 3 An 

analysis of the status and practice of 

"amateur architects" in British Columbia 

affords an opportunity to look at a complex 

and conflictual social and economic 

system regarding "taste" and "fashion." 

In this paper, I will analyze the interface 

between the condition of the "amateur" 

and the claims of the "professional" 

with regard to churches built in Victoria, 

British Columbia in the last quarter of 

the nineteenth century. 

METHOD 

A description of the social operations of 

taste-cum-fashion will be followed by a 

cross-denominational case study focused 

upon the Anglican Church of St. James, 

James Bay (near Victoria) {1883) (fig. 1), 

and the Metropolitan Methodist Church 

{1890) (fig. 2) on Pandora Avenue in Victoria. 

The purpose of the case study is 

to illustrate an inversion of some contemporaneous 

observations about the 

way amateur architects found their inspiration. 

My employment of case study 

invites a multi-perspectival approach to 

data analysis that makes use of those 

nuances in the complicated social dynamics 

of church-building. Afterwards, the 

construction of those churches will be recontextualized 

by identifying particular 

geographical and inter-denominational 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 > 35-42 

35

B ARRY M AGR ILL > ESSAI I ESSAY 

clientele while professionals might be immune. 

I contend, quite the contrary, that 

such pressures affected all practitioners, 

each in their own way. 

FIG. 2. METROPOLITAN METHODIST CHURCH, VICTORIA, BC. THOMAS HOOPER (1890).1 BRITISH COLUMBIA ARCHIVES 

tensions that took the form of architec- 

tural rivalry. Situating the analysis in the 

last quarter of the nineteenth century 

will illustrate how the development of 

eclecticism inverts the concept that amateurs 

were more susceptible to the latest 

fashion trends. 

CHALLENGING THE 

"FASHIONABLE AMATEUR" 

The term "amateur" architect had associations 

in the nineteenth century with 

less formal education and with the construction 

of more humble buildings. However, 

the term "amateur" refers less to the 

quality of architecture produced than it 

does to the legitimizing claims of so-called 

"professionals" relative to artistic and 

economic statuses. More recently, the 

term's association with the vernacular has 

resulted in a re-imagining of the status 

of local building practices in relation to 

artistic production.• That is, architecture 

produced by amateurs, upon close examination, 

was conducted in all seriousness 

and was also infused with the same nostalgic 

or antiquarian processes as those 

buildings produced by professionals. 

To set themselves apart from a so-called 

lesser class of builder, professional archi- 

tects instituted a kind of preferential and 

refined taste around themselves and their 

designs. 5 Indeed, taste was advertised as 

the lack of education forming public tasan 

enduring aspect of civilized society, 

the proof of which was visibly related to 

So-called "professionals," to legitimize 

claims of social superiority, continued 

to describe their practice in terms of 

"taste" as separated from those transient 

elements of "fashion." At the same time, 

fashion had a way of being presented as 

taste, in no small part, due to the marketing 

of new commercial practices. The 

conflation between taste and fashion 

was so complete that even those "elite" 

persons, whose social statuses depended 

upon projecting the "refined" aspects of 

taste, often stood accused of following 

fashion while calling it taste. 

An astute contemporary observer marked 

such distinctions. The British architect and 

author Charles Eastlake complained about 

te-cum-fashion in his popular book Hints 

on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholsthe 

appropriation of an ancient aesthetic tery, and Other Details. He lamented : 

in architectural design. 6 

Some late nineteenth-century audiences 

readily accepted that buildings designed 

by professional architects had greater 

claims to those more enduring-oftenantiquarian-aspects 

of taste. Those 

who followed such rationale believed 

that other less discerning amateurs would 

have been expected to follow the transient 

fashions of the day. Such audiences 

might be convinced that amateurs were 

" hopelessly" tied to rapid changes in style, 

an economic condition of modernity. That 

type of argument depended upon the logic 

that education in architecture meant 

that professionals rose above the whims 

of public fashion in ways less formally 

trained amateurs could not avoid. That 

is, economic pressures might cause amateurs 

to succumb to the dictates of their 

"The faculty of distinguishing good taste 

from bad design in the familiar objects 

of domestic life is a faculty which most 

educated people [ .. . ) conceive that they 

possess. How it has been acquired few 

would be able to explain. The general 

impression seems to be, that it is the peculiar 

inheritance of gentle blood, and independent 

of all training." 7 He continued 

by accusing both the "generally ignorant" 

and the educated classes of following the 

latest fashions being passed off as those 

more enduring aspects of taste. "The 

latest invention, although it might violate 

every principle of good design," he 

complained, "was sure to be a favourite 

with the majority."' Meanwhile, the public's 

fascination with the latest design, 

no matter how distasteful according to 

Eastlake, constructed the new as admirable 

and the old as hideous. 9 In Eastlake's 

36 


B ARRY M AGRI LL > ESSAI I ESSAY 

estimation, those untutored amateurs 

pursued the latest trends erroneously 

associated with taste. Meanwhile, he argued 

that those educated professionals 

should remain dedicated to tradition, 

though it was mistakenly referred to as 

old-fashioned and ugly. Eastlake's position 

was a reaction to the way marketing 

compressed "fashion" in architectural 

practice together with taste. 10 

$1000 were received from England. The 

following November, a cornerstone was 

laid by Mrs. Cornwall. 13 Construction of 

the timber-framed church, dedicated 

St. James, was completed in January 

1885. The Colonist described the church 

as "very pretty," noting its vestry location 

under the tower. The press listed the 

church's cost of construction as $3500 and 

its architect as William de Ia Penotiere. 14 

Eastlake blamed the shift in the social 

operation of taste on the development 

of eclecticism, which he found aplenty 

in architecture. He wrote: "artistic taste 

in the nineteenth century, based as it is 

upon eclecticism rather than tradition, 

is capricious and subject to constant variation."" 

Eastlake's references to taste 

straddle domestic and religious architecture 

in his long introduction leading 

to an attack on the "miserable" status 

of English home decor. He knew his architecture, 

having reinforced the "invention" 

of the Gothic Revival by way of his 

contemporaneous and historical accounts 

Arriving in Vancouver from Ontario 

in 1884, de Ia Penotiere had no formal 

architectural training. 15 He went into 

partnership with George F. Wake as realestate 

agents and surveyors. Their one 

commission was St. James, James Bay, 

though de Ia Penotiere later formed a 

brief partnership with S.C. Burris, designing 

a residence on Victoria Crescent, 

as well as the fittings for the Victoria 

Club. 16 

Archival images of St. James, James Bay, 

in the B.C. Provincial Archives, show that 

the church was a simple timber structure 

FIG. 3. ST. ANDREW'S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, VICTORIA, BC 

(1890). LEONARD BUTTRESS TRIMEN. I BARRY MAGRILL 

By November 1887, St. James had undergone 

a renovation, not to alter the aesthetic, 

but to insulate the walls and add a 

small antique porch in the main entrance. 

The church's aesthetic appeal must have 

endured because the Colonist continued 

to refer to the church as "handsome."' 7 

of eighteenth and nineteenth-century architectural 

with clapboard finish (fig. 1). Nave and 

practices.' 2 More importantly, chancel were separately articulated, as CASE STUDY: VICTORIA'S 

his position indicates both a desire to was the tower and broach spire that con- "FASHIONABLE" ECLECTICISM 

separate taste from fashion while clearly 

recognising the practice of their inextricable 

porosity. 

To put those observations into a Canadian 

context, I present a case study of two 

churches built nearly contemporaneously 

in the final decades of the nineteenth 

century and located not more than a mile 

from one another in Victoria, B.C. 

CASE STUDY: TRADITION AT 

ST. JAMES, JAMES BAY 

On November 4, 1883, the British Daily 

Colonist newspaper announced that 

four lots in James Bay (near Victoria) 

had been purchased at the cost of $2500 

for an Episcopal church. Contributions of 

nected those two building components. 

A fine proportion was achieved between 

the triple lancet window in the east end 

and the slim buttresses articulating the 

tower. In sum, the church was a competent 

version of Augustus Welby Pugin's 

"True Principles" for Gothic Revival building, 

popularized nearly forty years earlier. 

Pug in's principles called for separate 

building components that externally reflected 

internal liturgical functions, the 

truthful use of building materials, and 

simple planning that could allow the completion 

of a tower and spire in the initial 

building phase. In contrast with another 

church building by Methodist and Presbyterian 

congregations only a few miles 

away, St. James must have appeared oldfashioned 

and rather incongruous. 

By contrast, eclecticism on a grand scale 

signalled social privilege and pretension 

throughout most other parts of Victoria. 

Various religious congregations hired 

several prestigious architects and gave 

them large budgets with which to work. 

In the case of the Metropolitan Methodist 

Church on Pandora Avenue (1889-1891), 

social aspirations had dramatic economic 

results. The church's congregation opted 

to use stone for Thomas Hooper's (1857- 

1935)'8 Richardsonian Romanesque design 

originally envisioned and budgeted for 

brick. The rusticated masonry incorporated 

into the Scottish Baronial hanging 

turrets and a French Chateau arrangement 

created a more prestigious aesthetic. 

Unfortunately, the church's contractor, 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

37

BARRY MAGRILL > ESSAI I ESSAY 

FIG. 4. ST. ANDREW'S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, VICTORIA, BC (1892). PERRAULT & 

MESNARD. I BARRY MAGR ILL 

W.H. Burkholder, who bid $50,224 forthe 

builder trying to elevate his status. Intender, 

was unable to adjust for the chan- 

ge in richer material and was probably 

bankrupted by the building committee's 

Eastlake complained amateurs were susdesire 

for increased social status in the 

community.' 9 

The progressive and eclectic design for 

Metropolitan Methodist, which incorporated 

an amphitheatrical seating plan, roomy 

entrance area, and integrated Akron 

plan Sunday school, was more acceptable 

to nonconformist tastes. Such functional 

elements were rational manipulations of 

Gothic planning, but the exterior arrangement 

was precisely the aesthetic that 

Eastlake had termed "fashion ." That 

"fashionable" look was to be avoided 

More importantly, Metropolitan Methoby 

those architects calling themselves 

"professionals," according 

to Eastlake and 

other dominant Angl 

ican voices forming 

Canadian society. The 

Colonist described the 

design as Romanesque 

and drew attention to 

the 120-foot tower sur- 

rounded by an elabo- 

rate iron finial and its 

delicate ceiling. A roo- 

my entrance area and 

superior heating and 

acoustics also merited 

mention. 20 

ANALYSIS 

St. James was designed 

by an enthusiast-for-hire. 

Aside from real-estate 

sales and possibly 

some surveying work, 

William de Ia Penotiere 

had little legitimate 

claim to architectural 

practice. That is, he 

was not a contractor or 

terestingly, his design shows no signs of 

those fashionable aesthetics that Charles 

ceptible to. Still, the church was referred 

to as "pretty" and not hideous, in spite 

of its old-fashioned design. 

Otherwise, Thomas Hooper's design 

for the Metropolitan Methodist Church 

exhibits many of those fashionable elements 

of the day. Hooper had an exceptionally 

lengthy and respected career in 

architecture, though he died penniless 

after making and losing four fortunes. 21 

These cases show an inversion of the 

positions of amateur and professional. 

dist signals an instance wherein "fashion" 

was marketed to Canadian audiences as 

" taste." That is, the Colonist recognised 

the nomenclature of Hooper's design 

Romanesque-most likely because of the 

style's fashionableness. 

An amateur working in a city enamoured 

of the eclectic produced a conventional 

and not a fashionable design. To unders 

tand the diverse positions the churches 

used in this case study requires some re 

contextualization. 

RE-CONTEXTUALIZING THE 

CASE STUDY: CHURCH-BUILDING 

ACROSS THE STRAIT OF GEORGIA 

To put these cases into perspective, we 

examine a geographical rivalry between 

Vancouver and Victoria as well as interdenominational 

rivalries between Anglican 

and nonconformist congregations. 

Vancouver Island and lower mainland British 

Columbia experienced rapid growth 

in church building in the last quarter of 

the nineteenth century, commensurate 

with settlement expansion in Canada 

West. That growth in religious institution 

was associated with other factors 

affecting settle·• ent expansion, such as 

increased branc' ·line rail travel, shipping, 

and resource ext raction . The boom and 

bust economies introduced into Western 

Canada came along with increased missionary 

activity along coastal communities, 

especially with respect to First Nations 

and mining communities. Christian missions 

were established alongside the gold 

and coal-mining camps as quickly as strikes 

were discovered, and sometimes they 

moved on just as rapidly when resources 

dried up. Meanwhile, large towns such 

as V ictoria had wealthy religious congregations 

that attracted some impressive 

and progressive architects to design 

churches. 

38 JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N" 1 > 2006

B ARRY M AGRILL > ESSAI I ESSAY 

FIG. 5. ST. AN DREW'S PRESBYTERIAN, VANCOUVE R, BC (1892). WILLIAM BLACKMORE. I BRITISH CO LUMBIA ARCHIV ES 

FIG. 6. CHRIST CHURCH (NOW CATHEDRAL), VANCOUVER, BC 

(1895). C.O. WICKENDEN. I BARRY MAGRILL 

In the 1880s, settlement expansion and 

the growth in religious institution in British 

Columbia coincided with an architectural 

rivalry that occurred between 

Victoria and Vancouver (the area formerly 

known as Granville dispersed around Hastings 

Mill). Agitated when the Canadian 

Pacific Railway was enticed to alter its 

western terminus from Port Moody to 

Vancouver, the political-cu m-architectural 

rivalry between Victoria and Vancouver 

was given spatial expression in civic, 

religious, and domestic buildings." 

That architectural rivalry continued in 

Victoria even after the actualization of 

the terminus in Vancouver in 1884. Thu s, 

throughout the 1880s and 1890s, Victoria 

continued to produce a more metropolitan-almost 

cosmopolitan-vision, which 

included new churches by a variety of 

denominations. The urban aspirations 

of Victoria tended to produce eclectic, 

progressive, and innovative architecture 

when one might have expected to discover 

more conventional architectural tastes. 

Leonard Buttress Trimen (1846-1892} won 

the competition to design St. Andrew's 

Presbyterian Church (1890} (fig. 3}, which 

incorporated Scottish Baronial elements 

in a brick-built Richardsonian Romanesque 

body. The Montreal firm of Perrault 

& Mesnard produced a High Victorian 

Gothic brick-clad design for St. Andrew's 

Roman Catholic Cathedral (1892} (fig. 4}, 

complete with a tripartite west portal 

surmounted by a rose window within 

a large enclosing arch housing a central 

gable and sporting a 175-foot spire. 

Indeed, the modus operandi of those 

wealthy patrons and congregations was 

to pursue the leading edge of architectural 

design-eclecticism-, but call it 

"taste." That was precisely what Eastlake 

had deemed unacceptable. 

By contrast, dioceses located around Vancouver 

produced more modest church 

structures in the same time period, 

due to limited funding. Examples are 

St. Andrew's Presbyterian (1892} (fig. 5}, 

Christ Church (1889-1895} (now Cathedral) 

(fig. 6), St. James Church (1898} (fig. 7}, and 

the Wesley Methodist Church on Georgia 

(1901) . The notable exception was Holy 

Rosary built for a Catholic congregation 

by T.E . Julian in 1899. St. Andrew's and the 

Wesleyan Methodist churches comprised 

impressive elements but were built of timber, 

not as rich a material as stone. Those 

more imposing churches in Vancouver 

arrived during the first two decades of the 

new century. Two examples are St. John's 

United Presbyterian Church (1906}, which 

combined a Gothic Revival design with 

hammer-dressed stone finish and amphitheatrical 

seating plan, as well as St. Francis 

Xavier Church on Pender Street (1910}, 

which combined a large Gothic brick-built 

edifice with tall double towered western 

fac;ade . The increased economic activity in 

Vancouver after the turn of the century 

played a significant role in determining 

the town's ability to portray the latest 

architectural fashion. 

Vancouver's lack of early success in building 

monumental church stock is exemplified 

in the competition held to construct 

Christ Church on Georgia Street in 1891. 

The competition judges awarded the first 

prize to J.C.M. Keith's (1858-1940) 23 impressive 

Latin-cross design which incorporated 

a traditional arrangement of Early English 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

39

B ARRY MAGR ILL > ESSAI I ESSAY 

FIG. 8. CHRIST CHURCH, ALERT BAY ON CORMORANT ISLAND, BC (1882). REV. ALFRED JAMES HALL. [ BARRY MAGRILL 

FIG. 9. ST. ANNE'S, PARKSVILLE, BC (1894).[ BARRY MAGRILL 

40 JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N" 1 > 2006

B ARRY M AGRILL > ESSAI I ESSAY 

lancet windows throughout an aisled nave, 

east and west transepts, as well as a monumental 

western tower and spire. However, 

funding limitations left Keith's plan unrealized 

. Three years later, local architect 

Charles Osborne Wickenden (1851-1934) 

produced a more modest but progressive 

design consisti ng of a longitudinal nave 

w ith side aisles, north and south porches, 

transepts, and a five-light lancet arrangement 

in the western wall. The exterior 

walling was done in hammer-dressed masonry, 

an economic nod to the fashionable 

Romanesque Revival. The innovative open 

interior space was spanned by a hammerbeam 

roof punctuated by fully integrated 

dormer windows. Though lagging behind 

Victoria in architectural aspirations, Christ 

Church shows a community catching up 

with some of the latest fashions by hiring 

the services of a professional architect, 

C.O. Wickenden. 

INTER-DENOMINATIONAL 

RIVALRY 

Architects designing religious buildings had 

multiple "clients." Church architecture ten- 

ded towards a co llective process involving 

produce an anachronism in a city dominathe 

designer, select parishioners formed 

rivals. Those rivalries were often spatial 

expressions of differences of liturg ical 

opinion. One need only glance at publications 

by the Cambridge Camden (later 

Ecclesio logica l) Society (1841-1868), which 

was affiliated with Anglicanism, to appreciate 

the depth of such rivalries. 

As the case studies data indicate, Anglican 

church-building continued into the 

end of the century with the use of a 

Gothic Revival idiom. Anglicans' dedication 

to antiquarianism remained almost 

completely intact. That de Ia Penotiere 

exhibited nostalgia for Anglican church 

stock nearly forty years old was also the 

responsibility of his clientele. By contrast, 

nonconformist congregations like 

the Methodist appeared more willing to 

encourage architectural experimentation. 

Those "profess ionals" who responded 

positively to eclecticism likely believed 

being au courant helped build their ca- 

reers . Given the state of eclecticism and 

its usage by professionals in Victoria, one 

can imagine the difficult task facing the 

Anglican congregation in James Bay when 

it was looking for an architect who would 

ted by a fashionable eclectic. St . James's 

body of the Architectural Institute of 

British Columbia (est. 1914). As a result, 

those enthusiasts-for-hire became less 

involved in urban church-building efforts. 

Amateurs and enthusiasts-for-hi re 

continued to pursue a kind of nostalgia 

for earlier Gothic themes, but they did 

so in rural loca les throughout Vancouver 

Island. Built in the last decades of the 

nineteenth century, Christ Church, Alert 

Bay (1882) (fig. 8), exhibits a traditional 

timber Gothic Revival design punctuated 

by imitation wood quoins articulating the 

w indows and cornering. As well, St. Ann's, 

French Creek (Parksville) (1894) (fig. 9), reimagines 

churches of log construction popular 

in Canada West in the earlier part 

of the century. 

Those distinctions between "amateur" and 

"professional" reinforced a system that privileged 

a group already more economically 

and socially advantaged. Thomas Hooper, 

for instance, was known as an "architect," 

not only because of his ambitious artistic 

output, but because he advertised his services 

in newspapers like the Daily British 

Colonist. The fact that he could afford to 

advertise himself as a "professional" has resulted 

in his being historically recorded as an 

into a building committee and members "architect" turned out to be a well-inten- "architect." Thus, the architecture industry 

of the religious institution. Architects the- 

tioned real-estate agent. 

refore did not always have a free hand. At 

times, even the voices of respected finan- CONCLUSION 

cial benefactors and general publics were ----------------- 

also anticipated in a church design. Those 

Despite some porosity between the labels 

in the late nineteenth century increasing ly 

constructed and projected an elite and scholarly 

public persona. Through their position 

of economic and social dominance, "professionals" 

and their clientele used marketing 

audiences may have been especially preva- "amateur" and "professional" in the last strategies to make fashion appear as taste. 

lent in the minds of some designers with 

respect to advertised competitions. Amateurs 

and professionals alike tried to design 

what their clientele wanted. 

Designing religious buildings required 

tact, especially in cases where architects 

crossed denominations, each believing 

as much in the correctness of its position 

with regard to architectural style as it did 

in the complete incorrect position of its 

quarter of the nineteenth century, clear 

career distinctions developed between 

those self-proclaimed, educated architects 

and building enthusiasts-for-hire. 

Gone were the early days of a "pioneer" 

mentality associated with multiple careers 

in surveying and architecture. 24 By 

the 1870s and 1880s, that compression 

of careers was largely vanishing, due in 

part to professionalization and culminating 

in eventual self-regu lation in the 

"Amateurs" did not have the financial luxury 

of following the latest fashion. 

NOTES 

1. I wish to acknowledge special thanks to Professor 

Rhodri Windsor-Li scombe for his ad vice 

and consultation in matters pertain ing to the 

framework of this paper. It should be noted, 

how ever, that any inconsistencies in the data 

are my own responsibility to bear. Research for 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

41

B ARRY M AGR ILL > ESSAI I ESSAY 

this paper was generously provided by University 

of British Columbia Graduate Fellowship. 

2. Luxton, D., 2003, Building the West, Vancouver, 

Talon. 

3. Upton, D., 1984, >,Winterthur 

Portfolio, val. 19, nos. 2-3, p. 105-150. 

4. Sandilands, R. (ed.), 1972. Architecture of the Fraser 

Valley, Vancouver, Opportunities for Youth, 

p. 6. The authors argue convincingly that the 

functionalist movement has tended to ennoble 

vernacular forms on the basis of their satisfying 

environmental demands, though I w ould add 

that less expensive and sma ller buildings are no 

less significant constituent elements of society. 

5. Upton: 105-150. 

19. Victoria Daily Colonist, February 21, 1890. The 

probable bankruptcy w as pointed out to me by 

Professor Jim Bugslag. Documented evidence 

w as still forthcoming at the time of publication. 

20. Victoria Daily Colonist, May 17, 1891, p. 2. 

21. For Hooper's biography, see Luxton, op. cit. 

22. Dempsey, H., 1984, The CPR West: The Iron Road 

and the Making of a Nation, Vancouver, Douglas 

& Mcintyre, p. 93-99. 

23. Keith emigrated from Scotland after studying 

w ith Alexander Ross (architect of St. Andrew's 

Epi scopa l Cathedral, Inverness 1866-1869). After 

brief stints in San Francisco and Seattle, Ke ith 

intended to move to Victoria but settled instead 

in Vancouver. See, Luxton, op. cit. 

24. Ibid. 

6. W indsor Liscombe, Rhodri, 2004, N' 1 > 2006

ESSAI I ESSAY 

THE SHAMROCK AND THE MAPLE LEAF: THE IRISH ROOTS 

OF GEORGE BROWNE'S CANADIAN ARCHITECTURE 

IN MEMORIAM SIR JOHN NEWENHAM ["COOLMORE'1 SUMMERSON (1904-1992} 

J. DOUGLAS STEWART is Pr·ofessor Eme1·itus 1n 

the History of Art, Queen's University. With !an 

> J. DouGLAs STEWART 

Wilson. he co-authored Heritage Kingston [1973]. 

He has published numerous articles on Kingston 

architects, Including George Browne, Thomas 

Rogers, William Newlands. and Francis Sullivan 

His publications also include books and a1·ticles on 

English ba1·oque artists and architects, such as 

Van Dyck, Kneller, Gibbons, and Wren . 

George Browne died in Montreal on 

November 19, 1885. 1 Having been 

born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on November 

5,1811, 2 he is said to have been 

the son of an architect of the same name, 

but no trace of either has been found 

in Ireland. Indeed nothing is known 

about George Browne from his birth to 

his arrival in Quebec City in 1830, but 

we need not doubt his Irish birth since 

it is stated in two independent sources. 

However, he might have been taken from 

Ireland at a tender age. Only Browne's 

Canadian buildings demonstrate an Irish 

architectural background. 

There has been a great spate of publications 

on Irish architecture over the last 

decades, among which are the writings of 

Irish architectural historians Mark Bence 

Janes, Maurice Craig, the Knight of Glin, 

Edward McParland, Alistair Rowan, and 

others. But Irish architecture is inseparably 

linked to that of Great Britain. Hence 

there have been important contributions 

from British architectural historians, notably 

the present and past doyens of 

that field, Sir Howard Colvin and the late 

Sir John Summerson. 

FIG. 1. CASTLE GAR, COUNTY CORK, BY SIR RICHARD MORRISON, 1801 .1 J.D. STEWART 

The Middle Ages in Ireland saw the construction 

through the land, inter alia, of 

the characteristic tall "Tower" houses, 

which continued to be built until the end 

of the seventeenth century. "Classical" 

Irish architecture began with Sir Edward 

Lovett Pearce (c1699-1733), who travelled 

to Italy and on his return became the father 

of Irish Palladian ism. Yet Pearce loved 

massive, weighty forms; not for nothing 

was he related to Sir John Vanbrugh! 

The greatest Irish "neoclassical" architect 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 > 43-54 

43

J . DoUGLAS STEWART > ESSAI I ESSAY 

The city hall has nine: two on the front 

corner pavilions, two inside the entrance 

"tunnel," and five at the back. 7 Wyatt windows 

also appear in profusion on the 

original five front fa~ades of the Hales 

cottages (1841 ; fig . 2). 8 At Ro ckwood 

Villa (fig. 4}, there is a Wyatt window 

on the left side, and two at the back. At 

St . Andrew's Manse (fig. 3}, it appears 

twice on the west side. At Ashton (Canadian 

National Institute for the Blind, 826 

Princess Street}, a variant on the design 

of the Manse, there is a large Wyatt window 

in the centre of the main fa ~ ade 9 

Otterburn's fa~ade has French-window 

versions of Wyatt windows. 10 

FIG. 2. HALES COTTAGES, 313 KING ST REET, KINGSTON, BY GEO RGE BROWNE, 1841. 1 J. NOLEN PAPERS. CORNELL UNIVERSITY 

James Gandon (1743-1823) was born in 

London, of Huguenot extraction, and 

became a pupil of Sir William Chambers 

(1723-1796}. The latter was the rival of 

the Adam brothers, who revolutionized 

English and Scottish architecture from 

the 1760s, making Palladianism in those 

lands seem heavy-handed and old-fashioned. 

But Gandon, who came to Ireland 

in 1781, in the words of Sir Howard Colvin, 

"rejected what he regarded as the 

meretricious elegance of the current 

Adam style and looked to French neoclassicism 

[ .. . ). French influence [ ... ) is 

apparent in many features of his public 

buildings in Dublin.[ ... ]" Furthermore, as 

Sir John Summerson observed, Gandon, 

unlike Chambers, "could open his mind 

to Wren," which makes Gandon's "Liffeyside 

buildings [the Customs House and 

The Four Courts) infinitely more powerful 

than [Chambers's Thames-side) Somerset 

House." Thus, despite his neoclassicism, 

Gandon, like Pearce, had a strong Baroque 

element in his style.' 

The architecture of George Browne 

(whose large library of architectural 

books included John Woolfe and James 

Gandon's 1767 continuation of Vitruvius 

Britannicus) shows a love of massive Baroque 

forms.• Browne also had a strong 

penchant for Irish architectural motifs, 

for example the Wyatt window. It was 

supposedly first used at Doddington Hall, 

Cheshire, by Samuel Wyatt in 1776. It is 

actually the old Palladian, or Venetian 

window, or Serliana, modified by abolishing 

the central arch, and carrying a 

straight lintel across the top of the three 

openings. Although invented in England, 

the Wyatt window became especially 

popular in lreland, 5 for example on the 

fa~ade of Sir Richard Morrison's Castlegar, 

County Cork (begun 1801; fig. 1). 6 

The Wyatt window is perhaps the commonest 

motif in George Browne's Kingston 

work. He used it in virtually every 

design he made there, even if it did not 

always appear in the finished building. 

Browne's St. Andrew's Manse (fig. 3} displays 

another lrishism, the gathering of 

chimney flues into one, or at most two, 

central stacks, linked together, rather than 

incorporating them in outside walls. According 

to Maurice Craig in Ireland, from 

the eighteenth century "in a remarkably 

high proportion of houses" the flues are 

treated in such manner, despite the arguments 

of theorists (like the Rev. John 

Payne) against the practice, because 

twisted flues soot up more readily and are 

more difficult to clean." Examples of centrally 

gathered flues are Francis Johnson's 

1808 designs for Phoenix Park Lodge (engraved 

1819) and Sir Richard Morrison's 

1807 Bearforest, County Cork." 

Browne used his St . Andrew's Manse central 

chimneystack (substituting a window 

for the panel) in his 1848 Montreal villa, 

Terra Nova, for John Molson, Jr., the 

documents for which were discovered 

by Robert Lemire.'' More recently, Lemire 

discovered a photograph taken around 

1914 by architect Robert Findlay, of Belleview 

Hall, the Mussen residence, which 

once stood on Dorchester Street, Montreal. 

As Lemire noted, 14 Belleview Hall 

had the same kind of chimney as Terra 

Nova. Also, Belleview Hall's hipped roof, 

44 


J . D OUGLAS S TEWART > ESSAI I ESSAY 

FIG. 3. ST. ANDREW'S MANSE, KINGSTON, BY GEORGE 

BROWNE, 1841. REAR VIEW. I JD. STEWART 

FIG. 4. ROCKWOOD VILLA, KINGSTON, BY GEORGE BROWNE, 1841 . OBLIQUE VIEW OF FA\ADE.I JOHN BREBN ER 

Tuscan brackets, corner pilasters, and 

wide stringcourse are all reminiscent of 

Browne's 1841 Rockwood Villa at Kingston 

(fig. 4). Between the Belleview Hall 

chimneystacks, there is a Wyatt window 

and that motif also appears on the main 

fa~ade. Lemire's attribution of Belleview 

Hall is entirely convincing, and an important 

addition to George Browne's 

oeuvre. 

In 1977, I identified four architectural 

drawings in Queen's University Archives 

as designs for the Kingston branch of 

the Bank of Montreal at King and William 

Streets (now the Frontenac Club Inn; 

fig . 5). 15 1 attributed the drawings and the 

building to George Browne.'• The building 

had been given to "MR. CRANE, Architect, 

Prin cess Street," who advertised 

for tenders for "the erection and Joiner's 

Work of a BUILDING, 52 x 42 feet; in King 

Street[ ... ]," in the Kingston Chronicle and 

Gazette of February 19, 1845. 

"Mr. Crane" was probably Edward Crane, 

the architect and builder of the 1831-1836 

Upper Canadian Academy (later Victoria 

College), Cobourg (fig. 6) . That structure 

has been aptly described by Katherine 

Ashenburg as "a movingly pure building 

with a three-storey Doric portico and two 

flanking pediments, an elongated cupola 

and a solitary line of dentils as decoration."'7 

Such characteristics are quite unlike 

the robust masculinity of the Kingston 

Bank of Montreal designs, or the finished 

building, with its blockiness and powerful 

modelling. Rather, this is the style of 

George Browne. Presumably, Crane advertised 

for tenders in February 1845 as 

supervising architect for Browne, who, 

by that time, had left for Montreal with 

the capital. Supervision was usual for outof-town 

designers: Browne himself had 

acted as supervising architect for John 

Howard's Christ Church, Tyendinaga ' 8 

The attribution of the Kingston Bank of 

Montreal branch to George Browne was 

accepted by Dana Johnson, who also discovered 

that the commission had been 

awarded after a competition announced 

in the May 28, 1843 Kingston Chronicle 

and Gazette." However, all four drawings 

appear to be by the same hand, as does 

the lettering, which appears on two of 

them (note the very long crossing on the 

letter "t"). The designs include favourite 

Browne motifs and there is a clear development 

in the fa~ade designs, from 

complex, even decorative forms, towards 

simple, almost abstract forms. A similar 

evolution is seen in Browne's designs for 

the Kingston City Hall, and also those for 

Rockwood (fig. 12; fig. 4). 20 

What appears to be the first design for 

the Kingston Bank of Montreal (fig. 7) 

has the same chimneystack as Browne's 

St. Andrew's Manse (fig . 3), but the fa 

~ade is a shortened, flattened version of 

John Carr of York's 1773 Newark Town 

Hall (fig. 8). 21 In what appears to be the 

second design (fig. 9), textural contrasts 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N" 1 > 2006 45

J . DOUGLAS S TEWART > ESSAI I ESSAY 

FIG. 5. FRONTENAC CLUB INN (FORMERLY BANK OF MONTREAL), KING AND WI LLIAM STREETS, 

KINGSTON, BY GEORGE BROWNE, 1845.1 GEORGE LILLEY, QUE EN"S UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES 

FIG. 6. VI CTORIA COLLEGE, COBOURG, BY EDWARD CRANE, 1831 -1836. 1 VENETIA STEWART 

are abandoned and, above the main entrance, 

two Wyatt windows appear. In 

the building itself (fig. 5), even greater 

simplicity and severe monumentality are 

achieved by the uniform use of rectilinear 

windows, and by employing a Tuscan 

giant order plus an attic, a motif which 

echoes the end pavilions of the Kingston 

City Ha ll, including the (now destroyed) 

King Street pavilion then only a few 

hundred yards away.n 

A very subtle feature of the order in the 

Bank of Montreal as built, is that the corner 

pilasters are set back (unlike those at 

the city hall, or in the early designs for 

the Bank); only the uppermost cornice 

links the King and William Street far;:ades . 

That arrangement produces "extruded" 

corners, which create movement and re 

inforce the distinction between the King 

Street far;:ade, with its public entrance 

(whose entablature is topped by a triangular 

pediment), and the Wi lliam Street 

front, which included the entrance to the 

private quarters of the bank manager on 

the upper floors. The entablature of the 

latter entrance is surmounted only by a 

simple rectangular die, like those above 

the King Street windows. 

Such dies are also found above the side 

doors on the main far;:ade of St. George's 

Cathedral, which I have attributed to 

Browne. My attribution rests partly on 

the similarities between the far;:ades 

and the interior first western bays of 

St. George's, Belfast, and St . George's, 

Kingston. The latter far;:ade is also indebted 

to a great exemplar of French 

neoclassicism, S. Philippe du Roule, Paris, 

a debt of which francophile James Gan 

don would doubtless have approved." 

The "extruded" corners at the Bank of 

Montreal are yet another example of 

Browne's distinctive handling . At the 

St. Andrew's Manse {1841) (fig. 3), Browne 

also cut back the wall at the corners; the 

same feature is also found at Ashton . At 

the round corner of Wilson's Buildings 

(now Bank of Nova Scotia) {1841-1842; 

figure 10). 24 the side far;:ades " extrude" 

beyond the giant pilasters just as they 

do at the Bank of Montreal. 

Of George Browne's 1864-1866 Molson's 

Bank, Montreal, Susan Wagg wrote 

"[...] Browne's edifice follows the mansion-club 

pattern that had now become 

standard for Canadian banks and which 

he had earlier used in a more restrained 

fashion for the Bank of Montreal branch 

in Kingston." 25 While Browne's Molson's 

Bank certainly follows the "mansion-club" 

pattern, his earlier Kingston Bank of Montreal 

seems to have different sources. 

The tall block-like character of the Kingston 

Bank of Montreal is another Irish ism, 

following the Irish "tall house" tradition, 

which may begin with Mount levers, 

County Clare, of the 1730's. While 

there are also plenty of horizontal Irish 

houses (and George Browne also follows 

the horizontal tradition with e.g . 

his Kingston St . Andrew's Manse and 

the Montreal Belleview Hall), the "tall 

house" continued to be popular through 

the eighteenth century and beyond, as 

is seen, for example, at Coolmore, Carrigaline, 

County Cork of 1788 (fig. 11). Yet, 

the roots of the tall, blocky Irish country 

house lie in the actual tower houses of 

the late Middle Ages, which had persisted 

through the seventeenth century. 

The Irish tall house thus had its origins in 

fortifications. Hence, the Irish tall house 

would have seemed a very appropriate 

model for a bank. 26 

46 


J. D OUGLAS S TEWART > ESSAI I ESSAY 

George Browne's Rockwood (fig. 4), al- tunnels to connect the house and service building feature to be seen at the city hall 

though not three full storeys, also has quarters. Good examples are Sir Edward is the basement. It is, as Maurice Craig 

the character of an Irish tall house. That Lovett Pearce's Bel lamont Forest of c1730 notes "[...] a commonplace of English 

results from the house being raised over (fig. 14) and James Wyatt's Castle Coole classical architecture[ ...] but in Ireland it 

a basement, the use of emphatic verti- of 1789-1795. The latter's Tuscan end pacals, 

is much more nearly universal." Craig at 

including the residual pilasters at the vilions display sunken panels above niches, tributes that practice to the necessity for 

corners, and the giant order of Tuscan the motif which Browne employs, albeit a damp course (because of the climate), 

columns, whose lines are continued by fielding the panel, so prominently on the the classical aesthetic of the plinth, and 

the chimneystacks. The Rev. John Payne west side of Rockwood. 28 

finally the persistence of the influence 

had advised against building high in the 

country("[ .. .] it is easy to imagine what 

a ridiculous and aukward [sic] Figure a 

House of three or four Stories High would 

make in an open Field"). But Irish builders 

ignored the injunction, just as they 

ignored his forbiddance of gathered 

chimneys. Maurice Craig dismissed economic 

reasons for the former, i.e. that "a 

cubical house uses the least materials." 

Instead, concluded Craig, the practice 

reflects"[ ... ] more likely, perhaps, some 

At Rockwood there is no tunnel, but 

rather, a deep cutting on the eastern side 

(fig. 15), which concealed the service entrance 

to the basement kitchens and also 

isolated the house from the stable block. 

Originally, as the Farrell view shows, the 

cutting allowed one to see beyond to the 

lake. My photograph of the cutting was 

taken in the autumn of 1982. Recently, 

the illusionary effect of the cutting has 

been completely destroyed by the erecof 

the round tower house, which had its 

entrance on the first floor. 29 The crosssection 

of Browne's early plans for the 

market shows shops on two storeys, on 

either side of the tunnel. 30 That is reminiscent 

of the galleria developed in late 

eighteenth century in France and Italy. 

However, there is also a very early Irish 

example, which Browne could easily have 

known, Home's Royal Arcade, Dublin, of 

1819. 31 

persistence of the tower-house habit[ ... ] tion of an iron fence on the parapet of Some of Browne's internal planning for 

at work." 27 the cutting, and the creation of a car park domestic architecture derives from Irish 

in front. 

sources. For example, Sir Richard Morri- 

Rockwood's verticalism is emphasized 

by its isolation from other buildings. In 

particular, the stables (now demolished 

but seen in Sidney Farrell 's 1854 view; 

fig. 13) are set at a distance. The isolation 

derives from the Irish practice of using 

son's design for a villa, from his Useful 

While Rockwood has only a cutting, the and Ornamental Designs in Architecture 

Kingston City Hall had a large, full-scale of 1793, breaks with the traditional Irish 

tunnel, which originally extended right single rectangular entrance hall by substithrough 

the whole building from Ontario tuting the sequence of a vestibule and an 

Street to King Street. Another very Irish octagonal tribune. 32 Browne adopts that 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

47

J. D OUGLAS S TEWART > ESSAI I ESSAY 

FIG. 9. SECOND DESI GNS FOR BANK OF MONTREAL, KINGSTON BRANCH, BY GEORGE 

BROWNE, 1844, DETAIL. I DRAWING: KAD 17 (1): 15 3/4 X 19 314": QUEEN'S UNIVERSilY ARCHIVES 

FIG. 10. WILSON'S BUILDINGS (NOW BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA), KINGSTON, BY GEORGE 

BROWNE, 1841-1842.1 JOH N BREBNER 

arrangement at Rockwood (fig. 12) but 

works out the spaces more picturesquely 

and sculptura lly, as Morrison was to do 

in his later villas. 33 The dished, concave 

entrance of Rockwood (fig. 4) appears in 

Morrison's early villas, Bellair and Cangort 

Park (fig. 20). The concave entrance porch 

was both functional and very Irish. The 

Rev. John Payne in 1757 claims that"[ ... ] 

The Porch taken off the length of the 

Hall is not one of the least conveniences 

in a Country house." In that case, Irish 

builders seem to have taken Payne's advice, 

albeit at a later date. Maurice Craig, 

citing that passage, adds that 

hollow ing a porch out of the front and 

robbing it from the inner hall is found in 

numerous houses in the [I rish] Midlands, 

especially in Lei x and Offaly, though most 

seem later than Payne's time, an d this 

ex pedi ent, w hich is ve ry well adapted to 

the Irish climate, was much favoured by Sir 

Ri chard Morrison half a century later. 34 

Browne's earliest known villa, Benmore, 

is very ingeniously planned. 35 It was built 

in 1834 to the west of Quebec City at a 

beautiful site on the St. Lawrence River as 

"a Cottage in the Gothic style" for (later 

Sir) Dominick Daly (1798-1868), then Provincial 

Secretary for Lower Canada . 36 It is 

very plain outside, with pointed Gothic 

windows on the ground floor and rectangular 

windows with hood mouldings on 

the floor above. Inside there is a vestibule 

and shallow vaulted hall. The basic plan 

is a "butterfly" of four octagonal-shaped 

rooms and hall, with glazed cupboards 

filling the angles. But the most unusual 

aspect of the interior is the "state bed 

chamber" (to quote the "Specification") 

in a mezzanine floor, in a small projecting 

wing at the back. 37 Below that bedchamber 

is a very high kitchen. A very similar 

rear (though not projecting) mezzanine 

appears in a series of small houses around 

Dublin in the early nineteenth century, 

including Beechlawn, Rathgar, Dublin of 

c1816, probably designed by Francis Johnston 

.38 Because of the similar shape and 

position of the Benmore mezzanine, it 

seems likely that those Dublin houses are 

Browne's source. Yet, in its planning, Benmore 

is an altogether grander and more 

complex structure. The "state bed chamber" 

recalls the grandest English country 

house planning, which generally includes 

a set of staterooms intended for visits of 

royalty. In Ireland, aside from the vicerega l 

staterooms of Dublin Castle, such rooms 

are rare. But there is a State bedroom at 

Castle Coole (reputedly designed for a 

projected visit by George IV, which never 

took place), 39 a house which, as we saw, 

Browne probably knew. Benmore's "state 

bedchamber" is analogous in function, 

even if multum in parvo, since its owner, 

as a senior administrator, had to entertain 

the Governor (the monarch's representative) 

and other distinguished guests. 

Browne's grandest early mezzanine is 

known only from his 1835 specifications 

for a villa for the Quebec brewer Colin 

McCallum. Its central block, forty-five 

feet square "contained a drawing room, 

dining room and saloon. A picture gallery 

on the mezzanine level was lit from above 

by a lantern." 40 The latter feature is developed 

from what McParland calls "that 

characteristic Irish villa feature, the toplighted 

centrally placed bedroom lobby 

which enlivens the spatial interest of so 

48 


J . DOUGLAS STEWART > ESSAI I ESSAY 

and excitement of Ben more or Rockwood. 

Worse still, the upper stairway is poorly lit 

because its one narrow oblong window 

seems to be an afterthought: two feet 

beyond the window is a bank of chimneys! 

That is a most unlikely design for an 

architect who was careful to harmonize 

his exteriors and interiors, and whose upper 

floors, following Irish tradition, are 

well lit. 

FIG. 11' COOLMORE, CARRIGALINE, COUNTY CORK, 1788.1 HUGH DORAN COLLECTIO N, IRISH ARCH ITECTURAL AR CH IVE 

many Irish houses." 41 That Irish ism, which 

seems to have first appeared at Sir Edward 

Lovett Pearce's Bellamont,'' is seen 

at Browne's Rockwood (figs. 16-18). 43 

Institute Library and allowed visitors a 

panoramic view of the surrounding area 

(including the beginning of The Thousand 

Islands), remain some of the most brilliant 

surviving pieces of planning of Browne's 

The McCallum mezzanine design has career. 

important progeny. In his first plans for 

the Kingston City Hall, 1842, Browne used Bellevue is Kingston's best-known villa, 

some very ingenious mezzanine planning because it was rented in 1848-1849 by Sir 

which enabled him to fit extra floors at John A . Macdonald, the architect of Confederation 

the sides in the attics above the Ontario 

and Canada's first Prime Min 

Street wings. (He maintained his exterior 

ister. It was attributed to George Browne 

elevations by running a floor-line by Marion MacRae; Margaret Angus chalister. 

between the semi-circular tops and the lenged this on the grounds that the villa 

lower rectangular parts of his second must have been built in 1838, three years 

storey windows. 44 ) In the final building, before Browne came to Kingston. In 1992, 

Browne builds above the tunnel what is Jennifer McKendry cast doubt on Angus's 

in effect a mezzanine floor between the early documentation and re -attributed 

second floor and the cupola. There he creates 

Bellevue to Browne; she is supported by 

a large windowless, " hidden" room, Pierre du Prey. 46 

lit only by glazing at the bottom of the 

circular staircase in the cupola. The original 

McKendry argued for her attribution part 

purpose of that room was similar to ly on the grounds of the canopied balcony 

the McCallum picture gallery: it housed at Bellevue, a feature Browne had used 

the Mechanics Institute Museum. Later on the back of Rockwood. Such balconies 

it became the Alderman's Library. 45 It, were, of course, common in Regency architecture.47 

together with the staircase and cupola 

But the interior planning 

above, which housed the Mechanics of Bellevue lacks completely the variety 

As McKendry noted, Bellevue's first 

owner, Charles Hales, was an important 

patron of Browne, having commissioned 

from him Hales cottages (fig. 2) in 1841 

and additions to the Commercial Mart 

(now S. & R. Department Store) in 1842. 

But there is also "patronage" evidence 

against Browne as the architect of Bellevue, 

viz its description, in letters to his 

sister, Margaret Greene, by its most famous 

tenant, John A . Macdonald, as "the 

most fantastic [concern) imaginable" and 

"Pekoe Pagoda." 48 It is difficult to believe 

that Macdonald would have mocked the 

work of the architect of the city hall (Macdonald 

had served as Alderman during 

its construction) and Macdonald's own 

houses on Brock Street. 49 The likeliest 

conclusion, given the present evidence, is 

that Bellevue was designed, after Browne 

left Kingston in 1844, by an unknown 

builder. 

The Irish sources for the Kingston City Hall 

far;ades are extremely interesting. The giant 

pilastered corner pavilions with attics 

of the Ontario Street far;ade and the 

latter's rooflines recall the front of Theodore 

Jacobsen's 1752-1759 Trinity College, 

Dublin (with the updating of Palladian 

to Wyatt windows). 50 Many years ago, 

James Gandon's Dublin Customs House 

was identified as a source for Browne's 

far;ade. 5 ' Both have porticos and corner 

pavilions; and statues were erected (or at 

Kingston, Lord Sydenham's was planned 

to be placed) above their central domes. 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

49

J . D OUGLAS S TEWART > ESSAI I ESSAY 

/ 

FI G. 12. ELEVATION AND PLANS OF ROCKWOOD, KINGSTON, 

BY GE ORGE BROWNE, 1841.1 SOURCE: NATIONAL MAPCOLLECllON, PAC 

FIG. 13. ROCKWOOD, BY SIDNEY FARRELL, 1854;WATERCOLOU R, 8 X 11114"; SIGNED 

AND DATED LOWER LEFT: SIDNEY FARRELL I ROYAL ENGINEERS I 22 MARCH 1854.1 

SOURCE: AGNES ETHERINGTON ART CENTRE, QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY 

FIG. 14. BELLAMONT FOREST, COOTE HILL, COUNTY CAVAN, BY SIR EDWARD LOVEn PEARCE, C1730. 

VI EW OF REAR WITH TUNN EL ENTRANCE. I J.O. STEWART 

FIG. 15. ROCKWOOD VILLA, KINGSTON, BY GEORGE BROWNE, 1841. VIEW OF CUTIING 

FROM BELOW. I J.O. STEWART. 1982 

Another link with Gandon can be seen 

in the Dublin Four Courts, which include 

one of his favourite motifs, the triumphal 

arch. 52 The Four Courts Liffey front has 

two of them, the type with a high arch 

in the middle and two small ones, one to 

each side. George Browne's city hall also 

had two triumphal arches with similar 

openings: one under the Ontario Street 

portico and the other on the King Street [mausoleums] are relatively, and perhaps 

pavilion, which was destroyed by fire in even absolutely, more numerous than 

1865. 53 in England." 54 The Molson vaults have 

ribbed vaulted ceilings, reminiscent of 

The 1863 Molson Mausoleum, at Mount the vestibule of St. George's and the city 

Royal Cemetery, Montreal, is Browne's hall's Coun ci l Chamber and Memorial Hall. 

signed masterpiece of a very Irish genre: Like the upper fl oors of Irish houses, the 

as Maurice Craig observed, "in propor- Molson vaults are top-lit, the light comtion 

to Ireland's much smaller population ing f rom beneath the hollow ca st-iron 

50 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 200 6

J . D OUGLAS STEWART > ESSAI I ESSAY 

FIG. 16. ROCKWOOD VILLA, KINGSTON, BY GEORGE BROWN E, 

1841. FIRST FLOOR, VIEW ACROSS TRIBUNE TO MASTER 

BEDROOM. I JOHN BREBNER 

FIG. 17. ROCKWOOD VILLA, KINGSTON, BY GEORGE BROWNE, 

1841 . TRIBUNE VAULTING. I JOHN BREBNER 

FIG. 18. ROCKWOOD VILLA, KINGSTON, BY GEORGE BROWNE, 

1841 . TRIBUNE SKYLIG HT. I JOHN BREBNER 

sarcophagi above. The vaults have elaborate 

cast-iron doors set in "dished," 

concave entrances (fig. 19), miniature versions 

of the entrance to Morrison's Can 

gort Park (fig. 20). In 1991, I suggested 

that the two winged females holding a 

seven-stringed harp in the roundels at the 

top of each door might be "grotesques." 

Those figures can be now identified as 

the sirens apostrophized by Milton in his 

1645 At a Solemn Musick: 

Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav'ns joy, 

Sphear-born harmonious Sisters, 

Voice, and Vers[e], 

Wed your divine sounds and mixt 

power employ 

[...] present 

That undisturbed Song of pure content, 

Ay sung before the saphire-colour'd throne. 55 

In the Odyssey, sirens were beautiful 

but evil singers; later, they also became 

beneficent figures. Christian allegorists 

pictured sirens singing "celestial music 

drawing souls upwards to heaven." 56 

Milton follows the allegorical tradition. 

Since George Browne possessed a library 

of over 5000 volumes, he almost certainly 

knew his Milton. 57 The Molsons were also 

keenly interested in English literature: 

they endowed McGill University with a 

chair in that subject in 1856. 58 However, 

it must have been Browne the artist 

who designed and drew the "Blest pair 

of sirens," giving them a seven-stringed 

harp (a reference to the known number 

of planets 59 ) and placing them in a circle, 

alluding to them as "sphear born." 

A shamrock pins the swags below the 

in the ground plan of the Molson Mausoleum. 

George Browne's use of the 

shamrock demonstrates his command of 

symbolism and his continuing feeling for 

the land of his birth. 

Uncovering Browne's Irish sources establishes 

his architectural heritage. Hence I 

must now qualify my 1976 statement that 

the "neo-baroque" elements in Browne's 

style were "in tune with the most up-todate 

ideas of London and Liverpool [ ... ) 

closely related to architects [ ... ) such as 

Harvey Lonsdale Elmes, Sir Charles Barry, 

and C.R. Cockerell." 6 ' We can now be sure 

that, because of his Irish background, 

Browne was pre-disposed to adopt the 

1840's Neo-Baroque ideas of London and 

Molson name. Hope is part of their fam- Liverpool. Like James Gandon, Browne 

ily motto (Industria et Spe). and Cesare could "open his mind to Wren." 62 

Ripa gave Hope (Speranza) the shamrock 

(trifolgie). The plant is an ancient emblem 

But the discovery of Browne's Irish heriof 

Salvation, because of Pliny's claim that 

it was an anecdote for snakebite. To dem- 

onstrate the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, 

St. Patrick used the three-leaf clover, or 

shamrock, thus it became Ireland's emblem60; 

and there is Trinitarian symbolism 

tage has even deeper significance. Seeing 

how Browne adapted his Irish heritage to 

his new Canadian environment helps us 

to assess what is original about his architecture. 

Why did Browne so frequently 

employ the Wyatt window in Canada? Its 

JSSAC I JSE AC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

51

J. DOUGLAS STEWART > ESSAI I ESSAY 

FIG. 19. MOLSON MAUSOLEUM, MOUNT ROYAL CEMETERY, 

MONTREA~ BY GEORGE AND JAMES BROWNE, 1863. 

VAULT ENTRANCE. I w STEWART 

FIG. 20. CANGORT PARK, COUNTY OFFAL'{, BY SIR RICHARD MORRISON, 1807. FA\ADE I JD STEWART 

form was both grand and functional. It had the Molson Mausoleum, the top lighting of the British Empire" 63 -Lord Sydenham's 

a noble ancestry in the Serliana-Palladian and ventilation of the vaults through Union of the Canadas-, which, within 

window; yet the Wyatt window's rectilinear hollow cast-iron sarcophagi is extremely little more than a generation, would 

shape made it easier to construct. Above all, ingenious. widen into Sir John A . Macdonald's 1867 

its triple openings of different sizes gave 

Dominion of Canada. That year also 

it flexibility for ventilation, an important In other cases Browne's lrishisms are es- saw the publication of Alexander Muir's 

consideration for Canadian climate, which sentially stylistic. The gathering together unofficial Canadian anthem: The Maple 

varies greatly. of chimneystacks at the Kingston Presby- Leaf Forever. 

terian Manse (and elsewhere) increases 

Climate was doubtless also a factor in 

Browne's use of the concave porch and 

the building's mass and compactness of 

silhouette. Browne's Rockwood and the 

NOTES 

vestibule at Rockwood. Anything that 1845 Bank of Montreal Kingston branch 1. This is the first part of " In Memoriam George 

Browne, Architect, Obiit November 19, 1885: 

can be done to mitigate the wintry blast were based on the Irish "Tower House;" 

His Irish Roots and Canadian Influence >>, a 

at the front door is welcome in a country 

the latter adaptation seems to be a unique lecture sponsored by the Frontenac Historic 

where winter la sts four months and 

more. Furthermore, at Rockwood, the 

Irish-Canadian solution to the problem 

of nineteenth-century bank design. The 

Foundation, at Memorial Hall, Kingston City 

Hall, on November 19, 1985. (The second part 

of that lecture will be published by the University 

of Toronto Press in 2007 in a festschriftfor 

development of the Irish top-lit bedroom 

lobby into a two-storey "tribune" ity of Browne's Kingston buildings also Professor Douglas Richardson edited by Ste 

simplicity, massiveness, and monumental 

must have provided cooling ventilation 

for the house during hot summers. Presumably 

derive in part from his Irish predecessors, 

from Sir Edward Lovett Pearce to James 

phen Otto and Malcolm Thurlby.) A more developed 

version of the 19851ecture w as given 

to avoid direct lighting, Browne Gandon and beyond. Those stylistic fea 

as a paper, " An Original Provincial Architect: 

George Browne of Belfast and the Canadas >>, 

also adapted the traditional Irish top-lit tures underlie Browne's greatest Kingston In Regionalism: Challenging the Canon, Association 

bedroom lobby for a picture gallery in 

the McCallum Villa designs. Later, at the 

achievement: his heroic, primitive style, 

which reached its apogee in the Kingston of Art Historians 16'h Annual Confer 

ence, Trinity College, Dublin, March 25, 1990 

(>, p. 30). For recent Browne bibliography, 

see Stew art, J. Douglas, 1998, 2006

J . DoUGLAS STEWART> ESSAI I ESSAY 

of Architecture in Canada, vol. 23, no. 3, p. 81. 

I wish to thank Mary Stew art and Venetia 

Stewart for reading the present manuscript 

and for their helpful suggestions. 

2. Stew art, J. Douglas, 1991, « Great Princes Atfected 

Great Monuments: George Browne's 

Molson Mausoleum and Its Antecedents »,Society 

for the Study of Architecture in Canada 9. 

Bulletin, vol. 16 no. 4, p. 99, 109, note 6. 

3. Craig, Maurice, 1982 [3 'd ed. L The Architecture 

of Ireland from the Earliest Times to 1880, 

London, Batsford; McParland, Edward, 1985, 

James Gandon: Vitruvius Hibernicus, London, 

Zwemmer. For Pearce and for the quotation 

on Gandon, see Colvin, Sir Howard, 1995, A 

Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 

1600-1840, New Haven, Yale University Press, 

p. 745-746, 386. Accounts of Pearce and Gandon 

are also found in Summerson, Sir John, 

1993 [9" ed]., A rchitecture in Britain, 1530- 

1830, New Haven, Yale University Press, p. 350- 

353, 412-415 (the quotation is from p. 414). 

4. Stewart, 1998: 81 , note 46; Stewart, J. Douglas, 

1976, « Architecture for a Boom-Tow n: 

The Primitive and the Neo-Baroque in George 

Brow ne's Kingston Buildings », In G. Tulchinsky 

(ed.), To Preserve and Defend: Essays on 

Kingston in the Nineteenth Century, Montreal, 11. 

MeGill-Queen's University Press, p. 37-61, 346- 

351 . 

5. Bence-Jones, Mark, 1978, Burke's Guide to 12. 

Country Houses, volume 1: Ireland, London, 

Burke's Peerage, p. xvi; Robinson, John Martin, 

1979, The Wyatts: An Architectural Dynasty, 

Oxford University Press, p. 31. 

6. The Architectural Archive, 1989, The Architecture 

of Richard Morrison (1757-1849) and 

William Vitruvius Morrison (1 794-1838), Dublin, 

p. 60-64. The cement pediments over the 

Wyatt windows were added 1896-1898. 

7. The two-storey bridge over the entrance tunnel 

in its original form (for the bridge in plan, 

see Stewart, 1998: fig. 4) was set well back 

inside the fa~ade . The 1973 restoration of the 

City Hall saw the abolition of the two side 

entrances under the main portico and their 

replacement by a single entrance where the 

tunnel and bridge had been. For the W yatt 

w indows now inside the present entrance as 

w ell as those on the back of the City Hall, see 

Wilson, Jan, (ed.). 1974, Kingston City Hall [official 

guide book]. Kingston, Corporation of 

the City of Kingston, p. 16, 18, 23 and back 16. 

cover. 

8. I am indebted to the late Dr. Shirley Spragge 

for information about the early photographs 

of the Hales cottages in the John Nolen papers 

at Cornell University. I am also grateful 

to Gillian Sadinsky for showing me over her 

own Hales cottage, and for identifying the 

photographs as no. 313 King Street West. For 

documentation on the Hales cottages see 

Stewart, 1996: 348, note 14. 

City of Kingston, 1985, Buildings of Architectural 

and Historic Significance, Kingston, 

vol. 6, p. 204. I attributed Ashton (then 

Bowes & Cocks Ltd .) to Browne in Stewart, 

J. Douglas, and Jan W ilson, 1973, Heritage 

Kingston, Kingston, Agnes Etherington Art 

Centre, no. 175. It was built for Major John 

Metcalfe, Royal Engineers (born England 

1801; died Kingston 1867). Metcalfe named 

his new house after his former home in England. 

There are no records of when the new 

Ashton was built, or about its architect. However, 

stylistically it can confidently be attributed 

to Browne. I am indebted to Mrs. Mary C. 

Fraser for that information about her great 

grandfather and her former home (letter to 

the author, June 28, 1976). 

10. W right, Janet, 1984, Architecture of the Picturesque 

in Canada, Ottaw a, Parks Canada, 

p. 68, 72-73. 

Craig, Maurice, 1976, Classic Irish Houses of 

the Middle Size, London, Architectural Press, 

p. 18. 

Craig, 1976 : 163; The Architectural Archive : 

29-30. 

13 . de Ia Ruffiniere du Prey, Pierre, 1983, , In Donald Swainson (ed.). 

St. George's Cathedral: Two Hundred Years of 

Community, Kingston, Quarry Press, p. 45-48. 

24. Stewart, 1976: 41 (fig. 5). 

25. Wagg, Su san, 1990, Money Matters: a Critical 

Look at Bank Architecture, New York, Mc 

Graw-Hill, p. 60. 

26. For the tall Irish house and its origins in the 

tower house, see Girouard, M., 1962, >, Country Life, 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

53

J. DOUGLAS STEWART > ESSAI I ESSAY 

vel. 132. p. 1152-1155; and Bence-lones: xx-xxi, 

91, 214. Coolmore was built for W.W. Newenham 

(Bence-Jones: 91) and was the seat 

of Sir John Summeron's mother's family. In 

the 1930's Summerson sometimes used the 

pseudonym "Coolmore" for his articles (Obituary, 

London Daily Telegraph, November 13, 

1992). I am indebted to Elizabeth Gibson of 

Queen's University Library for corroborating 

that reference. 

27. Craig, 1976: 21 (including the Payne quotation). 

28. Craig, 1976: 21; and Edward McParland, 1981, 

Castle Coole [guidebook]. The National Trust, 

opposite 6. Browne probably knew Castle 

Coole, which is less than 100 miles from Belfast, 

his birth-place. The house is illustrated 

in Richardson, G., 1808, The New Vitruvius 

Britannicus, London, vel. 2, plates 65-70. 

29. Craig, 1976 : 19. 

30. Stewart and Wilson : no. 166. 

31 . Craig, 1982: 306-307. 

32. McParland, Edward, 1973, «Sir Richard Morrison's 

Country Houses: The Smaller Villas I>>, 

Country Life, vel. 153, p. 1462-1463, fig. 2. 

33. For Morrison's early and later villas, see The 

Architectural Archive, op. cit. 

34. Craig, 1976: 41. One of the ultimate English 

sources for that motif may have been the 

porte cochere of Montagu House, Bloomsbury, 

London, built in the 1670's by an unknown 

architect and destroyed in the nineteenth century. 

It is illustrated in Godwin, George, 1850, 

Buildings and Monuments, Modern and Mediaeval, 

London, The Builder, p. 51, a volume 

which Browne owned, and which is now in 

Queen's University Library. 

35. Gagnon-Pratte, France, 1980, L'architecture et 

Ia nature a Quebec au dix-neuvieme siecle: 

Les villas, Quebec, Musee du Quebec, p. 97- 

100, 199-201 (with earlier references). I am 

very grateful to Janet Wright for providing 

me in July 1980 with a copy of the contract 

for "Carpenters and Joiners work" (Quebec, 

Archives nationales du Quebec; Greffe E.G. 

Cannon; Marche de construction, October 8, 

1834, no. 16). 

36. See his biography by Elizabeth Gibbs in the 

Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 1976, Toronto, 

University of Toronto Press, vel. IX: 

1861-1870, p . 189-193. Daly was Irish (and a 

Roman Catholic) and that may have been 

one reason why he employed George Browne, 

who, although Presbyterian, was clearly no 

bigot. Daly was apparently born at his mother's 

family house, Ardfry, Orenmore, County 

Galway (for the house see Bence-lones: 9). 

Daly also employed Browne to build two town 

houses in Quebec City, and was in touch with 

him socially when the capital moved to Kingston. 

There Daly rented a house belonging to 

J.S. Cartwright (see Stewart, 1991 : 99 and 

note 12). 

37. For a ground plan and an illustration of the 

(modernized) staircase and landing leading to 

the "state bed chamber," see Gagnon-Pratte : 

99, 201. I am most grateful to Madame Gagnon-Pratte 

for arranging for my visit to Benmore 

in April 1984, and to Mother Superior 

Bellanger of the Soeurs d 'Afrique for her kindness 

during my visit. 

38. See Craig, 1976: 13, 114-117, 164. 

39. Bence-lones : 65. For a colour illustration of 

the Regency bed, see Guiness, Desmond, and 

William Ryan , 1971, Irish Houses & Castles, 

London, Thames & Hudson, p. 174. 

40. Wright: 118 and note 43. 

41. See McParland, 1985 : 134-135. 

42. Guiness and Ryan: 41; Craig, 1982: 86. 

43. Stewart, 1976 : 46. 

44. Stewart and Wilson : nos. 160, 165. 

45. Maclennan, Neil, 1974, « Kingston City Hall 

Today >>, In Wilson, op. cit. : 26 (with illustration). 

The room is described by "leo" in 1843: 

"The attic floor is intended for the Mechanics 

Institute, having a large room 50 feet by 25 

for a Museum: this is lighted by a splendid 

lantern of ground glass[ ... ]" (See Stewart and 

Wilson: 143) 

46. McKendry, Jennifer, 1992, « 'A Residence fit 

for any Gentleman in the Country': Three 

Kingston Villas by George Browne >>, RACAR I 

Revue d'art canadienne I Canadian Art Review, 

vel. 19, p. 74. (I see Roselawn as by Coverdale 

rather than Browne; Stewart, 1991 : 45, 47); 

de Ia Ruffiniere du Prey, Pierre, 1994, The Villas 

of Pliny from Antiquity to Posterity, Chicago, 

University of Chicago Press, p. 18-19. 

47. Pilcher, Donald, 1947, The Regency Style, London, 

Batsford, p. 43-44. 

48. The Papers of the Prime Ministers: Volume 1: 

The Letters of Sir John A. Macdonald 1836- 

1857; J. K. Johnson, ed., 1968, Ottawa, Public 

Archives of Canada, 148-149. 

49. Angus, Margaret, 1984, John A. Lived Here, 

Kingston, Frontenac Historic Foundation, 

p. 12-13. 

50. Craig, Maurice, 1984, Georgian Dublin: Twenty-Five 

Colour Acquatints by James Malton, 

Mountrath, Portlaoise, Dolmen Press, no. 3. 

51. Angus, Margaret, 1966, The Old Stones of 

Kingston, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 

p. 22. See also Maitland : 7 and 23 (illustrating 

the two monuments). 

52 . McParland, 1985: 162. 

53. However, Browne's arches have an attic storey 

and derive from the Arch of Constantine; 

see Stewart, 1998: 74. On November 8, 1996 

at the UAAC I Universities Art Association of 

Canada Conference, McGill University I gave a 

paper entitled « Constantine's Arch at Kingston 

City Hall: 'Neo-classical gesture' or British 

Imperial Panegyric? >> (« Abstracts >>: 57) . 

54. Craig, Maurice, 1975, « Mausoleums in Ireland 

>>, Studies, winter, p . 410 (quoted in 

Stewart, 1991 : 99). 

55. Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur (ed.), 1948, The Oxford 

Book of English Verse 1250-1918 [new 

ed.]. Oxford University Press, p. 317. I am very 

grateful to Mary Stewart for identifying the 

Milton quotation. 

56. Hornblower, Simon, and Anthony Spaworth 

(eds.), 2003, The Oxford Classical Dictionary 

[3'" ed. rev.]. Oxford University Press, p . 1413. 

The mysterious objects at the bottom of the 

Molson Mausoleum doors may be "Pompeian" 

hourglass shaped mill-stones (Hornblower 

and Spaworth : 981). 

57. Stewart, 1998 : note 46. 

58. Stewart, 1991 : 106. 

59. Winternitz, Emanuel, 1967, Musical instruments 

and ther Symbolism in Western Art, 

london, Faber, ·'· 97. 

60. For shamrock symbolism at the Molson Mausoleum, 

see Stewart, 1991 : 104. 

61 . Stewart, 1976 :39. 

62. Browne owned James Elmes's Memoirs of Sir 

Christopher Wren (London, 1823). The volume 

(signed on the title-page G Browne I Architect) 

belongs to the Fraser-Hickson Institute 

Library, Montreal, part of the gift of George 

C. Browne, 1921. The bulk of that donation is 

now at Queen's University Library, Kingston, 

Ontario. 

63. Governor-General Sir Charles Metcalfe, Bart, 

quoted in Stewart, 1998: 78. 

54 


CONFERENCE I LECTURE 

FRENCH PATTERNS IN 

WESTERN CANADIAN LANDSCAPES 

RON WILLIAMS is a professor' at the Ecole 

d'ar·chitectur·e de paysage of the University of 

>RoN WILLIAMS 

Montr·eal, of which he was the dir' ector' for two 

mandates. Through his office Williams, Asselin, 

Ackaoui et associes [WAA), he has realized many 

well-known landscape ar'chitecture and urban 

design pmjects. A Fellow of CSI_A and RAIC, 

he is currently writing a book on the history of 

landscape architecture in Canada. 

Many scholars have explored the 

rich variety of settlement patterns 

brought to the Canadian Prairies by European 

immigrants in the late nineteenth 

and early twentieth centuries, including 

such unique features as the Mennonite 

"street village" and Ukrainian church and 

cemetery compositions. But the first wave 

of physical impressions on the land in the 

Canadian West, following those implanted 

everywhere by the First Nations, was 

essentially French, transplanted from 

New France. Just as Virginia provided the 

pattern for Texas, according to American 

landscape scholar J. B. Jackson, or New 

England for the American Middle West, 

Quebec traditions established a first template 

for the towns and rural areas of the 

western provinces of Canada. 

THE QUEBEC TRADITION 

To trace that influence, let us first recall 

some of the familiar agricultural and community 

patterns of Quebec, after which 

we will explore some of the ways in which 

those patterns influenced the early landscape 

development of the West. 

FIG. 1. OTTAWA RIVER AND LO NG- LOT FARM S. AIR VIEW I RON WILLI AMS 

Most obvious is the relation between 

navigable rivers and agricultural patterns 

in New France. During the first two centuries 

after its establishment, travel in New 

France relied on its excellent network of 

major waterways, principally the St. Lawrence 

and its great tributaries, including 

the Richelieu, the Chaudiere, the Saint 

Maurice, and the Ottawa, and their many 

branches. Farms and villages were laid out 

along that ready-made transportation 

system. The French authorities distributed 

large blocks of land along the rivers to 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N•· 1 > 2006 > 55-64 

55

RoN WILLIAMS > CONFERENCE I LECTURE 

a third approach is used: the church- like 

every building in town- faces straight out 

onto the Saint-Maurice River, the essential 

ligne de force of the whole region . 

FIG. 3. GRANDE-PILES, TOWN AND CHURCH, ST. MAURICE RIVER, 

QUEBEC. I RON WILLIAMS 

seigneurs, who recruited colonists or censitaires, 

and assigned to each of them a 

long, linear farm laid out perpendicular to 

the waterway, the sole means of access . 

As the system became successful, the first 

row of farms along the rivers filled up; a 

second and subsequent rows were established 

behind it along roads called rangs. 

There could be many of these roughly 

parallel rangs, connected at intervals by 

perpendicular roads called montees. Seen 

from a distance, the rang is a long thin 

line of farmhouses, barns, and outbuildings-almost 

a continuous settlement. An 

advantage of this system is the proximity 

of farmsteads, which permits people to 

live fairly close to their neighbours and 

to share community and mutual support. 

Another advantage, particularly 

evident in sites of irregular topography 

like those of the ile d'Orleans or Beauce, 

is that each farm enjoys a variety of soil 

types and growing conditions-fertile 

bottomland for row crops, higher and 

FIG. 4. GRANDE-PILES, CEMETERY. I RON WILLIAMS 

FIG. 5. JARDIN DES SULPICIENS, MONTREAL. I PETER JACOBS 

drier flat land for grains, rough pasture 

and woodlot in less fertile, stony soils at 

higher elevations. 

This line of settlement becomes a village 

almost imperceptibly, through a densification 

of the rang, usually at its intersection 

with a mantee. The parish church, 

the most striking building in each village 

in terms of both size and location, is often 

located near this intersection and, at the 

same time, remarkably sited with respect 

to the larger natural landscape. A classic 

approach is the hilltop site, as at St 

Jean-de-Matha in the Lanaudiere region, 

where the church is located at the highest 

point in the village. Another archetype 

sites the church directly on the axis 

of a major road, as at Charlesbourg just 

north of Quebec City, where the church 

of Saint-Charles-Borromee terminates 

the Trait Carre, or square-pattern main 

road, at the centre of that historic town. 

In the Mauricie region at Grandes-Piles, 

In addition to its relationship to the larger 

landscape, the church is usually carefully 

related to smaller man-made landscapes 

as well. Those include the churchyard 

and especially the cemetery, which, in 

Quebec's vernacular tradition, is formal 

and symmetrical, enclosed by symbolic 

evergreen trees. Gravestones are organized 

in rows perpendicular to a central 

axis dominated by the cross, which rises 

physically and metaphorically above all.. _ 

even death. The church and cemetery are 

usually components of a larger composition: 

an intricate complex of buildings and 

enclosed spaces, which is either the noyau 

villageois of a town or a self-contained 

institution such as a hospital, college, 

or convent. The private gardens of such 

institutions are often beautiful and welcoming 

places- and surprisingly practical. 

Some, like those of the monastere 

des Ursulines in Quebec City, may be 

among the oldest gardens of their tradition 

in the world. All include spaces that 

are sacred in character, like the intimate 

corner reserved for the Virgin Mary in 

convent gardE .s, and the more imposing 

ca/vaire statue of Jesus. But extensive 

areas have always been reserved for 

gardening of vegetables and fruit trees 

to put food on the table (many such 

institutions were semi-autonomous) and 

of flowers for the altar or for pure enjoyment. 

A third role played by those spaces 

is to provide recreation and escape for 

the religieux or religieuses, and their students 

or patients. Thus the gardens could 

easily include a volleyball court, a garden 

swing, or a little " English cottage" used 

as a temporary retreat, as at the H6tei 

Dieu in Quebec City. What these gardens 

are not are museums-they have changed 

constantly over the centuries to respond 

56 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N" I > 2006

R ON W ILLIAMS > CONFERENCE I LECTURE 

to new conditions, yet have always main- 

tained an inherent aesthetic coherence. 

The limits of the village were often clearly 

defined, in the eighteenth century, by 

chapel/es de procession, tiny chapels at 

the edge of town that were the object 

of a kind of pilgrimage on Corpus Christi 

day-the Fete-Dieu celebrated each 

June-when the entire congregation 

would parade from the parish church 

out to the little chapel where a special 

service was held. Parish boundaries were 

also defined, by wayside crosses or croix 

and the West. Just across a narrow waterde 

chemin. Some of these crosses can still 

be seen all over Quebec, not necessarily 

"official," but often put up by individuals 

or groups. A great many remain in par- 

ticular regions, such as the Mauricie, and 

some survive in dense urban landscapes, 

quiet reminders of a vanished rural past. 

The human presence with its symbols is 

also extended out into the broader natural 

landscape through chemins de Ia croix as 

at Saint-Eiie-de-Caxton or at the famous 

The view back to the water focuses on 

a silhouetted statue of Jesus (a common 

sequence, seen at Pointe-Claire and many 

other waterside locations). A little further 

along are the intimate gardens of college 

Sainte-Anne; and throughout, dozens of 

examples of excellent craftsmanship in 

stone, glass, and wrought iron. 

THE FUR TRADE 

By a strange coincidence, that building 

complex is the hinge between New France 

way from the college of the Sisters of 

Sainte-Anne stands the main warehouse 

of the Northwest Fur Trading Company, 

from which annual waves of giant canoes 

took goods up Lake Saint-Louis, through 

the Great Lakes and to the West, and 

came back with furs. 

It was the fur trade that opened Western 

Canada-what was then Rupert's Land, 

later the Northwest Territories-to influ- 

FIG. 6. CROIX DE CHEMIN, THE MAURICIE REGION, 


Saint Joseph's Oratory in Montreal, where ence and settlement from Eastern Canada. FIG. 7. SAINT-ELIE-DE·CAXTON, QUEBEC. 

a crooked and tortuous path leads gradu- Trading for furs with native peoples was VIEW FROM CALVA/RE.I•oNwlluAMs 

ally up the mountain, passing the stations 

of the cross, finally arriving at the summit, 

where a powerful ca/vaire dominates the 

scene. The reverse view, from mountaintop 

to surrounding countryside, is the final 

majestic experience of what has been a 

demanding pilgrimage. 

One of the remarkable ensembles of reli- 

gious and civic buildings and spaces typi- 

cal of those described above is found at 

Lachine, Quebec, where the Saints-Anges- 

Gardiens church and college Sainte-Anne 

create a powerful composition near the 

western entrance to the Lachine Canal. 

It is an impressive complex whether 

seen from up close or from a distance 

across the water. The church is set well 

back from the river road and, along with 

the presbytery right beside it, frames a 

great open space lined by mature trees. 

as old as the first European incursions into 

the St. Lawrence valley. In the sixteenth 

century, before the foundation of Port 

Royal or Quebec City, French and Basque 

sailors maintained seasonal trading posts 

on the lower river, bartering for furs with 

the lnnu or Montagnais. As New France 

was settled and furs were exhausted in 

nearby areas, the frontier of the fur trade 

moved west to Three Rivers and Montreal, 

then via the Great Lakes to Detroit, the 

strategic hinge that provided access to the 

whole inland empire of the Mississippi, and 

to Huronia, the "land between the lakes." 

Here, rivalries between Indian nations for 

the control of trade with the French led 

to warfare and hostility. Consequently, 

trade routes moved north and west up the 

Ottawa River and across Georgian Bay to 

the fur-rich forests of the Northwest. 

FIG. 8. SAINTS-ANGES-GARDIENS CHURCH AND 

SAINTE-ANNE, LACHINE, QUEBEC. VIEW ACROSS 

THE WATER. I RON WILLIAMS 

FIG. 9. SAINTS-ANGES-GARDIENS CHURCH AND PRESBYTERY. 

MAIN OPEN SPACE. I RON WILLIAMS 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

57

RoN W iLLIAMS > CONFERENCE I LECTURE 

FIG. 10. STATUE OF JESUS. VIEW FROM CHURCH TO 

WATERWAY I RON WILLIAMS 

FIG. 11 . NORTH WEST CO. WAREHOUSE, LACHINE, 


FIG. 12. MAP, RIVERS OF WESTERN CANADA 

(SHOWING LOCATI ONS MENTIONED). I RON WILLIAMS 

FIG. 13. LOWER FORT GARRY, HBCTRADING POST. I RON WIL LI AMS 

The next fur frontier was even further 

north, on the shores of Hudson Bay, 

explored by French Canadian voyageurs 

Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Medard Chouart 

des Groseilliers. Rejected by the French 

authorities, the partners sought support 

in London, leading to the establishment of 

the British-based Hudson's Bay Company in 

1670. The first "HBC" posts on the sea, situated 

at the mouths of rivers flowing from 

the west, were easily bypassed by French 

traders from Montreal who canoed across 

the Great Lakes to the Lake of the Woods, 

and thence into the Prairies, where they 

intercepted Cree and Assiniboine expeditions 

headed for Hudson Bay, thus being 

first to buy the furs. Central to that French 

mission was the de Ia Verendrye family of 

Three Rivers, who established, from 1730 

to 1760, a chain of western forts strategically 

located on those great rivers, which, 

like their counterparts in Eastern Canada, 

were the first highways of the West. Once 

French voyageurs from the East went 

beyond the Great Lakes and crossed the 

watershed into Lake Winnipeg, they were 

at the nexus of a thousand-mile communication 

system receiving water from the 

south via the Red River and its tributaries, 

and from the west through the two 

branches ofthe Saskatchewan River, which 

drain a vast area reaching to the Rocky 

Mountains. Through an amazing accident 

of geological history, that water then finds 

its way across the Canadian Shield to Hudson 

Bay, where the ocean-going vessels of 

their British rivals were waiting for furs. 

This rivalry was little changed when the 

French regime was replaced by a British 

administration in Canada in 1763. The 

North West Company, a loose coalition of 

Montreal-based traders, often of Scottish 

origin, maintained the previous Fren ch 

strategy and continued to outflank the 

Hudson's Bay Company, which finally 

began to establish posts in the interior 

in 1774. 

The trading posts or "forts" established 

by the trading companies along the rivers 

usually consisted of one or two large 

open spaces enclosed by lodgings for artisans 

and clerks, storehouses, and a "big 

house" for the traders, all surrounded by 

a wood palisade or stone fortification. 

Vegetables were cultivated in gardens 

inside the walls, and small farms nearby 

produced grains and provided pasture 

for livestock. Each fort was a small and 

isolated village, entirely surrounded by a 

world that belonged to the First Nations, 

"an isolated dot in an Aboriginal sea ." 

Fort Langley, founded by the Hudson's 

Bay Company in 1827 near the limit of 

navigation of the Fraser River in British 

Columbia, is a typical example. About 

200 by 75 metres in area, it housed a 

remarkably cosmopolitan community of 

some 106 residents, consisting mainly of 

French Canadians, Hawaiians, and Scots, 

along with a number of Iroquois and 

Englishmen. North of Winnipeg on the 

Red River, Lower Fort Garry follows the 

classic fort configuration, but it is also 

distinguished by the elegance of its structures, 

the stone construction of its walls 

and of some buildings, and the unusual 

aesthetic concern shown in the layout of 

its garden. Created in 1831 as the home 

base of the governor of the Hudson's 

Bay Company and the "nerve centre" of 

all its operations in the North and West, 

the fort could not long fulfil that role, 

since the real commercial centre of the 

region remained at Upper Fort Garry, a 

few kilometres to the south in what is 

now downtown Winnipeg. 

Many of the traders and voyageurs stayed 

for years at those remote posts, in con 

stant contact with members of the First 

Nations, who established villages nearby 

and provided all the furs. The traders 

often established temporary or permanent 

marriages with native women 

from the tribes of their Cree, Ojibwa, or 

58 


RoN W ILLIAMS > CONFERENCE I LECTURE 

Assiniboine trading partners. When they 

retired, they and their descendants, the 

Metis, often established farms-on the 

linear river-lot pattern, for exactly the 

same reasons as in Quebec-near the 

t rading posts. 

,------------------------------·-------, 

INFLUENCE OF THE RIVER-LOT 

PATTERN ON THE LAYOUT OF 

WESTERN CITIES 

high ground above the North Saskatche- 

There was fierce competition between 

the two major rivals, the Hudson's Bay 

and North West Companies, particularly 

in the period from 1800 to 1820. The two 

companies came to blows near the forks 

of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in 1816 

after the Hudson's Bay Company authori 

zed Lord Selkirk, an influential member 

of their governing board, to establish a 

settlement of displaced Scottish farmers 

at that strategic location. Though the settlers 

were not French, their farms were 

laid out in the familiar Quebec pattern 

of long lots, perpendicular to the Red 

River. Each settler received a 100-acre 

farm (40.5 ha), about 2 miles (3 km) deep, 

on the w est bank of the river, another 

2 miles for haying, and a w oodlot on the 

forested east side of the river. 

The little settlement received a new wave 

of residents when the great commercial 

rivalry between the two companies finally 

concluded with their fusion under the 

HBC name in 1821 . As happens today, the 

merger w as followed by ruthless downsizing 

and "rationalisation." Many former 

fur-trade employees, out of a job, set up 

farms on the traditional long-lot pattern 

along the Red River and the Assiniboine. 

Their farms were grouped by language 

and religion: French Catholics to the 

south, Scots Protestants to the north . 

The original riverside farm layout and 

the "rang" west of the Red, along with 

the main cart tracks to the w est, have 

defined the urban pattern of the rapidly 

~EP !':.IV£:;~ 2006 

59

RON W ILLIAMS > CONFERENCE I LECTURE 

FI G. 17. COUVENT DES SCEURS GRISES, BUILDI NG AN D STATUE 

OF LOUIS-RIEL. I RON WilliAMS 

FIG. 19. CENTRAL AXIS AND CATHEDRAL FA\ADE, 

ST. BON IFACE, MANITOBA. I RON WIL LIAMS 

FIG. 21. ENTRANCE ROAD TO BISHOP'S PALACE, 

ST. BONIFACE. I RON WILLI AMS 

FIG. 18. ENTRANCE TO CEMETERY WITH MON UMENT DES 

BRAVES, ST. BON IFACE, MANITOBA. I RON WILLIAMS 

FIG. 20. VIEW AC ROSS RED RIVER ON AXIS OF THE CATHEDRAL, 

ST-BONIFACE, MANITOBA. I RON WILLIAMS 

FI G. 22. CIRCULAR GARDEN AN D VIEW TO RIVER, 

BISHOP'S PALACE, ST. BONIFACE. I RON WILLIAMS 

SAINT-BONIFACE, CENTRE OF 

FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN THE 

WEST 

In order to establish institutions for the 

rapidly growing population, Lord Selkirk, 

the leader of the colony, invited the 

bishop of Quebec to send missionaries to 

establish schools and hospitals. In 1818 

two men arrived, one of whom was the 

future Bishop Provencher. The missionaries 

received land for their mission on the 

east side of the Red River at a place they 

called Saint-Boniface, where they quickly 

built a little log-cabin church. From that 

simple beginning was to grow the great 

religious and cultural centre of the Canadian 

West. Along the river-lifeline of the 

region-a whole series of structures and 

spaces would be built, all oriented to the 

old river road. That thoroughfare, so reminiscent 

of many in Quebec, was named for 

Archbishop Alexandre Tache (1823-1894), 

and a second boulevard, perpendicular to 

the first- 

New France- 

equivalent to a montee back in 

bears the name of his predecessor, 

Joseph-Norbert Provencher. Those 

two bishops made great contributions to 

the many diverse communities that established 

themselves along the Red River in 

the nineteenth century. 

At the southern limit of that old civic centre 

stands what is considered to be the 

oldest building in Manitoba, erected in 

1847 and now a museum : the couvent 

des Sceurs Grises or Sceurs de Ia Charite. 

Its quiet garden celebrates the inspiration 

of the church, a typically appealing 

statue of Mary, who is never placed in 

an imposing setting like the ca/vaire, but 

is almost at ground level, and a powerful 

sculpture of Louis Riel, martyr to 

the cause of French, Metis, and Catholic 

peoples of the West and, increasingly, the 

symbol of resistance and affirmation for 

all residents of the Prairies. Riel's tomb 

is nearby in the cimetiere de Saint-Boniface, 

a great formal open space located 

some distance to the north of the convent. 

The cemetery is laid out in classical 

New France symmetrical style, with rows 

of headstones perpendicular to a central 

axis. Lilacs and honeysuckles contribute a 

more picturesque aspect, softening somewhat 

that austere composition. The traditional 

emblems of the church are given 

places of honour-the ca/vaire on a major 

cross-axis-as are memorials to those who 

built or defended the French culture on 

the Prairies: the tombs of Provencher and 

Tache, and the monument des Braves, 

dedicated to the "Franr;ais de /' Ouest, 

morts pour leur patrie 1914-1918" and in 

subsequent wars. 

The axis of the cemetery continues east 

and passes through the fa c; ade of the 

cathedrale de Saint-Boniface, the fourth 

church built on that site. Designed by 

the eminent Manitoba architect Etienne 

Gaboury, it is a modern church, deliberately 

understated and self-effacing, 

framed by the ruins of the baroque fa c;ade 

of the third cathedral, begun in 1906 and 

destroyed by fire in 1968. Looking back 

towards the river, the open fa c;ade of the 

old cathedral frames an axial view that 

continues right down to the water, where 

there is a new boat landing. Further along 

that axis, one has a view of the nearly 

60 

JSSAC i JSEAC 31 > N" 1 > 2006


church played a major role in the coloni- 

completed Forks project in downtown 

Winnipeg across the river, and then of 

the dome of the Via Rail Station (formerly 

Union Station), almost right on the axis. 

A striking example of urban design ... 

or perhaps just a happy coincidence, 

juxtaposing two powerful forces in the 

settlement of the West! 

Finally, at the northern extremity of that 

remarkable linear sequence is the Bishop's 

Palace, set back from the road by a formal 

and axial ceremonial driveway enframed by 

a double row of elms and spruces. From the 

gallery of that elegant building, constructed 

in1864-1865,thevisitorlooksoutonabeautiful 

circular garden in which junipers, peonies, 

irises, and other perennials surround 

the inevitable statue of the Virgin Mary; 

that modest space is a treasure. Beyond the 

garden, looking back down the driveway, 

a shaft of space opens up to the Red River. 

Here, as at the cathedral, the fine workmanship 

and finesse of wrought-iron gates add 

to the impact of the overall composition. 

Several other institutions situated to the 

east and south of that central node complete 

the portrait: the College universitaire 

de Saint-Boniface, a former orphanage, 

and the general hospital. As a civic design 

ensemble, this grouping of buildings and 

spaces recalls strongly, in its character and 

organization, many similar arrangements 

in Quebec. The linear assembly of buildings 

and spaces along a body of water, the 

crest of a hill, or an important road is one 

of the classic urban compositions of Quebec, 

as seen in the complex of institutions 

of the Sreurs de Sainte-Anne and their 

neighbours at Lachine, or the cathedral 

of Rimouski and its companions, or the 

college de Saint-Laurent in the northern 

suburbs of Montreal. 

The longevity of the relationship 

between the civic centre and the river at 

Saint-Boniface is also fascinating-now 

uninterrupted for almost two hundred 

years, the oldest such place in the West. 

In contrast, on the Winnipeg side or "left 

bank" of the Red, huge areas of prime 

real estate were occupied by railroad 

yards for a century, as in Montreal and 

Toronto. Only in the last 20 years has that 

land been reclaimed to create the magnificent 

river walks and public spaces of 

the Forks project. 

THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH 

ELSEWHERE IN THE WEST 

The impact of the Roman Catholic Church 

and its energetic leaders was felt far 

beyond Saint-Boniface. Everywhere, the 

zation of the West and left its mark on 

the landscape. The Mission District of 

modern Calgary owes its name to the mis- 

sion Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix, which had 

already been in place for some years when 

the Royal Northwest Mounted Police 

founded Fort Calgary in 1875. The mis 

sion served as a base of operations for the 

colourful oblate missionary Father Albert 

Lacombe (1827-1916), who provided inspiration 

and support to the Francophone 

settlers of Northern Alberta. 

Other oblate missionaries "carried the 

gospel" to native peoples living around 

Fort Langley, B.C., in 1840; and, in 1859, 

Father Charles Pandosy founded the mission 

de l'lmmaculee Conception in the 

Okanagan Valley, near the Hudson's Bay 

Company fort. Several of the original 

piece sur piece log buildings of the mission 

still exist today. The mission served 

as the original nucleus of the village that 

has today become the prosperous city 

of Kelowna. Father Pandosy, noticing 

the agricultural potential of that fertile 

valley blessed with an ideal climate, 

planted the first apple trees and grape 

vines of the Okanagan, now famous for 

its fruit and wines. In 1858, the sisters 

FIG. 23. MI SSION OF FATHER PANDOSY. KE LOWNA, 

BRITISH CO LUMBIA. I RON WILLIAMS 

FIG. 22. VINEYARD ON WEST SHORE OF LAKE OKANAGAN, 

BRITISH COLU MBIA. I RON WILLIAMS 

FIG. 25. CHEMIN DE LA CROIX, LEBRET, 

SASKATCHEWAN. I RON WILLIAMS 

FIG. 26. VIEW FROM HILLTOP, LEBRET, 


JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N" 1 > 2006 

61


to the original Way of the Cross in the 

Holy Land, an arid place like much of Sas- 

katchewan, where agriculture is always 

a struggle. The view from the hilltop, 

after completing one's short pilgrimage, 

discloses a parish church built foursquare 

to the river, just as one may see in innumerable 

locations along the St. Lawrence 

or its tributaries. 

BATOCHE, SASKATCHEWAN-LAST 

REFUGE OF THE 80/S-BRULES 

of Sainte-Anne, whose college we have 

seen at Lachine, Quebec, accepted a call 

to the West Coast. In their new home 

near HBC's Fort Victoria, they created 

a masterpiece of architecture and landscape 

at the academie Sainte-Anne, 

which became the administrative centre 

for missions that carried those intrepid 

sisters throughout the islands and rivers 

of British Columbia, Alaska, and Yukon, 

where they established a great number 

of schools and infirmaries. 

FIG. 27. SOUTH SASKATCHEWAN RIVER, BATOCHE, 


LEBRET, SASKATCHEWAN 

The planning concepts and principles of 

New France are not just found in the big 

centres of population; the Metis people 

established villages and river-lot farms 

along many of the less populated valleys 

of the Prairies, including those of the Bow 

River west of Calgary, the Qu'Appelle 

River in Saskatchewan, and the North Saskatchewan 

in Alberta. According to historian 

Graham MacDonald of Parks Canada, 

"The hand of the early French explorers 

and settlers is visible everywhere in the 

country, from the Atlantic to the Rocky 

Mountains, in the long-lot system that 

follows every river." 

Lebret, a small village situated on the 

Qu'Appelle River northeast of Regina, is a 

typical example. Founded by Bishop Tache 

in 1865 as the first mission in Saskatch- 

ewan, its first chapel was built the following 

year and its first school, directed 

by the oblate fathers, in 1884. That was, 

unfortunately, one of the industrial and 

residential schools for Indian children, 

established by several churches at the 

request of the federal government, the 

many wounds from which may finally be 

starting t o heal today. A convent followed 

at the turn of the century, and a seminary 

in 1926. Finally, in 1929, a striking 

chemin de Ia croix was built, very simple 

and austere but perhaps closer in feeling 

By a strange sequence of coincidences, 

errors, and miscommunications, the river- 

lot agricultural system in the West-so 

sensible and effective-became the 

focus of controversy and eventually a contributory 

factor in two armed struggles. 

Although the physical expressions of that 

system in the West were almost identical 

with those in Quebec, the legal system 

of tenure supporting them was entirely 

different. There were no seigneurs or 

seigneuries in the West and, while many 

land claims were filed, the "ownership" 

(though vague) of all the land by the 

Hudson's Bay Company meant that most 

farmers were regarded as tenants or mere 

squatters, without clear title to the land 

they farmed. Those land rights could be 

unrecognized or ignored, allowing established 

farms to be taken over by others. 

Such a conflict over property rights 

touched off the 1870 resistance in the 

Red River and, despite the successful 

conclusion of that struggle, a considerable 

number of Metis-the Bois-Brulespulled 

up stakes and moved northwest. 

Many moved to a place called Batoche, 

where the cart track from the Red River 

settlement to Fort Edmonton forded the 

South Saskatchewan River. At Batoche, 

along with other Metis from Edmonton, 

the new arrivals set up the agricultural 

colony of Saint-Laurent. Following models 

familiar since the time of New France, 

FIG. 28. CHURCH AND PRESBYTERY, BATOCHE, 


the colonists built their church and its 

presbytery on top of the plateau that 

encloses the river valley, carefully siting 

it with respect to topography, and 

they laid out their long, narrow farms in 

the lowlands, perpendicular to the river 

and separated from each other by dense 

hedgerows. The hedgerows are still there, 

but the farmhouses and barns have long 

disappeared. That abandoned valley 

reminds us that Batoche was the site of 

the last battle fought on Canadian soil, 

in 1885. 

As at the Red River, within the Northwest 

conflict was a confrontation between two 

philosophies of land division and two 

ways of understanding property rights; 

a confrontation that, in retrospect, seems 

to have been completely avoidable. The 

landscape of Batoche, now a National 

Historic Site, is powerfully evocative. The 

openness and simplicity of its abandoned 

site, unembellished by gardens or monuments, 

communicates strongly the story 

of the tragic events that occurred there. 

Ironically, on the site of a far larger and 

62 


RoN WILLIAMS > CONFERENCE I LECTUR E 

FIG. 29. HEDGEROWS AN D ABAN DONED FIELDS, BATOCHE, 


FIG. 30. PLAINS OF ABRAHAM (BATILEFIELD PARK}, 


more well-known battle that had been 

fought over a century before on the Plains 

of Abraham, in Quebec City-now a great 

urban park that accommodates thousands 

of people enjoying a remarkable variety 

of activities-, it is easy to forget that you 

are on a battlefield, despite the presence 

of forts and cannons. But at Batoche, the 

battlefield is always there. 

The church and presbytery remain at the 

top of the hill. The graveyard is located a 

little distance away on the plateau, situated 

slightly lower than the church, and 

laid out in traditional formal arrangement 

with a fenced boundary. 

FIG. 31. CEMETERY, BATOCHE, SASKATCHEWAN. I RON WILLIAMS 

and the saw-mill town of Maillardville 

near Vancouver, laid out around its neat 

church square in 1909) continued to be 

repeated well into the twentieth century. 

That decline of influence was not due to a 

dearth of francophone settlers; although 

Ontario and Europe became dominant 

sources for new immigrants to the Prairies 

after 1870, substantial French migration 

to the Prairies was maintained during that 

period, primarily from Quebec, but also 

from France and New England. There is 

today a considerable Francophone population 

in each of the Western Provinces, 

often concentrated in areas of original 

French settlement. 

landscape a square grid one mile (1 .6 km) 

on a side, which permitted the immediate 

creation of "quarter-section" farms of 

160 acres (64 ha) throughout the lands of 

Western Canada which were thought to 

be suitable for agriculture. That included 

the vast grasslands in the southern area 

of the present provinces of Manitoba, 

Saskatchewan, and Alberta, as well as a 

band of land through British Columbia 

along the rail line and large sectors of 

the inland plateau and lower mainland of 

the Pacific Province. In contrast with the 

proven system of surveying and allocation 

of farmlands of New France, which was 

founded on concrete facts of the landscape 

such as the hydrographic network, 

topography, and agricultural potential, 

the Dominion Land Survey Act ignored 

all natural elements. It envisioned an 

implacable and universal geometric 

continuity throughout the West, which 

was to become an immense patchwork 

quilt defined by baselines and meridians, 

ranges and townships. 

That system was inspired by the Public 

Land Survey System established by the 

United States through its Land Ordinance 

of 1784 and subsequent Northwest Ordinance 

of 1787. It was markedly inferior 

in many ways to the traditional river-lot 

or rang-et-montee system, particularly in 

the isolation it imposed on farm families 

and through its neglect of water, a key 

ingredient for agriculture in every landscape, 

and particularly so in the droughtprone 

lands of the Southern Prairies. 

LINES AND SQUARES: What really ended the influence of French But it achieved its goal of opening the 

REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES TO physical patterns in the West was rather West to rapid colonization and inspired 

THE LANDSCAPE PATTERNS OF the institution in the 1870s of a new sys- an egalitarian spirit, which characterizes 

THE WEST tem of land division, established by the the culture of Prairie Canada up to the 

federal government as a means of divid- 

present. 

The two conflicts of 1870 and 1885 ing up land efficiently in order to accommarked 

the end of French influence on modate the tremendous number of new CONCLUSION 

the large-scale landscape patterns of 

immigrants who would be arriving on the 

the West, although small-scale patterns newly-constructed Canadian Pacific Rail- Although the main period of French land- 

(such as the chemin de Ia croix at Lebret way. That new system imposed onto the scape influence in the West ended long 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 63


ago, the heritage of that first wave of 

European settlement on the Prairies and 

in British Columbia remains very much 

alive. The patterns of long-lot farms are 

still plainly visible in the layouts of major 

cities and of small towns, and they can 

still be seen along many rivers throughout 

the West. One shudders to imagine 

what people in the Okanagan would be 

drinking today had it not been for Father 

Pandosy; and we may all enjoy a number 

of well-preserved architectural and landscape 

jewels, from Victoria to Winnipeg 

and points north, which are the permanent 

legacy of New France to Western 

Canada. 

MacEwan, Grant, 1986, Les Franco-Canadiens 

dans /'Ouest I French in the West, Editions des 

plaines, Saint-Boniface, Manitoba. 

McKelvie, B.A ., 1991, Fort Langley: Birthplace of 

British Columbia, Porcepic Books, Victoria, 

B.C. 

Societe historique de Saint-Boniface (SHSB), and 

Musee de Saint-Boniface, 1991, Bienvenue 

a Saint-Boniface, Manitoba : Exposition sur 

l'histoire de Ia ville de Saint-Boniface de ses 

origines a 1914 I Exhibit on the History of the 

City of St. Boniface from its Origins to 1914, 

SHSB, Saint-Boniface, Manitoba. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Braches, Fred, ed., 1999, British Columbia Historical 

News, vol. 32, no. 4, fall, special Edition on 

Fort Langley, Journal of the British Columbia 

Historical Foundation, Victoria, B.C. 

Creighton, D.G., 1937, The Commercial Empire of 

the St. Lawrence, 1760-7850, Ryerson Press, 

Toronto. 

Easterbrook, W.T., and Hugh G.J . Aitken, 1961, 

Canadian Economic History, MacMillan, 

Toronto, Ontario. 

Flynn, Catherine, and Barbara Huck, 2003, N' 1 > 2006

RAPPORT I REPORT 

THE STUDIO BUILDING, 

25 SEVERN STREET, TORONTO, ONTARIO 

ANDREW WALDRON is an architectural historian 

in the Historical Services Branch of the National 

>ANDREW WALDRON 

Historic Sites Directorate at Parks Canada 

(Gatineau). He has written on a variety of topics 

[industrial sites, cultural landscapes, historic 

districts, modern architecture) for the Federal 

Heritage Buildings Review Office and the Histor ic 

Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. He has 

been a member of the Society for the Study 

of Architecture in Canada [SSAC] since 1995 

and is currently a vice-president on the SSAC's 

Executive Board. 

The Studio Building was designated 

a national historic site of Canada in 

2004. The reasons for designation are: it 

is the earliest purpose-built artist studio in 

Canada representing the visions of a young 

generation of Canadian artists who would 

have a professional venue and gathering 

place to develop a distinctly Canadian art; 

it is directly associated with the Group of 

Seven and painter Tom Thomson; it is an 

example of early twentieth-century modern 

architecture in Canada that rejected 

ornamentation and drew on industrial 

design; and it is an important studio 

for many notable Canadian artists since 

1913. 

INTRODUCTION 

FIG. 1. STUDIO BUILDING, TORONTO, ONTARIO. CONSTRUCTED 1913-1914. EDEN SMITH, ARCHITECT.I ANDREWWALDRON, PA RKS CANADA,2004 

Toronto architect Eden Smith designed 

the Studio Building in 1913 for worldrenowned 

painter Lawren Harris and 

Canadian art patron Dr. James MacCallum, 

as a purpose-built artist studio. It drew on 

modern ideas in its originality-it was one 

of the first purpose-built studio spaces in 

North America-and its functionality as a 

"warehouse" design. It was a building that 

emphasized function over stylistic appearance. 

Eden Smith's modern approach to 

the building's design was parallel to the 

direction Canadian art was taking in the 

1910s. A new modern style was emerging 

from the traditional European approach to 

painting the Canadian landscape, eventually 

coalescing as a movement in the 1920s 

with the formation of the Group of Seven. 

It was within the Studio Building that this 

new art would be painted. Canada's early 

iconic modern artists-including Lawren 

Harris, Tom Thomson, A .Y. Jackson, and 

J.E .H. MacDonald-now had studios 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 > 65-80 65

ANDREW W ALDRON > RAPPORT I REPORT 

FIG. 3. THE LOCATION OF THE STUDIO BUILDING PROPERTY WITHIN THE 

ROSEDALE RAVINE. I CITY OF TORONTO, MUNICIPAL MAP SERIES, 51J·11, MARCH 2003 

where they were able to remake the image 

of the Canadian landscape. Each year the 

artists returned from their trips through 

northern Canada to the Studio Building 

and settled in to complete their bold 

paintings that now hang in art collections 

throughout the world. Those artists were 

the first of a long line of notable Canadian 

artists who rented out studio space in the 

famous building. Completely intact today, 

the building continues to convey its early 

modern aesthetic, its inextricable bond 

with members of the Group of Seven and 

artists who followed these pioneers, and 

its ongoing use as artist studios. 

The Studio Building is a three-storey brickclad 

concrete structure that was described 

at the time of construction in 1914 as "a 

factory-looking building" (figs. 1-11a). 1 Taking 

advantage of the indirect natural light 

on the north side of the building, three 

storeys of large windows constructed of 

single-pane glass front the building's principal 

fa

A NDREW W ALDRON > RAPPORT I REPORT 

According to art historian Frederick 

Housser, Harris initially wanted to build 

the studios and "attached to it he planned 

a little theatre, a combination of a picture 

gallery and a playhouse where young 

Canadian playwriters [sic] and painters 

were to be invited to send their work." 9 

Harris headed forward with a more modest 

vision. His hope for a national cultural 

centre would not materialize until the 

early 1960s. 

FIG. 4. PROPOSED DESIGNATED PLACE FOR THE STUDIO BUILDING HIGHLIGHTED IN GRAY. I CITY OF TORONTO. MUNICIPAL MAP SERIES. 

51J-11, MARCH 2003 

and worked. 4 Severn Street is now blocked 

off from Bloor Street by the TTC (Toronto 

Transit Commission) subway line (fig. 25). 

THE STUDIO BUILDING: THE 

VISION AND THE DESIGN 

The first impressions when looking at the 

Studio Building are its simplicity of design 

and lack of historical style. Indeed, the 

Studio Building is an early modern building 

in Canada . The innovation of emphasizing 

function over style and shedding 

ornament was, for the time, a reflection 

of architectural modernism's emergence 

in the country. 5 Its modern design especially 

mirrors the spirit of the painters who 

resided in the building and the inspiring 

vision of the determined young Canadian 

painter, Lawren Harris. 

Lawren Harris's vision was to build a place 

where artists would have a proper space 

for painting a new Canadian art. As he 

stated, "One of the main ideas of the 

promoters of this model it was explained 

was the desire to assist in the creation, 

not of what we called merely a national 

art, but rather of the development of art 

in Canada as differentiated from that of 

Europe." 6 

However, his drive to foster Canadian art was 

partly inspired by his and J.E.H. MacDonald's 

visit to the exhibit of Scandinavian art held 

at the Albright Gallery in Buffalo in January 

1913. As Harris recalled ofthe exhibit, "Here 

was an art bold, vigorous and uncompromising, 

embodying direct first-hand experience 

of the great North." 7 Harris firmly believed 

that a centre for young Canadian artists 

would produce a more active and cohesive 

artistic group to develop a new Canadian 

landscape painting drawing on a similar 

approach, as had the symbolist Scandinavian 

painters. Harris's plan to construct the Studio 

Building actually began before his visit to 

the pivotal show in Buffalo. As early as 1912, 

when Harris was only 27 years old, he took 

out a building permit for the site.• 

Construction of the Studio Building began 

in late 1913. Harris footed almost all of the 

building's cost while Dr. MacCallum paid 

the balance. 10 They chose Eden Smith, a fellow 

member of the Arts and Letters Club 

in Toronto, to design the building. 11 Smith 

was likely chosen as the architect because 

of his close connection through the men's 

club, but he was also likely given the contract 

because he was an architect who 

had similar ideas to Harris and MacCallum 

of where Canadian art and architecture 

should head. 

Eden Smith (1859-1949) was born in Birmingham, 

England, and trained in his 

youth as a watercolourist and draftsman. 

His family immigrated to Canada in 1885, 

first homesteading in Southern Manitoba 

before moving to Toronto two years later. 

He was hired by the architectural firm of 

Strickland & Symons and later opened his 

own practice in 1892.' 2 By the late 1890s, 

Sm ith was a highly respected Toronto 

architect who had made a name for himself 

designing homes for Toronto's wealthy 

neighbourhoods of Rosedale, Deer Park, 

the Annex, and Wychwood Park. His 

domestic architecture was rooted in the 

English house, drawing on the vocabularies 

of Voysey, Shaw, Webb, and other 

British architects of the Arts and Crafts 

movement. 

Marketing himself in the early years of 

his practice as an "English" architect was 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

67


FIG. 5. FRONT FA~ADE OF THE STUDIO BUILDING. IANDREWWAL· 

DRON, PARKS CANADA. 2004 

FIG. 6. EAST BAY OF THE STUDIO BUILDING'S FRONT FA ~ADE . I 

ANDREW WALDRON, PARKS CANADA, 2004 

evident in the homes he designed for the 

picturesque Wychwood Park. However, 

by the early twentieth century, Smith had 

shed his "English cottage style" and had 

begun to promote himself as a Canadian 

architect. Architectural historian Annmarie 

Adams considers Smith as an architect 

whose designs "leaned on English 

precedents-on the surface-and were 

Thus, a modern aesthetic was reflected 

in the building: ornamentation was eliminated 

and the functional requirements 

determined the design. For example, the 

building's windows and orientation were 

determined by the requirements of the 

artists. Indeed, there was "great difficulty 

in finding within the city accommodation 

where the much-prized northern light 

with all its clearness can be obtained, for 

without such, it is found impossible to 

place upon the canvas that truth of colour 

which is so highly praised." 15 

Eager to finally paint in a suitable space, 

six artists moved into the building before 

its completion in March 1914.'"These were: 

Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, J. (William) 

Beatty, Arthur Heming, Albert Curtis Wil- 

liamson, and J.E.H. MacDonald. Of these 

artists, Harris, Jackson, and MacDonald 

would later found the Group of Seven. The 

others were a generation older, though 

they were sympathetic to the younger 

generation's emerging style. At its completion, 

the Studio Building reflected Harris's 

vision of architecture and art. As one occupant 

told a reporter from the Toronto 

Daily Star, "This is a workshop primarily. 

It is not a place for pink teas or tango, 

or anything of that kind. We are here to 

work, and we have the accommodation 

that we were longing for years."" 

Those spirited words echoed Harris's intent 

to erect a workshop "for artists doing 

distinctly Canadian work." The building's 

functional appearance reflected the 

attitude of the artists to live and work 

together in a building specifically built for 

their requirements. Indeed, Harris's con- 

fidence of creating a new image of the 

Canadian landscape was strong enough 

for him to risk the capital to construct the 

building. Even if the young artists were 

struggling financially and were derided 

in the papers as the "Hot Mush School," 

Harris was determined to see through 

then rearranged inside to suit a less formal 

lifestyle." 13 

Yet, Smith's design for the Studio Building 

was much more radical. As Adams further 

states, the Studio Building "cited examples 

of European modernism and industrial vernacular 

architecture rather than the Arts 

and Crafts movement." 14 Smith was of the 

earliest generation of architects searching 

for a distinctly Canadian architectural identity 

by adapting English architecture to a 

Canadian setting. His adoption of an industrial 

aesthetic for a live-work space was 

pioneering for work of early twentiethcentury 

Canadian architecture. 

The Studio Building eliminated exterior 

ornamentation and historical meaning 

in favour of an unadorned architecture. 

Eliminating ornament from what was 

essentially a very unique apartment block 

design using open lofts (apartment blocks 

started to be built in Toronto in the 1910s), 

the Studio Building was at the leading 

edge of architecture in early twentiethcentury 

Canada. Admittedly, the building 

used traditional materials for its exterior, 

including red brick, stone, and plaster, 

but they were applied in an unadorned 

manner. By comparison with a contemporary 

domestic building, such designing 

is undeniably plain. Its unembellished 

design, so different from Smith's previous 

work, reflects its intention as a home for 

modern artists. 

Harris wanted a "workshop for artists 

doing distinctly Canadian work," and 

Smith's modernism was appropriate for 

Harris's intention to develop a new national 

style. Smith's earlier Arts and Crafts homes 

vanished in his design for the Studio Buildin 

g. That building was to be a modern-day 

workshop for artists to work and live in 

one space, not a comfortable domestic 

space for an artist who could walk away 

from the smell of the oil on his canvas. 

68 



his vision. Harris even capped the rent 

at around $25 a month to make it 

affordable.'" 

THE STUDIO BUILDING: 

SYNONYMOUS WITH THE 

MEMBERS OF THE GROUP OF 

SEVEN 

Much of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century 

Canadian landscape art was 

traditional, academic, and European. That 

is, it was an art steeped in a European 

Romantic view of the Canadian landscape. 

Few Canadian artists broke from conventional 

painting t echniques at the time, and 

even fewer were prepared to define their 

art as modern. The few Canadian artists 

who were radically different painters, such 

as J.W. Morrice or David Milne, left the 

country to develop and exhibit their work. 

Many ambitious Canadian artists received 

an education in the Parisian academies or 

Dutch schools, with the rare artist returning 

home influenced by the avant-garde 

painting being produced outside the 

academies. 

By the first decade of the twentieth century, 

a few artists were bothered by the 

tired old-fashioned look of Canadian art; 

faint impressionist brushstrokes began to 

appear in Canadian paintings. Curtis W illiamson, 

one of the first artists to move into 

the Studio Building, helped to found the 

Canadian Art Club in 1907 as a response 

to the staidness of Canadian art. By 1910, 

a group of Toronto artists associated w ith 

the Canadian Art Club and the Arts and 

Letters Club were beginning to search for 

the "essence" of Canada in their work. 19 

his work with the Canadian Art Club. 2 D In 

1911, he met J.E.H. MacDonald who in turn 

introduced him to a group of artists who 

were interested in Canadian subjects. Harris's 

contact with C.W. Jefferys, J. William 

Beatty, and MacDonald, all of whom were 

interested in Canadian themes, energized 

his drive towards an "authentic" Canadian 

art. As C.W. Jefferys stated in his review of 

MacDonald's pivotal exhibition of sketches 

at the Arts and Letters Club, which had 

impressed Harris, " in themselves [.. .] Canadian 

themes do not make art, Canadian 

or other, but neither do Canadian themes 

expressed through European formulas or 

through European temperaments." 21 Har- 

ris was also influenced by William Beatty's 

work. 22 He would be one of the first artists 

to move into the Studio Building and 

was already travelling to Algonquin Park 

in search of Canadian landscapes. Beatty's 

Evening Cloud of the Northland, painted 

in 1910, foreshadows the bolder treatment 

of the paint and choice of colours of Tom 

Thomson's and Harris's works. 

FIG. 8. VIEW OF THE STUDIO BUILDING'S REAR FA~ADE. THE 

SMALL STRUCTURE ATTHE GROUND STOREY IS A 

SMALL PATIO, ACCESSIBLE FROM STUDIO #1.1 ANDREW 

WALDRON, PARKS CANADA, 2004 

The confluence of those artists began 

with meetings at the Arts and Letters Club 

and resulted with the construction of the 

Studio Building. Lawren Harris had been 

painting Toronto street scenes after returning 

from studies in Berlin, and exhibiting 

MacDonald and Harris found inspiration 

for a new Canadian landscape art in the 

treatment of the North in the art exhibited 

at the Albright show in Buffalo. By 

the spring of 1913, the two artists were 

attracting other like-minded painters to 

FIG. 9. DETAIL OF A WINDOW ON THE GROUND STO REY. I 

ANDREW WALDRON. PARKS CANADI\ 2004 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

69


FIG. 10. STUDIO #1 WINDOW. 

I ANDREW WALDRON, PARKS CANADA, 2004 

FIG. 11. ORIGINAL WINDOW HANDLE OF 

ONE OFTHE CASEMENT WINDOWS. I 


their interest in the North. Tom Thomson, 

Fred Varley, and Arthur Lismer were Mac 

Donald's colleagues at the commercial art 

firm, Grip Limited; A.Y. Jackson, who was 

disillusioned with the Montreal art community, 

had been writing to MacDonald and 

had exhibited his work with the Ontario 

Society of Arts. Jackson had had a disappointing 

year exhibiting in Montreal when 

MacDonald invited him to Toronto in May 

1913. Jackson was introduced to Harris and 

was informed of Harris's and MacCallum's 

idea concerning the Studio Building. After 

a summer painting on Georgian Bay, Jackson 

was offered a year rent-free in the 

Studio Building by Dr. MacCallum. 23 Mac 

Callum also persuaded Tom Thomson to 

give up his commercial artwork and pursue 

fine art; he offered Thomson the same 

conditions as he had offered to Jackson. By 

January of 1914, the Studio Building was 

ready to move into. Jackson and Thomson 

were friends by then and shared a 

to go out and sketch, often together, and 

return to realize their sketches on canvas 

in their own studio. 

The artistic dynamic of that first year may 

best be reflected in the work of Thomson 

and Jackson. It was during the first year of 

residence that Tom Thomson and Jackson 

fed off each other as they shared a studio. 

Between sketching trips to Algonquin, 

Ontario, Jackson appreciated the raw talent 

of Thomson, and helped refine Thomson's 

style. A new unity of composition was evident 

in Thomson's Moonlight, Early Evening-a 

painting that was "painted directly 

under Jackson's tutelage that first winter 

in the new studio"." Thomson's Algonquin 

sketches equally influenced Jackson's style. 

His Frozen Lake, Early Spring, Algonquin 

Park followed Thomson's basic composition 

and vibrancy of colour in A Northern 

Lake-Thomson's first large canvas, painted 

in 1913. 

in June 1915 and became an official war 

artist in August 1917. 27 Harris, MacDonald, 

and the other "Studio Building artists" 

(as they were now known) continued to 

paint and saw Thomson regularly (Thomson 

moved into a shack behind the building 

in 1915). 28 After Harris was discharged 

from the army in 1918, he and MacDonald 

travelled with Dr. MacCallum from the 

Studio Building to the Algoma District of 

Northern Ontario. That trip was the first 

of the famous "box car" trips. 29 In September 

1919, the group returned to Algoma, 

that time with 'ackson replacing Mac 

Callum. In May ,920, the newly formed 

Group of Seven exhibited for the first 

time; five of the seven members had at 

one time painted in the Studio Building. 

It was the place where those artists could 

meet as professional artists, each seeking 

out a new meaning for Canadian art. As 

Harris recalled in the late 1940s, "It was 

built as a working place for those artists 

ground-floor studio. Harris took the stu- 

dio beside them, and MacDonald a studio By late 1914, Canada was at war and the 

primarily interested in painting Canada in 

its own terms-a new creative venture. If 

on the top floor. Beatty, Williamson and younger artists Harris and MacCallum it had not been for A .Y. [Jackson], J.E.H. 

Arthur Heming took the other studios. 24 brought together had to wait over five MacD[onald], [Tom] Thomson, etc., it 

Fully occupied, the Studio Building housed years before they would return to the would never have been built." 30 

a group of painters who would radically public eye. Thomson continued to paint 

change the way the Canadian landscape his stunning works until his death at Canoe However, according to A.Y. Jackson, Harris's 

was imagined. The artists were now able Lake in July 1917. 26 Jackson joined the army intentions were only partly realized, since 

70 



FIG. 13. INTERIOR OF STUDIO #2 IN 1963. I ONTARIO HOME AND LIVING. FEBRUARY. 1963. P. 7 FIG. 14. INTERIOR OF STUDIO #1. I ANDREW WALDRON, PARKS CANADA, 2004 

he could not control the artists' output. 

Indeed, once the Group of Seven was dissolved 

and reformed as the larger Canadian 

Group of Painters, Harris's vision for the 

building may not have had the outcome he 

was hoping for. As Jackson later recalled, 

"It was Harris [sic] belief that if conditions 

favourable to the artist were created, good 

results would surely follow in his painting. 

But the human element is very complex; 

some of Harris hopefuls did not share his 

ideas or enthusiasm. They got big studios 

for low rents and went their own way. 

Some of them did not even remember to 

pay the rent." 31 

Despite setbacks, according to Harris, the 

Studio Building's construction enabled 

the members of Canada's most known 

group of painters to come together at 

times when they were not out sketching. 

Harris went to great lengths to bring 

those artists together under one roof 

in downtown Toronto. And unlike the 

social role of the Arts and Letters Club, 

the Studio Building was the workshop 

where the new Canadian art emerged in 

the 1920s. 

The place had direct associations with 

members of the Group who have been 

designated persons of national significance, 

although not all of the members of 

the Group of Seven resided at the Studio 

Building. Jackson, Thomson, MacDonald, 

and Harris all developed their famous style 

while at the Studio Building. By the late 

1920s, the building was synonymous with 

the Group of Seven . Harris, MacDonald, 

and Jackson's major works of the decade 

were completed in the Studio Building. The 

intense and aggressive colours, decorative 

surfaces, lack of depth and lack of atmospheric 

qualities of their paintings were 

all stylistic elements in their works that 

emerged while living and working at the 

Studio Building. Indeed, when Emily Carr 

visited Lawren Harris at his studio in 1927, 

she returned home to write in her journal: 

"I guess that long talk in Lawren Harris 

studio was the pivot on which turned my 

life." 32 The Studio Building was a place that 

had achieved its purpose in Harris's view 

for the future of Canadian art of the first 

half of the twentieth century. 

THE STUDIO BUILDING: A HOME 

TO CANADIAN MODERN ART 

The Studio Building quickly developed a 

reputation as a meeting place for some 

of the most prominent Canadian modern 

artists after the Group of Seven became 

famous. It was one of few places in the 

country where an artistic community was 

coming together to paint and develop 

their talent. Its status in the 1910s was 

evidently linked to the artwork being produced 

by the future members of the Group 

of Seven. In the 1920s and 1930s, that distinction 

drew a new generation of artists, 

including prominent Canadian women artists 

and some of the most important artists 

who would become official war artists during 

the Second World War. The building 

speaks to the prominence of those tenants 

and its unique role as the only purposebuilt 

shared studio building in the country 

at that time. As the prominent Arctic 

photographer Richard Harrington (who 

rented out part of the basement as his 

first darkroom in the late 1940s) recalled, 

"It was an open place where everyone 

came and went. We had great parties, 

especially with the Comforts, [Thoreau] 

Macdonald and the Peppers." 33 Indeed, 

most of the artists living in the building 

in the 1930s and 1940s were later known 

as pioneers of modern art in Canada, following 

in the Group of Seven's footsteps. 

By the 1950s, the legacy of the building's 

notoriety in Canadian art continued; however, 

it was now seen in its historic context 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N" 1 > 2006 

71


FIG. 15. 1NTERIOR OF STUDIO # 4 . [ AN DREWWALDRON, 

PARKS CANADA, 2004 

FIG. 16. INTERIOR OF STUDIO # 4.[ ANDREW WALDRON, 

PARKS CANADA, 2004 

FIG. 17. INTERIOR OF STUDIO # 4 SHOWING THE STAIRS UP 

TO THE LOFT SPACE ABOVE THE ENTRANCE.[ 


with few of the next generation respecting 

the Canadian nationalist art produced to Canada with her sister, an architect who 

Biriukova was a Russian emigre, who came 

in the studio. Despite the building's reputation, 

the studios were so well designed Forest Hill, and she instantly developed a 

would design Lawren Harris's mansion in 

for the artist that infamous abstract artist, reputation as a portraitist. 

Harold Town, and his Painters Eleven colleague, 

Walter Yarwood, rented studios MacDonald and Biriukova, who were 

in the building. 

lifelong companions, reflected the 1930s 

generation of Canadian artists broaden- 

If art in 1920s Canada focused on landing what constituted as Canadian art. Macscape, 

in the 1930s it turned to f igurative Donald worked on the design of over 150 

painting, urban scenes, and a hesitant publications by notable Canadian poets 

abstraction. The change was gradual as and non-fiction writers of the first half 

the Group of Seven became a public success 

and was identified with the direction attention to include scenes of nature. Biri 

of the twentieth century, with particular 

modern painting was heading in Canada. ukova was one of several women artists 

No more was the Group made up of seven now accepted in the Canadian arts community, 

once dominated by the Group 

members and solely exhibiting landscapes 

by the 1930s; they invited others to show and their male friends. Indeed, the Studio 

alongside of them. 34 In 1931, the last Building has had several notable women 

year the Group of Seven exhibited, many artists reside in the building, besides 

young artists were following the Group's Biriukova. Lilias Torrance Newton, a fellow 

member of the CGP and prominent 

style. Yet, there was a growing concern 

amongst the younger modern artists, and portraitist, was a tenant of the building 

even the members of the Group, that modern 

painting was too narrowly connected 

during the 1940s. 

with the Canadian landscape. Modern art However, the first woman artist to rent out 

in Canada became more national in scope a space in the Studio Building predated 

in the early 1930s after the Group of Seven the above artists. Marion Long, a Torontoborn 

artist who had studied under George 

had dissolved and reformed as the Canadian 

Group of Painters (CGP). Established Reid and American artist William Chase, 

by 28 painters, and led by Fred Varley and rented out Th omson and Jackson's studio 

A.Y. Jackson, that group was made up of in 1915. For ten years Long painted side by 

artists from across the country; it had side with her contemporaries, principally 

no identifiable style, instead it brought on still lites, street scenes, and portraits. 

wider thematic interests, influenced by In later years, she was the first woman artist 

the Group of Seven's aesthetic. 

to become a full member of the Royal 

Canadian Academy. 

Activity surrounding the CGP was centred 

in Toronto, more specifically at the Studio Other women artists, a generation younger 

Building. Thoreau MacDonald and Yulia than Marion Long, also lived in the Studio 

Biriukova, both notable Canadian artists Building, although often with their partners. 

In the 1930s and 1940s, Charles and 

and members of the CGP, resided in the 

building until 1949. Thoreau MacDonald Louise Comfort and George and Kathleen 

was the son of J.E.H . MacDonald, and fol- 

(Daly) Pepper were two of the couples, 

lowed in his father's footsteps as a graphic along with Biriukova and MacDonald, who 

artist; he spent years sharing his father's shared quarters. While Louise Comfort was 

studio before the latter died in 1932. 35 not an artist, Kathleen Daly was an avid 

72 JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006


each of the groups as part of an evolution 

of Canadian art in English Canada from 

the 1910s through to the 1940s. 

The last phase of that era began in the 

early 1940s when some of the artists in 

the Studio Building were called up for 

duty during the Second World War as 

official war artists. Comfort, Pepper and 

Lawren Harris, Jr. (who had a studio in 

the building in the late 1930s) were sent 

out from the Studio Building to document 

the Canadian military experience. Comfort 

and Harris, Jr. were sent on the Italian campaign; 

Pepper was sent to Northwestern 

Europe. Each treated the difficult subject 

matter in his unique way. Will Ogilvie and 

Jack Nichols are two war artists who, after 

being discharged, returned from Europe 

to live in the Studio Building. 38 Ogilvie had 

painted in Italy and Europe, while Nichols, 

the youngest war artist and the one who 

could best capture the tragedy of war 

in his figures, had been in the Navy and 

involved in the Normandy landings. 

At the time that the Studio Building was 

sold by Harris in 1948, Yulia Biriukova, Will 

Ogilvie, Kathleen Daly, George Pepper, 

A.Y. Jackson, and Charles Comfort were liv- 

ing in the building. Other artists naturally 

came and went through the building, but 

those artists, all members of the Canadian 

Group of Painters, were together under 

one roof painting, all the while knowing 

that the place was begun as a place for 

new Canadian art by Lawren Harris. 

By the late 1940s, painting in Toronto had 

lost its edge. New art was originating in 

Montreal, first with John Lyman and the 

Contemporary Arts Society of the late 

1930s and 1940s, then with the young 

group of abstract painters known as Les 

Automatistes, who signed the Refus Global 

manifesto in 1948. Toronto art, and even 

English-Canadian art, were left behind. As 

Dennis Reid wrote, "the painting scene in 

painter with political interests, as was her 

husband, George Pepper. Both adopted 

the 1930s painting style known as social 

realism, as did Charles Comfort. 

All of those Canadian Group of Painters artists 

shared space in the building with their 

mentor, A.Y. Jackson. 36 Yet, his type of landscape 

was only part of their painterly interest. 

Pepper, Daly, and Comfort were each 

reaching out beyond the Group of Seven's 

style to integrate European and American 

abstraction and social realism in their 

paintings. All three responded to the social 

and economic problems of the Depression, 

finding inspiration for their art in the disenfranchised 

and in some works, existentialism. 

When Charles Comfort lived in the Studio 

Building, he produced particularly refined 

though sombre paintings. While Comfort 

went on to be appointed as the director 

of the National Gallery, Daly remained 

interested in painting the Inuit and the 

French-Canadian "Habitant," and Pepper 

attempted to capture the challenges of the 

Depression besides continuing to paint landscapes 

a Ia Group of Seven. Indeed, artists in 

the Canadian Group of Painters were hesitant 

to break completely from the Group of 

Seven's style. Some, such as Carl Schaefer, 

who often visited and sometimes worked 

in the building, were exceptions. 

The Studio Building was clearly a place 

for like-minded artists to come together. 

In May 1942, the first annual general 

meeting of the newly formed Federation 

of Canadian Artists (it was established in 

1941 as a national association of artists at 

the Kingston Conference, attended by 150 

artists at Queen's University) was held in 

Comfort's studio; all of the regional representatives 

and the president, Andre Bielier, 

attended the meetingY 

From the Studio Building artists, to the 

Group of Seven, and then to the Canadian 

Group of Painters, the building reflected 

FIG. 18. STUDIO #4'S BATHROOM UNDER THE LOFT. I 


FIG. 19. INTERIOR OF STUDIO #6, THE FORMER STUDIO OF 

J.E.H. MACDONALD, A.Y. JACKSON, AND HAROLD 

TOWN. I ANDREW WALDRON, PARKS CANADA, 2004 

FIG. 20. STUDIO #6.1 ANDREW WALDRON. PARKS CANADA, 2004 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

73


FIG. 21. VIEW OF THE STUDIO BUILDING FROM SEVERN STREET. I ANDREW WALDRON, PARKS CANADA. 2004 

Toronto was moribund [ ... ] after the departure 

of Lawren Harris, the only sophisticated 

stimulation came from the Picture 

Loan Society, and even there the lines ran 

as much to the past as to the future." 39 

In 1948, Lawren Harris decided to sell the 

building to artist Gordon MacNamara and 

his partner Charles K. Redfern, after having 

offered the building to Jackson. 40 MacNamara, 

who was a lawyer in the 1930s and 

had helped art dealer Douglas Duncan 

start the Picture Loan Society, decided to 

become a full-time artist after serving in 

the Canadian Army during the war. 41 The 

building was in a sorry state according to 

MacNamara and was under threat of being 

bought by the architectural firm of Parkin 

Associates. 42 Redfern and MacNamara 

invested in improving the building and consequently 

raised the rents. Redfern moved 

in immediately after an unfortunate turn of 

events led to the eviction of Yulia Biriukova 

and Thoreau MacDonald in 1949. Their 

departure was followed by Jackson's own 

departure in 1955. 43 MacNamara moved 

into the building in 1951, after Kathleen 

Daly and George Pepper moved out of their 

studio. Only Will Ogilvie and the Comforts 

remained in the building from the 1930s 

generation. All had left by the late 1950s. 

The historic Studio Building became home 

to a younger generation of artists who 

were not as closely connected with the 

prewar artists. Jackson was, in his own 

words, "an old horse to be left out to pasture."44 

The Studio Building was seen as a 

historic building, steeped in connections 

with numerous prewar Canad ian artists. 

Indeed, the worker's shack, beside the 

building, was dismantled and moved to the 

McMichael Collection of Art in Kleinburg, 

Ontario, where it was rebuilt as a replica 

of Tom Thomson's shack before his death. 

Yet, rather than becoming a museum or 

shrine, the Studio Building continued to 

function as studio spaces. 45 

The last internationally prominent artist to 

reside in the Studio Building epitomized the 

postwar artistic direction towards a fierce 

individualism and non-objective form; his 

name was Harold Town. If Montreal had 

Les Automatistes, led by Paul-Emile Borduas, 

Toronto's equivalent was the abstract 

expressionists of the early 1950s under the 

name "Painters Eleven." Postwar abstraction 

in Canada was in part a colonial condition 

emulating New York City's painters, 

but, more importantly, it was a disjuncture 

with what was then seen as the oppressiveness 

of Canadian landscape painting of the 

previous decades. The younger abstract 

artists turned inward to examine their 

own emotional landscape, while divesting 

themselves of any nationalism. Town was 

at the centre of the new movement. He 

had his first solo exhibition with Douglas 

Duncan's Picture Loan Society in 1954, the 

same year that he and ten other Toronto 

abstract artists formed Painters Eleven. 46 

Town stayed in Canada, while some of 

his contemporaries in the group opted to 

leave for the United States. 47 He moved 

into the Studio Building in the late 1950s 

and began a long residency in two of the 

studios until the 1980s. 48 Town was unlike 

previous artists who lived and worked in 

the building. He did not care for the legacy 

they had developed over the decades. As 

David Burnett wrote in the catalogue for 

Town's retrospective at the Art Gallery of 

Ontario, 

The radical position of the Group of Seven 

lay precisely in their belief in founding a 

"touchstone for the development of art in 

t he country as a whole," a belief that they 

collectively, and by their influ ence, pursued 

with exemplary success. The malaise in 

Toronto art in t he early 1950s was not 

due to a lack of direction but because t he 

74 


A NDREW WALDRON > RAPPORT I REPORT 

FIG. 23. VIEW OF ROSEDALE RAVINE PARK. I AN DREW WALDRON, PARKS CANADA. 2004 

dir' ection t hat did exist had gaine d the stat us them being the most prominent Canadian goal of developing government support 

of an institut io n. Town's contribution t hen artists of the day, and the decades to fol- for a wider cultural community across the 

and later is t hat he has refused the status low. A younger generation, inspired by the country would not occur until the 1960s, 

of an institution. ' 9 Group's radical art, was able to develop it in many ways he had already succeeded in 

into a new art during the Depression and 

the private realm by creating the " work- 

Thus, it was within the walls of the Stu- the war years, while still being connected shop" in Toronto's Rosedale Ravine. 

dio Building that almost a whole century 

with the unavoidable meaning of the landof 

Canadian art was made. It began as a 

building for the creation of a new Canadian 

art, and continues to hold that aura 

today. According to A.Y. Jackson, 

Apart from t he notabl e c ont ribution made 

to Ca nadian art by Harris himself, t he work 

done t here by M acDonald and Thomson 

alon e w as we ll worth a ll t he expen se 

involved in putting up t he Studio Bu ildin g. 

The buil ding w as a li ve ly centre for new 

ideas, experiments, discussions, pl ans for 

t he future and visions of an art inspired by 

t he Canadian countrysid e. It was, of course, 

to be a northern movement. 50 

scape on all Canadians. As a response to 

that meaning, the modern painters of the 

postwar period emphasized the antithesis 

of their previous generation by turning to 

non-objective painting. That period lasted 

until cultural nationalism re-emerged from 

the Canadian psyche in the mid-to-late 

1960s. 

Lawren Harris was a visionary for construct- 

ing the Studio Building. He was able to 

find the funds, support a group of young 

artists, and provide a place to cultivate 

an art that has had a lasting impact on 

the country. Indeed, his idea for the Stu- 

dio Building as a centre of excellence for 

Today, the Studio Building continues to 

be a place where artists work. As Gordon 

MacNamara, the artist who owns the 

building, said, "it's an appropriate building 

for an artist like me; the sunlight is 

just right, coming through those w indows 

throughout the day. I remember many of 

the artists in the building thought that 

the building had very special qualities 

that they weren't able to find in other 

buildings." 52 In addition to the history 

associated with the Studio Building, what 

Lawren Harris intended to create-namely 

a place for artists doing distinctly Canadian 

works of art-continues to resonate 

in the building today. 

Of course, Harris's idea to create a studio Canadian art may have eventually assisted 

building for Canadian art was ultimately in cultivating a national arts community. INTEGRITY 

a success. Previous to the formation of the When Harris was elected as the president ------- ---------- 

Group of Seven, many of the future members 

of the Group found their distinctive 

style while working at the Studio Building. 

In the following decades, members of 

the Group refined their work, which led to 

of the Federation of Canadian Artists in 

1944, he returned to the Studio Building's 

ideal for creating similar arts centres across 

the country when he briefed a House of 

Commons committee. 51 

Although his 

There is a high degree of integrity to the 

Studio Building today since it has had 

only two owners, both of whom were 

interested in renting out its studio spaces 

to artists and did not alter the building's 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N" 1 > 2006 

75


FIG. 21. VIEW OF THE STUDIO BUILDING FROM SEVERN STREET. I ANDR EW WALDRON. PARKS CANADA. 2004 

original design. The building possesses COMPARATIVE CONTEXT 

special properties clearly appreciated by 

past and present artists, especially the Sites that possess similar historic values 

large windows and high ceilings of each as the Studio Building are rare in Canada. 

of the studios. The original design of the No private purpose-built studio buildings 

building is intact and continues to convey have been identified in the country with 

the modern architectural features in its similar ideals in mind from before the 

simple design and ongoing function as Second World War as are reflected in the 

studio spaces. 

Studio Building. There are, however, sites 

associated with significant Canadian artists. 

They may include places where artists 

The exterior of the build ing remains 

intact and appears as it did when completed. 

Minor changes to the building or single studio spaces where an individual 

congregated and developed their oeuvres, 

have included the replacement in kind of worked. To give an adequate comparative 

one of the second-storey single-pane windows, 

and the restoration of the stucco associative values will be examined. Most 

context, sites reflecting architectural and 

fac;ade on the north side's left bay (see of the following comparisons are places 

fig. 6). Similarly, the interior is intact in of memory, lacking the vitality and living 

reading the layers of association through quality that continues to exist at the Studio 

the physical form and fabric. All of the studios 

continue to be used as artist spaces, 

Building. 

but have been altered over time as each STUDIO SPACES 

artist decorated his or her studio to suit 

his or her own taste. Layers and imprints There are no similar studio spaces existing 

of individual artists are discernible in the in Canada from the early twentieth century. 

Ateliers and studio spaces in present state of the studios. 

schools 

can be found, but those spaces were not 

solely designed to accommodate artists. 

It was a challenge for artists to find suit 

able studio space, and they would often 

modify marginal spaces- garages, basements, 

attics etc.-to meet their needs. 

A predecessor to the Studio Building 

was the Tenth Street Studio Building in 

New York. Built in 1858, it was the first 

purpose-built studio building in North 

America. Designed by Richard Morris Hunt, 

the 100-foot high, three-storey red brick 

structure "was functional and eclectic, differentiating 

structure from decoration." 53 

It contained 25 studios surrounding a communal 

exhibition space. The building was 

at the epicentre of the American art scene 

in the mid-to-late nineteenth centu ry, 

and housed artists from the Hudson River 

School (Albert Bierstadt eta/.) and major 

American impressionists. At the height of 

its prominence in the late nineteenth century, 

the Tenth Street Studio Building was 

at the heart of Greenwich Village art scene. 

lfthe building had not been demolished in 

1956, it would be the American equivalent 

to the Studio Building in Toronto. 

Perhaps the most innovative example of 

a purpose-built studio space in Canada 

is the Cormier Studio in Montreal. Architect 

Ernest Cormier designed the unusual 

structure as both a studio and living space 

in 1921 on rue Saint-Urbain in downtown 

Montreal. The 67 square metre area ofthe 

studio space is two storeys in height. The 

second storey area contains a living room, 

kitchen, dining room, and library. Cormier 

leased the building to the Ecole des beaux 

Arts for sculpture courses in 1935. The 

Province of Quebec bought the building 

from Cormier in 1941, and restored it to 

its original state in 1986. The Cormier Studio 

was a highly innovative and impressive 

building with beaux-arts and modern elements 

interplaying throughout the design. 

It is a much more architecturally refined 

building by comparison with the Studio 

7 6 



Building, but lacks the industrial aesthetic 

of the latter. Both are similar in that their 

large windows face north to capture the 

indirect natural light. 

PLACES ASSOCIATED WITH THE 

MEMBERS OF THE GROUP OF 

SEVEN 

There are several places in Canada that are 

connected with members of the Group of 

Seven, some which are directly associated 

with the lives and events of the Group, 

others of which have developed an association 

over time. Aside from the Studio 

Building, the obvious place connected 

with the Group is the Arts and Letters 

Club in downtown Toronto. Founded in 

1908 by the leading artists and patrons of 

Toronto, the club became the centre for 

Canadian culture in the 1910s and 1920s. 

The club presently is located in the former 

Saint George's Society Building (1891) on 

Elm Street. Here, there is a palpable sense 

of the history of the artistic club and its 

former illustrious members. All of the artists 

of the Group of Seven were part of 

the club, with MacDonald serving a term 

as president. Artworks by club members 

cover the walls of the three-storey building; 

the Neo-gothic hall continues to stage 

shows and performances, and the top floor 

studio continues to offer art classes. Unlike 

the Studio Building, the Arts and Letters 

Club is a building that possesses wider 

cultural associations than specifically with 

the members of the Group of Seven, and 

is more relevant to understanding more 

broadly the artistic culture of the country 

in the early twentieth century. 

The Group of Seven and some of its members 

have been designated as nationally 

significant and marked by a plaque 

at various locations across the country. 

Two Historic Sites and Monuments Board 

of Canada (HSMBC) plaques, one for 

A .Y. Jackson and the other for the Group, 

have been erected on the grounds of the 

McMichael Canadian Art Collection in 

Kleinburg, Ontario. Robert McMichael and 

is wife, Signe, began collecting Group of 

Seven art in the mid-1950s and opened 

a gallery to the public in 1961. Robert 

McMichael donated their collection to the 

provincial government in 1965. Six of the 

ten members who were part of the Group 

are buried on the McMichael grounds in a 

small cemetery: Arthur Lismer, Fred Varley, 

Lawren Harris, Frank Johnston, A.J . Casson, 

and A.Y. Jackson. Also on the grounds 

is the reconstructed shack that stood 

behind the Studio Building (fig. 35). The 

shack was moved to the site in 1962 and 

has lost all of its integrity, despite being 

restored in 1989. The Kleinburg site is an 

art gallery and resting place for members 

of the Group of Seven. It is a well-visited 

site for appreciating the Group of Seven in 

Canadian art history that has developed as 

a memorial site since the 1960s. Nonetheless, 

it does not possess the history where 

many of the artists actually came together 

to produce their work. 54 

Lawren Harris was declared as nationally 

significant the year he died in 1970, several 

years before the Group and the individual 

members were commemorated. A plaque 

to Harris was erected in the basement 

of the Vancouver Art Gallery beside the 

men's lavatory in 1986. 

PLACES ASSOCIATED WITH 

OTHER ARTISTS OF NATIONAL 

SIGNIFICANCE 

Homer Watson was designated a person 

of national significance in 1939 and reaffirmed 

in 1955. 55 Homer Watson House I 

Doon School of Fine Arts, now known as 

the Homer Watson House and Gallery, was 

designated in 1980 for the building's association 

with Homer Watson the artist. The 

building consists of a typical nineteenthcentury 

brick house erected in the 1830s 

with an extension for a studio built by 

Watson onto the back of the house in 

1893. A second addition was built in 1906 

as a gallery space with large clerestory 

windows mounted on the roof to allow for 

indirect lighting to penetrate the gallery 

all day. 56 This building was clearly associated 

with Watson's productive period and 

was a place that artists came to visit. The 

fact that it eventually became a school of 

art in the 1950s reflects the importance 

of this building's history and ongoing use. 

The Watson house may also possess emotive 

associations for artists and art lovers 

of his work, particularly evoked in the 

experience of visiting his studio, where 

he painted a frieze around the room with 

the names of his most inspirational artists, 

and in the experience of the intact 1906 

gallery. A similar symbolic and emotive 

association is felt when visiting the Studio 

Building, although it is not a public 

museum. 

A better-known site associated with a 

prominent Canadian artist is the Emily 

Carr House in Victoria, British Columbia 

(built 1864). Carr was born in the Victorian 

house in 1871 and grew up there until 

her parents died in 1880s. She left to study 

art in San Francisco after her sister took 

over the household. Carr's prominence as 

a Canadian artist stems from her stunning 

paintings of the natural environment of 

the northwest coast of British Columbia 

and depiction of aboriginal communities 

in the region. She was designated as person 

of national significance in 1950 and 

a plaque was erected at the house. Here, 

the associative significance is as a place 

where Carr was born, not for her work as 

a painter and author. Unlike that building, 

which has become a public museum 

and a memorial, the Studio Building 

remains a living studio building with deep 

associations that have existed since it was 

erected, and where productive artists have 

lived and worked. 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

77


PLACES ASSOCIATED WITH 

ARTISTIC MOVEMENTS IN 


There are few places in Canada where a 

conscious and cohesive artistic movement 

can be identified with specific sites. In most 

regions of the country, a social circle within 

a city identified the artistic group. Thus, 

an artistic milieu was called the "Toronto 

scene" or the "Vancouver scene," etc. 

Only in some places with a more formal 

setting do connections with a group of 

artists exist. For example, the Emma Lake 

Summer School, north of Regina, became 

connected with the "Regina 5" artistsY 

Other places have become known for specific 

artistic events or gathering places, but 

were much less formal places. For example, 

the sculptors Frances Loring and Florence 

Wyle, who were lifelong partners and 

founding members of the Sculptors' Society 

of Canada, bought an old abandoned 

church together on Lawton Boulevard in 

Toronto in 1920 and converted it into living 

and studio spaces. For a time during 

the 1920s and 1930s, it was a gathering 

place for Toronto artists, including for 

the artists living at the Studio Building. 

In Montreal, perhaps a location such as 

the former Librairie Henri Tranquille on 

Ste-Catherine Street (now demolished), 

where Montreal's modern artists launched 

the manifesto Refus global in 1948, was a 

significant place relating to a specific artistic 

movement. The Studio Building, unlike 

the library, has survived intact and conveys 

the association with the emergence of the 

Group of Seven and the artistic developments 

that followed. 

THREATS 

The Studio Building is not directly under 

threat in relation to its exceptional design 

or association with the Group of Seven. 

However, friends of the owner recently 

led a campaign to prevent a condominium 

development on adjacent land across the 

subway line from being built. According 

to the owner, the proposed condominium 

towers would impede natural light reaching 

the Studio Building, thus ruining the 

quality of light entering the building. That 

potential development is only in the planning 

stages and the outcome of the proposal 

has yet to be finalized. 

OTHER DESIGNATIONS 

There is a municipal designation on the 

building and the Toronto Historical Board 

(Heritage Toronto) erected a plaque in 

1996. It reads: 

The Studio Building 

The construction of the Studio Building 

for Canadian Art was commissioned by 

renowned Canadian artist Lawren Harris 

[1885-1970], an heir to the Massey-Harris 

farm machinery fortune, and arts patron 

Or. James MacCallum. Designed by Toronto 

ar chitect Eden Smith (1859-1949) in 1914, 

it soon became an important centre for 

new developments in Canadian painting. 

Group of Seven members, Harris, J .E.H. 

MacDonald and A.Y. Jackson were among 

the original occupants. Tom Thomson and 

Frederick Varley worked at various times in 

the rear shack, which was moved in 1962, 

to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection 

in Kleinburg. The Studio Building was sold 

by Harris to artist Gordon MacNamara 

in 1948. 

There is no provincial designation, however, 

and the building is part of a register 

of buildings within a proposed heritage 

conservation district developed by the 

South Rosedale Ratepayers' Association. 

That group commissioned a study of the 

district by ERA Architects of Toronto in 

2000 to protect and interpret the architectural 

heritage of the Rosedale Ravine. The 

Studio Building received the highest mark 

in the heritage evaluation ofthe district's 

buildings. 5 8 

When the Board recommended commemoration 

of the Group of Seven at its May 

1974 meeting, it advised the Department 

of Environment to "investigate the possibility 

of acquiring an appropriate studio 

or studios in the Studio Building in Toronto 

where the Group actually worked, refurnishing 

it and interpreting it to commemorate 

the Group of Seven." 59 Parks Canada 

did not pursue the Board's suggestion. 

COMMUNITY VALUE 

The Studio Building is known in Canada 

for its association with the Group of Seven 

and their fellow artists. In most historical 

accounts and exhibitions on the Group of 

Seven in the past seventy years, the Studio 

Building figures prominently in the story. 

In 2003, the owner of the Studio Building, 

Gordon MacNamara who, incidentally 

died just a few weeks ago at the age of 97, 

decided to participate in Toronto's annual 

Doors Open weekend event. He allowed 

the building to be open for three hours 

and over 400 people went through the 

studios. 60 

NOTES 

1. Gadsby, Peter, "Where the Artists Work by 

Northern light: A Building that Houses Model 

Studios," Toronto Daily Star, February 28, 

1914. 

2. The author was able to enter only four of the 

studios. 

3. In some of the studios there were originally 

built-in seats with high backs. Toronto Daily 

Star, February 28, 1914. 

4. Remains of the shack were moved to the Mc 

Michael Art Collection in Klein burg in 1962. 

5. Noted British architectural historian Sir Nikolas 

Pevsner considered it a fine example of modern 

architecture for its time. The latter visited the 

building in 1977, while he was lecturing at the 

78 



University of Toronto. (Brown, Doug, architect 

and specialist on the w ork of Eden Smith, email 

correspondence, February 25, 2004.) 

6. Harris, Lawren, c1978, Lawren S. Harris: Urban 

Scenes and Wilderness Landscapes 1906-1930, 

Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, p. 14. 

7. Harris: 44. 

8. Harris took out a building permit in November 

of that year for what was likely a smaller 

building on the property. The following year, 

he took out a new building permit for the 

substantially larger building that stands on 

the property today. The original permit was 

for a building at an estimated cost of $9000; 

the second for a building estimated at a cost 

of $14,000. (Brown, op. cit.) 

9. Hausser, Frederick B., 1926, A Canadian Art 

Movement: The Story of the Group of Seven, 

Toronto, Macmillan, p. 66. 

10. Ibid. 

11. The Arts and Letters Club was a men's social 

club established in 1908 by Toronto's artists 

and patrons; Harris and Smith were founding 

members. The club was the most important 

forum for formulating a Canadian cultural 

identity in the early twentieth century. All of 

the Group of Seven artists were members of 

the Club. 

12. Neal, Carolyn, 1976, Eden Smith Architect, Toronto, 

The Architectural Conservancy of Ontario 

Toronto Region Branch. 

13. Adams, Annmarie, 1993, « Eden Smith and the· 

Canadian Domestic Revival », Urban History Review 

I Revue d'histoire urbaine, vol. 21, no. 2, 

March, p. 111 . 

14. Idem: 112. 

15. Toronto Daily Star, February 28, 1914. 

16. The final cost of the building was $21,165.45. 

(National Archives of Canada I Archives nationales 

du Canada, A. Y. Jackson Fonds, MG30 

D351 , Box 102, « Studio Building>>.) 

17. Toronto Daily Star, February 28, 1914. 

18. According to the ledgers for the building from 

1914 to 1916, it appears that Harris lost money 

on the building. He paid the balance owing 

out of his ow n account. (National Archives of 

Canada, op. cit. See also Jackson, A.Y., 1958, 

A Painter's Country: Autobiography, Toronto, 

Clarke, Irwin, p. 132.) 

19. Reid, Dennis, 1988, A Concise History of Canadian 

Painting, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 

p. 138. 

20. Lawren Harris's studio was on the top floor 

of the Bank of Commerce at Bloor and Yonge 

Street. 

21. Quoted in Reid, 1988: 140. 

22. In 1909, after painting in Europe, Beatty and 

Harris went north to sketch, thus introducing 

Harris to a new dimension of Canadian scenery. 

J.E.H. MacDonald likewise attributed his early 

interest in sketching farther north to Beatty's 

comparable attraction to northern scenery. 

(Dorothy Farr, c1981, J.W. Beatty 1869-1941, 

Kingston, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 

p. 24.) 

23. As Jackson recalled : "If all you young fellows 

go off to the States," he [MacCallum] growled, 

'art in Canada is never going to get anywhere.' 

Then he made me a surprising proposition. If I 

would take a studio in the building he and Harris 

were having erected, he would guarantee 

my expenses for a year. Of course I accepted." 

(Jackson : 26-27.) 

24. Arthur Heming (1870-1940) was an artist known 

for his expressive, if conservative, paintings of 

the Canadian North. Known as the " chronicler 

of the North," his illustrations of northern 

wildlife, trappers, and aboriginal people were 

widely published throughout North America 

and Europe, and his three published novels, 

Spirit Lake, The Drama of the Forests, and The 

Living Forest, drew heavily from his experiences 

in Northern Canada. Although Heming's bestknown 

works are his later brightly coloured 

oil paintings, the artist worked exclusively in 

black, white, and yellow until he was 60 years 

old, having been informed at an early age that 

he was colour blind. (Arthur Heming Collection, 

National Gallery of Canada.) 

25. Reid, 1988: 144; Reid, Dennis, 2002, « Tom 

Thomson and the Arts and Crafts Movement 

in Toronto>>, In Dennis Reid (ed.), Thomson, 

Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, p. 74. 

26. J.E.H. Macdonald suffered a breakdown after 

hearing of Thomson's death. (Reid, 1988 : 

148.) 

27. Several of the other future members of the 

Group of Seven were also commissioned as 

war artists. 

28. The artists would share their materials. Harris, 

for example, purchased a large roll of jute canvas 

while in New Jersey in 1915, and returned 

to share it with the other artists. (Reid, 2002 : 

147.) 

29. The "box car" trips were important in developing 

the art movement in Canada and in how 

that movement was understood internation- 

ally. They were noted in catalogues at the time 

and major exhibitions on the Group of Seven 

always noted those plein-air painting trips. 

30. Biographical questionnaire sent by Martin 

Baldwin, Director of the Art Gallery of Toronto, 

to Lawren S. Harris, September 19, 1947, Art 

Gallery of Ontario Archives. 

31 . Jackson : 26. 

32 . Quoted in Duval, Paul, 1991 , « The Group of 

Seven's Toronto Studio Building >>, City and 

Country Home, November, p. 113-114. 

33. Harrington, Richard, telephone conversation 

w ith author, February 5, 2004. 

34. J.E .H. MacDonald died in 1932; Harris left for 

the United States in 1934; A.J. Casson, Edwin 

Holgate, and Lionel Lemoyne Fitzgerald were 

showing with the Group by the late 1920s. 

35. A v isual imprint of the period remains intact 

in a third-floor studio. A script that has been 

attributed to both J.E.H. MacDonald and Thoreau 

survives along the base of the balcony. It 

is a Ch inese text that reads as follows: "With 

the breath of the four seasons in one's breast 

one can create on paper. The five colours well 

applied enlighten the world." (See fig. 19.) 

36. For a general history of the period, consult Duval, 

Paul, 1972, Four Decades: The Canadian 

Group of Painters and their Contemporaries 

- 1930-1970, Toronto, Clarke, Irwin & Company 

Ltd. 

37. The Federation of Canadian Artists regional 

representatives were: Lawren Harris, Gordon 

Sinclair, Ernest Lindner, Byllee Lang, A .Y. Jackson, 

and Walter Abell, [http://ww w.artists. 

calindex. html], consulted February 15, 2004. 

38. Nichols lived in the Studio Building from 1952 

to 1955, while painting a mural for the headquarters 

of the Salvation Army in downtown 

Toronto. Nichols left for Europe in 1956. 

39. Reid, 1988: 247. 

40. Charles K. Redfern was an artist who organized 

the nationwide amateur war art competitions 

held in 1944 and 1945. He was a still life artist 

in his later years. 

41 . MacNamara, Gordon, conversation with author, 

January 20, 2004. 

42. Letter from Gordon MacNamara to A .Y. Jackson, 

November 13, 1954, National Archives of 

Canada I Archives nationales du Canada, A.Y. 

Jackson Fonds, MG30 D351, Box 102, File 19. 

43. An acrimonious relationship between Jackson 

and MacNamara led to Jackson moving out of 

his studio in 1955. (Ibid.) 

JSSAC I JSEAC 31 > N' 1 > 2006 

79


44. He moved to Manotic, Ontario, where he continued 

to paint until his death in 1974. (Ibid.) 

45. MacNamara and Redfern both lived and painted 

in the building. In the late 1950s, Paul Duval 

moved in. Other artists came and went. 

46. Town's early abstract work was clearly influenced 

by the work of fellow group member 

Oscar Cahen. Town was an enigmatic artist, 

deeply individualistic and concerned with 

breaking open the artistic behaviour in To 

ronto. In a positive light, Robert Fulford wrote: 

"Town has tended to feel the character of his 

period intensely and reflects it in h is work. He 

isn't an artist who can be see n exclusively in 

terms of art history[ ... ] in the 1950s he was a 

leader in Canada [ .. . ] of art's heroic effort t o 

save us al l from boring ourselves to death." 

(Quoted in Burnett, David, 1986, To wn, Toronto, 

Art Gallery of Ontario/McCielland & Stewart 

Ltd., p. 38.) 

47. Town and Walter Yarwood refuse d to receive 

New York art critic Clement Greenberg to see 

their work while he visited Toronto in June 

1957 by invitation from William Ronald, another 

member of the Painters Eleven. 

48. "In his studio the first thing I noticed was a 

punching bag hanging on a chain by the door. 

There were high ceilings, windows that invented 

the word grimy, a railed-in mezzanine at the far 

end, mahogany cupboards against one wall, and 

not a tube of paint in sight. But the clutter, the 

stuff! Dozens of rolls of canvas propped against 

the wall, tables piled high with papers, tools, 

stacks of balsa stretchers, gallon cans and pails 

under one table. Bare canvases and some with 

painted grounds of white gesso in various sized 

rectangles and squares were stacked under t he 

mezzanine." (Nowell, Iris, 1992, Hot Breakfast 

for Sparrows, Toronto, Stoddart, p. 6-7.) 

53 . Horsley, Carter B. , 2004, « The Tenth Street 

Studio Building: Artist-entrepreneurs from 

the Hudson River School to the American Impressionists 

», [http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/ 

4aa62.htm]. consulted February 5, 2004. 

54. Similarly, commemoration of Tom Thomson, 

though not a member of the Group of Seven, 

has been marked by a plaque at Canoe Lake in 

Algonquin Park, where he died in 1917. 

55. HSMBC Minutes, May 1939. 

56 . Johnson, Dana, and Leslie Maitland, HSMBC 

Agenda Paper 1980-31, p. 495. 

57. The "Regina 5" was a group of young abstract 

artists brought together at the summer school 

by teachings of visiting American artist Barnett 

Newman and some of the artists experimenting 

with mescaline. 

58. The Studio Building was categorized as an "A" 

building, meaning that it is individually outstanding 

and has actual or potential national 

or provincial significance. ([http://www.southrosedale.org/]. 

consulted February 23, 2004.) 

59. HSMBC Minute 1974-05, p. 18-19. 

60. Nasmith, Catherine, architect, phone and email 

correspondence, February 23, 2004. 

49. Burnett : 200. 

50. Jackson : 27. 

51 . Twenty-five " major cultural community centres" 

were to be built in Canadian cities, in addition 

to another 50 minor centres in smaller 

towns and regions. Those cu ltural complexes 

were intended to have capacity for a theatre, 

art gallery, studio spaces, and a library. (Larisey, 

Peter, 1993, Light for a Cold Land: La wren 

Harris's Work and Life - An Interpretation, 

Toronto, Dundurn Press, p. 155-156.) 

52. MacNamara, Gordon, conversatio n with 

author, January 20, 2004. 

80 


CALL FOR PAPERS 

APPEL A TEXTES 

JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF j JOURNAL DE LA SOCIETE POUR l ETUDE DE L' 

ARCHITECTURE~~ 


EDITORIAL STATEMENT 

POLITIQUE EDITORIALE 

The Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada is a bilingual 

refereed publication whose scope encompasses the entire spectrum of Canadian 

architecture from all historical periods and all cultural traditions. In addition to historical, 

cultural, and resthetic inquiries, the Journal also welcomes articles dealing with 

theoretical and historiographical issues generally relevant to the study of Canadian 

architecture and architectural practice. Discussions of current methodological issues, 

for example, fall within the scope of the Journal, as do critical issues of preservation 

and restoration. 

Articles should be original and provide a new contribution to scholarship, whether they 

are mainly factual and documentary or whether they develop a new interpretation on a 

specific theme. It is the aim of the Journal to forward the understanding of Canadian 

architecture in as many ways as possible. 

Le Journal de Ia Societe pour /'etude de /'architecture au Canada est une 

revue bilingue avec comite de lecture dont le champ englobe I' architecture canadienne 

de toutes les periodes historiques et toutes les traditions culturelles. En plus 

d'articles de nature historique, esthetique, ou culturelle, le Journal accepte aussi les 

textes traitant de questions theoriques ou historiographiques pertinentes a I' etude 

de I' architecture et de Ia pratique architecturale au Canada. L'examen des questions 

methodologiques d'actualite, par exemple, fait partie du champ couvert par le Journal, 

tout comme les debats de conservation et de restauration. 

Les textes soumis au Journal doivent apporter une contribution scientifique originale, 

que ce so it par le biais d'informations factuelles jusqu'alors inconnues ou encore par le 

developpement d'une nouvelle interpretation concernant un theme particulier. L'objectif 

du Journal est de promouvoir une meilleure comprehension de I' architecture canadienne 

par le plus grand nombre de voies possibles. 

Submissions to the Journal are encouraged and welcomed from SSAC members and 

non-members alike. Please send proposed articles, relevant to the study of Canadian 

architecture, to: 

Le Journal invite tous les chercheurs en architecture canadienne, qu'ils soient membres 

de Ia SEAC on non, a soumettre leurs articles. On peut soumettre un article en 

l'envoyant a : 

PROF. LUC NOPPEN, EDITOR 

JOURNAL OF THE SSAC 

CANADA RESEARCH CHAIR ON URBAN HERITAGE 

INSTITUT DU PATRIMOINE 

UNIVERSIT~ DU QU~BEC A MONTR~AL , CP 8888, SUCC. CENTRE-VILLE 

MONTR~AL QC H3C 3P8 

E-MAIL : noppen.luc@uqam.ca 

PHONE : (S14) 987-3000 X-2S62 I FAX : (S14) 987-7827 

PROF. LUC NOPPEN, REDACTEUR 

JOURNAL DE LA SEAC 

CHAIRE DE RECHERCHE DU CANADA EN PATRIMOINE URBAIN 

INSTITUT DU PATRIMOINE 

UNIVERSITE DU QUEBEC A MONTREAL. CP 8888, SUCC. CENTRE-VILLE 

MONTREAL (QC) H3C 3P8 

COURRIEL : noppen.luc@uqam.ca 

TEL : (S14) 987-3000 P-2S62 I TELEC. : (S14) 987-7827 

SUBM ISS ION OF ARTICLES IN ENGLISH 

SOUMISSION D'ARTICLES EN FRAN~AIS 

Authors should send to the editor a copy of their manuscript, prepared according to the 

guidelines of the Journal. Although articles in the "Analyses" section usually comprise 

7000 words and fifteen to twenty illustrations, shorter or longer articles may be considered 

for the other sections: "Essays" can comprise 2500 to 3500 words and five to 

ten illustrations. Reports may vary in length as they are preferably published integrally. 

The necessary permission to publish must have been secured from the organization for 

which reports were intended. 

Authors must submit their article on an electronic medium or by email. Illustrations 

should accompany the manuscript. These consist of photographic prints, slides or, 

preferably, digital files (360 dpi, 4" x 6" minimum, TIFF or EPS format), on CD-ROM. 

hotocopies or facsimiles are acceptable only for line drawings. It is the responsibility 

of the author to obtain the required reproduction authorizations for the illustrations 

J nd to pay copyright fees when necessary. SSAC and the editor of the Journal decline 

responsibility in that matter. All illustrations should have captions, including, where 

applicable, subject, date, and name of architect, author or source. Illustrations will be 

-returned to authors. 

All manuscripts are submitted for review to the SSAC's Editorial Review Panel who 

/eports to the editor. The editor informs authors of the decision, no later than sixty days 

~fter initial submission; the editor also ensures that the requested modifications have 

~een made before the final acceptance and proposition of the publication date. Authors 

;,ill receive three copies of the issue in which their article is published. 

Les auteurs doivent faire parvenir au redacteur un manuscrit presente selon les regles 

de Ia revue. Habituellement, un article de Ia section « Analyses >> compte environ 7000 

mots et de quinze a vingt illustrations; pour Ia section « Essais >> on pourra cependant 

considerer des textes de longueur differente : 2500 a 3500 mots et de cinq a dix illustrations. 

Par ailleurs, Ia longueur des « Rapports >> peut varier puisque Ia revue les publie, 

de preference, integralement. Les rapports doivent etre soumis avec l'autorisation de 

l'organisme a qui ils ont ete destines. 

Les textes sont soumis en format electronique (sur support informatique ou transmis par 

courriel). Les illustrations doivent etre soumises en meme temps que le manuscrit. Ce 

sont des photographies ou des diapositives ou, de preference, des fichiers numeriques 

(resolution 360 ppp au format minimal de 10 x 15 em, format TIFF ou EPS), sur CD-ROM. 

Les photocopies et les fac-similes ne sont acceptes que pour les dessins au trait. Les 

auteurs doivent fournir des illustrations lib res de droits; le cas echeant, il leur appartient 

d'obtenir les autorisations necessaires et de detrayer les droits de publication. La 

SEAC et le redacteur de Ia revue declinent toute responsabilite en cette matiere. Toutes 

les illustrations doivent etre accompagnees d'une legende comprenant, normalement, 

!'identification du sujet, Ia date, le nom de l'architecte, !'auteur ou Ia provenance de 

!'image. Les illustrations seront retournees aux auteurs. 

Tous les manuscrits sont evalues par le comite de lecture qui fait rapport au redacteur. 

Le redacteur transmet l'avis du comite aux auteurs, au plus tard soixante jours apres 

Ia soumission initiale ; il s'assure que les modifications requises sont apportees avant 

d'accepter le texte et de proposer une date de publication. Les auteurs recevront trois 

exemplaires du numero de Ia revue dans lequel leur texte est publie. 

Text editing guidelines for submitted papers are available in PDF format on the SSAC 

website at [http://canada-architecture.org/submissions.php] . 

Les directives de mise en forme des textes soumis sont disponibles en format PDF sur 

le site de Ia SEAC au [http://canada-architecture.org/soumission.php] .

www.patrimoine.uqam.cajfcrpp/ 

fcrpp 

"~= . 

cfprh 

~ .• ii: "'! • " 

Forum Canadien de recherche 

publique sur le patrimoine 

Canadian Forum for Public 

Research on Heritage

CANADA - SEXTONdigital - Dalhousie University

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?