The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor: Montreal's Square Mile and Beyond 9780773588370

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Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor the

Andrew Thomas Taylor. Photograph, 1896.

Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor The

Montreal’s Square Mile and Beyond

Susan Wagg

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2013

isbn 978-0-7735-4118-4 Legal deposit second quarter 2013 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Wagg, Susan W. The architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor : Montreal’s Square Mile and beyond / Susan Wagg. Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 978-0-7735-4118-4 1. Taylor, Andrew T. (Andrew Thomas), 1850-1937.  2. Architecture – Québec (Province) – Montréal – History – 19th century.  3. Architecture – Canada – History – 19th century.  4. Architects – Québec (Province) – Montréal – Biography.  I. Title.

na749.t39w33 2013 Set in Minion 11/14

720.92

c2012-908426-3

In memory of John Bland Macdonald professor of Architecture, McGill University, 1941–1972

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Contents

ix Illustrations



xvii Acknowledgments



xix Abbreviations



xxi Foreword by Harold Kalman



3 Introduction

6 Chapter One Apprentice and Architect in Britain (1864–1883) 27 Chapter Two Homes for Montrealers (1884–1902) 74 Chapter Three Bank of Montreal: From Sea to Sea (1884–1904) 109 Chapter Four Building McGill, Building Canada (1890s) 133 Chapter Five Architect for All Institutions (1889–1905)

158 Chapter Six Launching an Architects’ Association (1890–1904) 169 Chapter Seven Public Life in London (1904–1937)



185 List of Andrew Thomas Taylor’s Works

193 Notes

219 Selected Bibliography



229 Index

Illustrations Frontispiece. Andrew Thomas Taylor (1850–1937). Photographer:

William Notman & Son, 1896. ii-116910. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 1.1 Memorial Hall and Schools, Dover. Perspective signed “A.T. Taylor.” From The Builder (14 May 1881). Courtesy of Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library. 1.2 Almshouses, Chislehurst, England. Perspective signed “A.T. Taylor.” From Canadian Architect and Builder (11 December 1898). Courtesy of Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library. 1.3 Glasgow Municipal Buildings. Second Premiated Design (1881). Joint architects: Henry Hall and Andrew T. Taylor. From Th Building News (6 October 1882). Courtesy of Toronto Public Library. 2.1 Terrace Bank, Montreal. Photographer unknown, c. 1880. ii–338494.0.1. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 2.2 Terrace Houses for George Drummond, Montreal. Perspective attr. to Taylor. From The Architect (11 December 1885). Courtesy of Toronto Public Library. 2.3 Bovey-Redpath Houses, Montreal. Photographer: Francis Redpath, c. 1890. mp–0000.1817. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 2.4 Francis Redpath House, Montreal. Sketches of drawing room and entrance hall. Signed “ATT.” From Th Building News (5 February 1886). Courtesy of Toronto Public Library.

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2.5 Scott-Strathy Houses, Montreal. Perspective attr. to Taylor. From The Builder (28 February 1885). Courtesy of Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library. 2.6 William H. Davis House, Ottawa, on. Perspective signed “A.T. Taylor.” From Th Architect (4 February 1887). Courtesy of Toronto Public Library. 2.7 William H. Davis House, Ottawa, on. Sketches of library and staircase. Signed “A.T. Taylor.” From American Architect and Building News (15 May 1886). Courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. 2.8 George Drummond House, Montreal. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1891. View–2458. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 2.9 George Drummond House. Preliminary Scheme. Perspective attr. to Taylor. From The Builder (6 November 1886). Courtesy of Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library. 2.10 Higginson-Whittier Houses, Boston. Architects: H.H. Richardson and McKim, Mead & White. From American Architect and Building News (24 November 1883). Courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. 2.11 George Drummond House, Montreal. Metcalfe Street elevation, 1888. attr. to Taylor. Courtesy of Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library. 2.12 George Drummond House, Montreal. Ground-floor plan, 1888, attr. to Taylor. Courtesy of Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library. 2.13 Peter Lyall House, Montreal. Architect: John James Brown. Photographer unknown, 1891. From Canadian Architect and Builder (April 1891). Courtesy of Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library. 2.14 Arthur Dubuc House, Montreal. Architect: Alphonse Raza. Perspective c. 1894. From Canadian Architect and Builder (November 1894). Courtesy of Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library. 2.15 Reford House, Little Métis, qc. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1915. View–8094. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal.

Illustrations

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2.16 Reford House, Little Métis, qc. Sketch plan attr. to Taylor redrawn by Steven Dumont, 2012. Courtesy of author. 2.17 H. Montagu Allan House, Cacouna, qc. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1901. ii–138489. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 2.18 H. Montagu Allan House, Cacouna, qc. Sitting Room. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1901. ii–138494. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 2.19 H. Montagu Allan Stable, Cacouna, qc. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1901. ii–138496. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 2.20 George Drummond House, Beaconsfield, qc. Photographer unknown, c. 1902. Courtesy of Redpath Sugar Museum, Toronto. 2.21 Richard B. Angus Estate, Senneville, qc. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library. 2.22 Marlborough Apartment House, Montreal. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1902. ii–142552. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.1 Bank of Montreal Head Office Renovation, Montreal. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1891. ii–94407.1. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.2 Bank of Montreal Head Office. Plans before and after alteration. From American Architect and Building News (9 April 1887). Courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. 3.3 Bank of Montreal Head Office. Banking Room. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1887. ii–83294. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.4 Bank of Montreal Head Office. Boardroom. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1886. n–0000.131.3. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.5 Bank of Montreal, Perth, on. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1891. Courtesy of bmo Financial Group, Corporate Archives.

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Illustrations

3.6 Bank of Montreal West End Branch, Montreal. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c.1895. View–2453. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.7 First Alliance Assurance Office, London, England. Photographer: Timothy Wagg. Courtesy of author. 3.8 Bank of Montreal West End Branch, Montreal. Plans attr. to Taylor redrawn by Steven Dumont, 2012. Courtesy of author. 3.9 Bank of Montreal, Calgary, nwt. Photographer: William McFarlane Notman, 1890. View–2727.1. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.10 Bank of Montreal, Vancouver, bc. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1890. View-2729.0. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.11 Bank of Montreal, Regina, nwt. Photographer: William McFarlane Notman, 1897. View-2728.1. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.12 Bank of Montreal, Seigneurs Street Branch, Montreal. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1895. View–2794. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.13 Merchants Bank of Halifax, Montreal. Architect: Edward Maxwell. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1896. ii– 113630. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.14 Bank of Montreal, Sydney, ns. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1901. View–3382. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.15 Bank of Montreal, Point St Charles Branch. Photographer unknown, 1910. Courtesy of bmo Financial Group, Corporate Archives. 3.16 Bank of Montreal, Ottawa, on. Photographer: William James Topley, 1901. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, Topley Studio fonds/pa–008955. 3.17 Bank of Montreal Head Office Remodelling. Banking Room. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1905. View–3886. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal.

Illustrations

xiii

3.18 Bank of Toronto, Montreal. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1894. ii–106320. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 3.19 Merchants Bank, Winnipeg, mb. Photographer unknown, c. 1902. Courtesy of Archives of Manitoba, Winnipeg – Buildings – Banks – Merchants (3) 2 (n13922). 3.20 Bank of British North America, Winnipeg, mb. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1903. View–3768. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 4.1 Macdonald Science Buildings, McGill University. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1898. View–3223. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 4.2 Macdonald Engineering Building and Workman Workshops. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1895. View–2538. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 4.3 Macdonald Engineering Building and Workman Workshops. Ground floor plan. From Annual Calendar of McGill College and University Montreal Session 1893–1894 redrawn by Steven Dumont. 2012. Courtesy of author. 4.4 Macdonald Engineering Building. Museum. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1893. View–2663. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 4.5 Macdonald Physics Building. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1901. n–0000.25.275. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 4.6 Macdonald Physics Building. Staircase. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1901. n–0000.25.277. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 4.7 Macdonald Chemistry and Mining Building. Photographer unknown, c. 1901. mp–000.25.269. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 4.8 Redpath Library, McGill University. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1894. View–3163. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 4.9 Redpath Library. Reading Room. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1894. View–2676. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal.

xiv

Illustrations

4.10 Redpath Library. View from the Campus. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1894. View-2675. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 4.11 McGill Medical Building with additions. Drawing signed “Andrew T. Taylor, F.R.I.B.A.,” 1901. Courtesy of McGill University Archives, McGill University Calendar for Session 1903–1904. 4.12 McGill Medical Building with 1901 addition. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1901. View–3619. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 5.1 Trafalgar Institute, Montreal. Chalderton Lodge with Taylor Additions. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Trafalgar School for Girls. 5.2. Bishop’s College Grammar School, Lennoxville. Photographer unknown, c. 1910. mp–0000.1059.4. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 5.3 Diocesan Theological College, Montreal. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1895. View–2956. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 5.4 Diocesan Theological College. Chapel Interior. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1895. View–2958.1. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 5.5 Art Association of Montreal with Addition. Photographer: William Notman & Son, c. 1893. View–2543.1. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 5.6 Jubilee Nurses’ Home, Montreal. Perspective signed “Andrew T. Taylor, F.R.I.B.A.” From Canadian Architect and Builder (July 1900). Courtesy of Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library. 5.7 Ross Memorial Hospital, Lindsay, on. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Ross Memorial Hospital, Lindsay, on. 5.8 Montreal Maternity Hospital, Montreal. Photographer: William Notman & Son, 1906. View–4294. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. 5.9 Mount Royal Crematorium Hall and Conservatory, Montreal. Photographer: Unknown, c. 1910. mp–0000.1750.8.32. Courtesy of Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal.

Illustrations

xv

6.1 Province of Quebec Association of Architects, 1894. Photographer: William Notman & Son. Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. From Canadian Architect and Builder (January 1895). Courtesy of author. 7.1 Sir Andrew Thomas Taylor. Photographer: Bassano, 1926. npg x36580. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

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Acknowledgments In writing this book I have depended on the help of many people over many years. The late John Bland, professor emeritus of Architecture at McGill, introduced me to Taylor’s buildings on the university campus and shared his thoughts. Throughout my subsequent research and writing, Robert Hill, editor and compiler of the online Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada 1800–1950, was indispensable, providing me with updated lists of Taylor’s works based on his own pioneer research in newspapers and journals. His generosity was crucial, since none of Taylor’s office records and very few of his drawings have survived. Fortunately, there is an extensive record in the Notman Photographic Archives at the McCord Museum in Montreal. There I was ably aided by Nora Hague, Stephanie Poisson, Heather McNabb, and Marilyn Aitken. At McGill, where much of my research took place, I was assisted by Marilyn Berger while she was head of the Blackader–Lauterman Library of Architecture and Art and more recently by Rare Books Librarian Ann Marie Holland and Liaison Librarian Jennifer Garland. Director Peter McNally of the History of McGill Project also helped, as did architect Peter Sijpkes, who opened his home, the former Bank of Montreal Point St Charles Branch. Yolaine Toussaint, corporate archivist for the bmo Financial Group in Montreal, has been unfailingly helpful to me in this and other research having to do with the bank’s historic architecture. Others in Canada assisted: Robert Lemire has long shared his extensive knowledge of Montreal architecture, Alison Rolland introduced me to the Métis summer community, and Jane Robertson found early newspaper accounts in the Ross Memorial Hospital archives in Lindsay, on. More recently, Kim Coulter, the hospital’s manager of communications and public relations, located early photographs. In Toronto,

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Acknowledgments

Richard Feltoe, curator and corporate archivist of the Redpath Sugar Museum, allowed me access to Redpath family material in the museum archives. Spyro Trifos, principal architect, Trifos Design Consultants, provided photographs of his firm’s work at the landmark Sydney, ns, branch of the Bank of Montreal. A number of individuals in England and Scotland shared their expertise. In London Peter Cormack, former director of the William Morris Gallery and Honorary Curator of Kelmscott Manor, and his colleague Michael Whiteway, principal of Haslam & Whiteway, contributed their views on Taylor’s domestic interiors. General Editor Andrew Saint of the Survey of London suggested a trip to the British Library Newspaper Collections in Colindale, where I was able to consult bound copies of the Hampstead and Highgate Express. Early on in my research, I spent many hours in the archives of University College, London, ably assisted by the then records officer, Elvina Foster. Architectural historian and writer Gavin Stamp directed me to colleagues in South Africa – architects Leon Roodt and Brian Kearney – who supplied me with information on George Hamilton-Gordon’s brief career there. In Edinburgh I was welcomed by Deborah Mays, director of projects at the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, and David Walker, professor emeritus at the University of St Andrews, co-author of the Pevsner Guide to Edinburgh, and first editor of the online Dictionary of Scottish Architects. I would especially like to thank the two individuals who kindly read the manuscript in early stages, Douglas Richardson, professor emeritus of the University of Toronto in the Department of Fine Art, and Dr Myra Nan Rosenfeld. I am also grateful to John Parry for his careful editing of a later version and to the two anonymous outside readers whose suggestions greatly improved the manuscript. The three redrawn plans were the work of Brian Dumont, Project Designer at Haynes & Garthwaite Architects in Norwich, vt. My thanks go to all those at McGill-Queen’s University Press who made this book a reality, especially Jacqueline Mason and Ryan Van Huijstee, and also Claude Lalumière, who did the final edit. Lastly, most deserving of thanks is my husband, Timothy Wagg, who has been my indispensable support throughout.

Abbreviations aabn American Architect and Building News bdac Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada 1800–1950 bmofg bmo Financial Group (formerly Bank of Montreal) cab Canadian Architect and Builder ce Canadian Encyclopedia dcb Dictionary of Canadian Biography jbcac John Bland Canadian Architecture Collection, Blackader–Lauterman Library of Architecture and Art, McGill University jriba Journal, Royal Institute of British Architects npa Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal. pqaa Province of Quebec Association of Architects riba Royal Institute of British Architects

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Foreword Andrew Thomas Taylor certainly left his mark on Canadian architecture. A Scot who practiced in Montreal for twenty years (1884–1904) before returning to Britain, Taylor benefitted from good training, an excellent sense of design, powerful family connections, and an instinct for seizing a good opportunity when he saw it. His many accomplishments include a portfolio of fine homes in Montreal’s elite Square Mile, some of McGill University’s most distinguished buildings, a series of banks across Canada for the Bank of Montreal, and a variety of other private, public, and institutional commissions in Canada and Great Britain. Taylor was also instrumental in organizing the architectural profession in Quebec. He was an architect who made a difference. Susan Wagg, an architectural historian who was active in Montreal for many years, presents us with a thorough account of Taylor and his buildings. Wagg’s many previous achievements have demonstrated her knowledge of the city and its architecture. They include a central role in organizing the fine exhibition of the architecture of Edward and W.S. Maxwell, shown at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1992, the catalogue of which I had the pleasure of co-editing with her. She also prepared an exhibition on Percy E. Nobbs, held at the McCord Museum in 1982, and selected the buildings and wrote the main text for Money Matters: A C ritical Look at Bank Architecture, an exhibition and catalogue produced by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Parnassus Foundation (1990). Wagg had the good fortune of working with the late John Bland, professor emeritus of Architecture at McGill, a gifted modernist architect and a committed architectural historian. Wagg notes that Bland “was a great fan

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Foreword

of Taylor” who urged her to investigate his little-known work. The outcome is this groundbreaking new book. The author pored over documentary records and early journals, piecing together Taylor’s life and buildings. Taylor left few writings, letters, or drawings – not nearly as much as one might have hoped. Wagg found sufficient evidence of Taylor’s extensive training and early practice in Scotland and London to demonstrate his firm grasp of the new architectural currents in Britain in the 1860s and 1870s. He matured just as the Gothic Revival was being succeeded by the unrestrained and picturesque eclecticism of the High Victorian era, the manner he brought with him to the New World. Taylor came to Canada in 1883 as an ambitious and well-connected architect of thirty-three, partner in the firm of Taylor & Gordon. George William Hamilton-Gordon, who remained in charge of the London office, had his own distinctive pedigree, being a cousin of the 7th earl of Aberdeen, Canada’s governor general in the 1890s. Taylor was ready to take a lead in the architecture of his adopted home. Wanting to ensure that he was familiar with the very newest and best, he soon visited New York and observed its trendsetting buildings. From his very first Canadian buildings, a five-unit row house and several semidetached residences within the Square Mile commissioned in 1883 (most by his extended family), Taylor showed his facility for well-composed, balanced asymmetry. He deviated from the Montreal tradition of making adjoining houses all look the same and combined red brick, stained wood, and tiles – the materials popularized in the Queen Anne Revival of Richard Norman Shaw – rather than using the city’s traditional dour grey limestone. From the colourful Richardsonian Romanesque of the West End Branch of the Bank of Montreal (1889) to the three science buildings for McGill University paid for by tobacco magnate W.C. Macdonald (1890–96), Taylor’s assertive contributions to Montreal architecture were widely admired in their day. Wagg describes Taylor’s buildings and their clients thematically and sequentially, including the circumstances of their commission. The copious illustrations reveal their appealing and handsome robustness. The book also provides a full list of Taylor’s known work in Canada and Britain, including their current status (far too many have been demolished), all adding to its considerable reference value.

Foreword

xxiii

While many of us have long sensed that Taylor was a key figure in Montreal and Canadian architecture, until now we had very little to go on, other than the one branch bank and the three McGill classroom buildings. I confess that I was able to cite only two (both Banks of Montreal) in A History of Canadian Architecture. Now at last, thanks to Wagg’s thorough monograph, Taylor’s career has been revealed and his role in architectural development can begin to be understood in its fullness. This is a book for many readers – for those who admire architecture, Montreal, the city’s late-nineteenth-century social milieu (who ever said Canada was solely a meritocracy?), and history. Enjoy! Harold Kalman Commonwealth Historic Resource Management Limited, Vancouver, bc

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Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor the

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Introduction

“His greatest happiness was work.” Walter Reynolds, “An Appreciation.” (1937) By 1900 Bank of Montreal branch banks designed by Andrew Taylor spanned the country, McGill University boasted the finest set of science buildings in the British Empire, Quebec architects had formed a professional organization, and McGill had a school of architecture. In all of these Taylor played a critical role. Yet to date no study of Taylor’s life and work has been undertaken, and the part he played in Canada’s development following the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway has gone unremarked. This book aims to fill this gap and to add to the woefully few monographs devoted to Canadian architects. Born in Edinburgh in 1850 Taylor opened his office in Montreal in 1883 with professional qualifications that were outstanding in Canada and family connections that gave him instant admittance into the tightly knit group of powerful Anglo-Scottish financiers and entrepreneurs – all based in Montreal – who comprised the crucial patronage group not only in the city but in much of Canada. Indeed by 1900 this corporate elite “either owned or controlled more than onethird of the railways, banks, factories, mines and other properties and resources that constituted Canada’s wealth at the time.” 1 Taylor’s arrival coincided with a time of rapid growth for the country. Montreal, long the terminus of the North Atlantic trade between British North America and Europe, had emerged as the country’s financial

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The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

and industrial centre and hub of its transportation system – soon to be linked not solely to Great Britain and the Continent but to Asia by rail and through the port at Vancouver. Links with its neighbour to the south had also increased. The building of the Victoria Bridge over the St Lawrence River in the 1850s had enabled rail traffic to the United States so that by 1880 Montreal was connected to most key American cities. These transportation improvements would directly impact Taylor’s work as an architect in Canada. The city itself was changing. Long divided into two linguistic groups, this division was reflected in the city’s layout: predominantly Frenchspeaking and working class in the eastern half; the western section north of the industrial district, home to middle- and upper-middleclass English speakers, with the Anglo-Scottish group, of which Taylor was a member, a dominant elite. By Taylor’s era, most residents lived within the city limits, which had expanded beyond the dismantled fortifications of the old city by the harbour. The major businesses were still located there, including Taylor’s own office and – on nearby St James Street – the banks, most notably the Bank of Montreal. The look of the western part of the city retained the dour Anglo-Scottish look familiar to and favoured by the business elite, a look that began to change in the 1880s as a second downtown core developed north and west along St Catherine Street. Taylor would participate in this change. Beyond the future new business district, on the lower slope of Mount Royal, were the spacious campus of McGill University, streets lined with the greystone row houses of the bourgeoisie, and – increasingly – the substantial, freestanding homes of the very rich. This sector, stretching from the eastern fringe of McGill to Côte des Neiges Road and from Dorchester Street up the slope of Mount Royal, came to be known as the Square Mile – an appropriation of a term used for the old City of London. It was in this sector that Taylor was most active, and where he and his Montreal relatives lived. Few francophones numbered among the ruling elite, architectural patronage among this language group, which made up more than 60 percent of the population, falling mainly to the Catholic Church, which held control of this group’s social, cultural, and educational institutions, and to the municipal government.

Introduction

5

Taylor’s two decades in Montreal (1883–1904) coincided with a major construction boom. The census reveals the city’s growth during his time there: 140,747 people in 1881; 216,650 in 1891; and 267,730 in 1901. The building trade expanded even faster: 231 new buildings in 1882, 429 in 1885, and 1,032 in 1889. In 1883, when Taylor opened his office, Lovell’s listed fourteen architectural firms; by 1890 there were twentysix. The challenges facing these and other Canadian architects in the later nineteenth century were daunting. The apprenticeship system that had long served as training was ill-suited to the unprecedented needs of a rapidly modernizing country. Models were shifting from Britain, where Taylor and so many architects practicing in Canada hailed from, to the United States – at the forefront of modern developments. Indeed, beginning in the 1880s Montreal architects faced unsettling competition from US confreres who were given important commissions in the city. Taylor would recognize and confront these challenges both with respect to his provincial associates and in his own practice.2 I first became aware of Andrew Taylor during many hours spent in the Canadian Architecture Collection at McGill while doing research on Taylor’s successor as architect to the university, Percy Nobbs, first for a master’s thesis devoted to Nobbs’s McGill architecture and subsequently for an exhibition and monograph on this gifted individual. I grew more and more interested in Taylor as I observed his various buildings on the campus – very different from Nobbs’s but greatly respected by him – and often discussed his work with the late John Bland, then professor emeritus of architecture and a great fan of Taylor. Founder and curator of McGill’s historic Canadian drawings collection, John was too busy teaching and encouraging his many students in addition to his work as a practicing architect to write extensively on Taylor. Nevertheless, he inspired me to continue to work on this intriguing figure in between other projects and over many years, including research elsewhere in Canada and in Great Britain. This has been a labour of love and hopefully will draw attention not only to Taylor and his work but also show that buildings are important signifiers of Canada’s history and only by knowing their stories can we ensure a sufficient number survive as visual reminders of this nation’s past.

Chapter One

Apprentice and Architect in Britain (1864–1883)

Andrew Thomas Taylor was born on 13 October 1850 in Edinburgh’s New Town. His father, James Taylor, was a printer with a business at 21 George Street. His mother, Agnes, was the daughter of George Drummond, a builder-contractor who specialized in house and horticultural building. The Taylors lived at 21 Broughton Place, a few blocks northeast of James’s printing establishment, but by 1852 they had moved to a new block of flats at 14 St Vincent Street, not far from 4 Henderson Row, on the northern fringe of the New Town, where Agnes’s father had his home and business. A member of town council 1843–51, Drummond took part probably in a later phase of construction of the New Town, perhaps building the St Vincent Street flats where Taylors lived. By 1854, the Taylors had moved to 16 St Vincent, where they remained until 1858, when they lived at 4 Abbey Mount. Edinburgh directories described James Taylor as both a printer and a publisher and 21 George as a “large type Christian library” or a “large type book and tract warehouse.” In 1862 his warehouse was at 31 South Castle Street. His grandfather’s building career likely inspired Andrew to choose architecture. By mid-century the architectural profession was rising in stature: Glasgow and Edinburgh founded architectural associations in 1858. In 1864 Taylor, at thirteen, began a five-year apprenticeship with Edinburgh’s Pilkington & Bell, among the most radical Gothic Revivalists in Britain.1

Apprentice and Architect in Britain (1864–1883)

7

A.W.N. Pugin and the Gothic Revival When Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, classicism had been the norm for so long that most British architects knew little about medieval architecture. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, medieval styles appeared occasionally, such as the richly picturesque Sir Walter Scott monument (1836) in Edinburgh’s Prince’s Street Gardens.2 The same year saw publication of A.W.N. Pugin’s gripping little propaganda piece, Contrasts, or a Parallel between the Architecture of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries and Similar Buildings of the Present Day. This young architect (born 1812) and recent convert to Roman Catholicism worked fanatically to revive the Middle Ages, when he believed true religion had flourished. Revival of Gothic, the style of medieval Christianity, required understanding of its basic forms and principles, so Pugin built in a “correct” English Gothic and continued to publish, dying young in 1852. Pugin’s passion caught fire in an age that valued spiritual matters, but he also convinced architects that Gothic was functional, that its forms were a direct expression of structure and relevant for all modern buildings. While he executed only ecclesiastical, educational, and domestic commissions, his books included ingenious projects for engineering works, city row houses, even shops3 – priceless to colleagues struggling to accommodate the new and staggering needs of the Victorian age. By the 1840s many young practitioners – including soon-to-be leaders of the profession – were learning Gothic Revival from Pugin’s books and works. George Gilbert Scott, the most successful of mid-Victorian architects, enthused: “I was awakened from my slumbers by the thunder of Pugin’s writings. I well remember the enthusiasm to which one of them excited me, one night when travelling by railway, in the first years of their existence. I was from that moment a new man. What for fifteen years had been a labour of love only, now became the one business, the one aim, the one overmastering object of my life. I cared for nothing as regarded my art but the revival of Gothic architecture. I did not know Pugin, but his image in my imagination was like my guardian angel, and I often dreamed that I knew him.”4 In Edinburgh the compact Old Town, on a narrow ridge in the shadow of its ancient castle, was rich in medieval remnants. Below and to the north spread the orderly squares, crescents, and circuses of

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The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

the neoclassical New Town – spacious, elegant, planned development that began in the 1760s to siphon off the wealthier classes to gracious, palace-fronted buildings – some designed by Robert Adam. After 1810, classicism turned from Roman inspiration to Greek – Edinburgh was to be “the modern Athens.” Greek Revival landmarks include William Playfair’s temple-like Royal Scottish Academy (1822–26; 1831–36) on Princes Street and the nearby National Gallery (1850–54) and other structures on Calton Hill – the “Scottish Acropolis.” Although local classicists continued to work in a solid and dignified vein well past mid-century, the Gothic Revival had taken root. R.W. Billings’s fourvolume Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland (1845–52), with its accurate and dramatic illustrations, became a critical source.

Gothic Apprenticeship (1864–69) By 1864, when Taylor joined Pilkington & Bell, some innovative Gothic Revivalists had moved on from Pugin’s medievalism to a more colourful, eclectic, contemporary “modern Gothic” (High Victorian Gothic). The most extreme – the “Rogues” – included Frederick Pilkington (1832–98) himself.5 His Barclay Memorial Free Church (1864), in Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh, epitomized his daring at its best – powerful and polychromatic, overscaled forms compressed on a small site, culminating in a splendid, banded masonry spire that is visible for miles. The English architect J.T. Micklethwaite in 1873 mocked this wild phase of the Gothic Revival (1850–70): “The common symptoms [of these] … churches are harshness, even to brutality of general design, with studied ugliness and systematic exaggeration and distortion of details, stumpy banded pillars, stilted arches, a profusion of coarse carving, notches, zigzags, curves … and long wiry crockets bursting out of unexpected places … like hatpegs … [This type of architecture] may be defined as the perpetual forcing into notice of the personality of the architect … ‘See,’ he says in his work, ‘what a clever fellow I am.’”6 Critics in the 1860s thought such work progressive, but a decade later many thought it a failure, resulting not in a new style but merely in extreme eclecticism. Yet, à propos of Barclay Church, Gavin Stamp pointed to “the seriousness and practicality underlying this most original expression of Gothic freedom,” which allowed a spacious

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auditorium suitable to Presbyterian worship, rather than the long nave and deep chancel of ecclesiologically correct Gothic.7 Pilkington “rose beyond eccentricity to genius” there, but his lessons “were discarded in favour of pedantic, Anglophile Gothic correctness.”8 For young Andrew Taylor, apprenticing with such an architect when the style was in its prime allowed him to learn in unusually avantgarde surroundings. It is perhaps not surprising that he would soon be sufficiently adventurous to open an office in Canada and there adapt neomedieval styles (among others) and prove himself open to the latest US advances as well. After Barclay Church, Pilkington & Bell undertook a church at Kelso, in Scott’s Border Country. St John’s, Edenside, was in the same vein as Barclay Church, and Taylor’s feeling for the power, texture, and colour of natural materials and his love of architectural carving undoubtedly began then.

Floors Castle (1869–71) After completing his apprenticeship in 1869, Taylor worked near Kelso for the architect to the Duke of Roxburghe, whose vast and breathtaking Floors Castle lies about two-and-a-half miles northwest of the town across the River Tweed. Taylor perhaps assisted with plans for minor new buildings and supervised alterations on the farms.9 His eighteen months there probably intensified his budding antiquarian interests, for this region boasted many medieval ecclesiastical buildings. Around Kelso lay the remains of the great Border Abbeys of Dryburgh, Jedburgh, Kelso, and Melrose – backgrounds to Scott’s classics, which awakened popular interest in medieval architecture and encouraged a national taste for Gothic. As Charles Eastlake wrote in 1872, “Scott drew public attention to the romantic side of archeology. It had hitherto been regarded as a formal science. He charmed it into an attractive art.”10 Floors Castle exemplified this awakening interest. In 1724 it was “an antient seat” when William Adam was rebuilding it in a plain classical style to suit Georgian taste.11 Between 1838 and 1845 W.H. Playfair extended and remodelled it “in the castle style,” replete with hood moulds, corbelling, castellated parapets, and towers crowned by pepper-pot turrets – typical of the picturesque, unscholarly medievalism

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that preceded Pugin. The evocative, scenographic pile suits its site perfectly – high up on a terrace commanding a view of the Tweed, the remains of medieval Roxburghe Castle, and the distant Cheviot Hills that mark the Border.

Aberdeen and Classicism (1871–72) Taylor left this idyllic but ultimately limiting environment for the office of William Smith (1817–1891), city architect of Aberdeen, who, with Prince Albert, designed Balmoral Castle for the prince consort and his queen. Smith was a leader in the nineteenth-century transformation of Aberdeen from a medieval burgh to a modern industrial city. Following passage of the Aberdeen New Streets Act of 1800, William Smith’s father, John Smith, became city architect and supervised major changes in town planning. The entire south end of King Street – “an imposing sequence of integrated classical design” – was largely the work of John Smith and Archibald Simpson, the city’s foremost architect.12 In 1871 William Smith, who had trained under the Victorian classicist T.L. Donaldson, was completing the Boys’ and Girls’ Hospital on King Street.13 Andrew Taylor certainly knew about Victorian classicism.

London, Clarke, and Ecclesiology (1872–79) In 1872 Taylor left Scotland for London, entering the office of Joseph Clarke (1819–1888), where he remained until 1879.14 Clarke was a leading figure in English Gothic Revival circles, principally building and restoring churches – a busy field during Victoria’s reign and where the most important developments in English architecture were taking place. Between 1830 and 1860 some 1,500 new churches were built, compared with only 2,000 from the Reformation to 1830. By 1873, moreover, the country had seen restoration of one-third of all existing parish churches.15 Perhaps young Taylor liked church architecture – his father was a religious publisher, and Andrew was a devout Presbyterian. A friend described Taylor as “an earnestly though never obtrusively religious man” and enjoyed sitting “at his table where, although there was no alcohol, the other good things provided were always as liberal and generous as the host himself. He was outwardly austere, but with a soft heart easily touched by any tale of distress.”16

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Joseph Clarke was a prominent member of the Ecclesiological Society, which expanded Pugin’s ideas and applied them to the Anglican (Church of England) Church. Its influential Ecclesiologist spread the word, applying “correct” Gothic not only to new churches but to genuine medieval churches needing restoration. “Woe betide any architect who had the temerity to offend [the Ecclesiologists]!”17 Historian Martin Cherry found that failure “to master the approved forms” harmed one of the two practices he studied.18 In Canada, an “approved” architect, Frank Wills, had accompanied John Medley, who became Anglican bishop of New Brunswick in 1845, to work on a new cathedral for Fredericton. Wills designed Montreal’s new cathedral, Christ Church (1857–59), and helped launch the US Gothic Revival, gaining (along with two other architects) the approval of the New York Ecclesiological Society. Joseph Clarke was a diocesan architect, a new and important professional post, serving Canterbury, Rochester, and St Albans – the first, the spiritual centre for England and seat of the primate. As such he had a major role in “setting architectural policy and enforcing the architectural side of the bishop’s programmes.”19 With bishops’ influence and patronage on the rise, such connections could be crucial to an architect. Clarke was also architectural advisor to the Incorporated Church Building Society, which was supervising restoration and recommending architects, rather than builders, for ecclesiastical work. Thus Andrew Taylor was working in a leading London office, where he could master the grammar and vocabulary of approved church design. In the absence of generally accepted professional accreditation, this would surely enhance his prospects. Chris Miele wrote that young architects working for George Gilbert Scott and George Edmund Street (two of the busiest church architects) received “an object-lesson in building craft [and] the opportunity to make important patronage contacts with local gentry and clergy.”20 Street himself observed in 1861: “No work affords better training for an architect than the study which is involved to become a thoroughly good restorer of ancient buildings.”21 According to Miele, architects such as Scott helped their employees establish independent practices, passing along to them small commissions. Clarke seems to have done the same for Taylor.22 In Canada, the younger man would take on a variety of ecclesiastical

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work and lecture on the subject at Presbyterian College in Montreal. Clarke was a vice-president and councillor of the Royal Institute of British Architects (riba)23 and proposed Taylor as an associate in February 1878, writing to council member Charles Eastlake that he thought of the young man “in every way as most eligible.”24 In 1874 Taylor had won the riba’s prize-essay medal for “The Architecture of London in the Sixteenth Century”; a medal of merit in the Soane competition, also in the 1870s; and in 1881 a medal for The Towers and Steeples Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, published by Batsford the same year. The Builder called it “a sensible and pleasantly-written little book, and the views serve to show the variety that Wren’s steeples display.”25 According to Nikolaus Pevsner, publishing such books was “a usual thing to do in the mid-Victorian decades, as it established the author as a scholar and an artist and at the same time as a potentially resourceful practitioner.”26 Taylor stressed historic preservation, for many of Wren’s London churches were under threat in the rapidly expanding city – ten had disappeared in two decades. Those remaining, wrote Taylor, “should be reverently received, cherished, and preserved … These creations of Wren’s genius ought to be dear to every Englishman, and especially to every Londoner.”27 Taylor did not hesitate to critique Wren’s occasional use of seventeenth-century Gothic but greatly admired his steeples for their beauty and inventiveness, sound construction, fine materials, and quality workmanship – the last three high on Pugin’s agenda. “Wren,” wrote Taylor, “took no liberties, and ran no risks; there is no rule-ofthumb work, all his construction is sound and thoroughly scientific.” He “overlooked nothing” and was “scrupulous in small matters.”28 While no match for Wren, Taylor would exhibit similar concerns in his own work. Joseph Clarke was for years honorary secretary of the Architectural Museum (later the Royal Architectural Museum), founded in 1851 to improve professional skills by displaying casts, drawings, fragments, photographs, and tracings for young architects and art-workmen to study. The museum’s bias was Gothic; for example, Gilbert Scott provided a fine collection of casts from Ely Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, while John Ruskin secured examples from France and Italy. The Ecclesiological Society donated its own collection. After 1869 the

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museum occupied neo-Gothic premises in Tufton Street, Westminster, the work of Clarke and Ewan Christian.29 Taylor took courses at the Architectural Association, a self-help body that London draughtsmen and apprentices had set up in 1847. He also attended the Royal Academy Schools, whose instructor Richard Phené Speirs had trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Such educational opportunities supplemented the pupilage system. The Royal Academy set aside space annually for architectural designs and drawings – especially after its move to Burlington House in 1869. Taylor exhibited a pen and ink drawing, “Tower of the Church of St Jacques, Antwerp,” in 1875; “The Judgement Corner, Doge’s Palace, Venice” in 1878; “Design for Memorial Lych Gate, Carmarthen” in 1879; a rendering of one of his own early projects, “Memorial Halls and Schools, Dover” (see below) in 1880; and “Roslin Chapel” in 1881. The drawings were submitted from various addresses (16 Oakley Road, Islington, 56 Bouverie Road, 29 Finsbury Place, and 72 Finsbury Pavement). The first two were presumably his lodgings in the northeast suburbs of London while he worked for Clarke, the latter two those of his own office – the name and numbering of Finsbury Place having changed by 1881.30 Clearly Taylor travelled and sketched, like many young architects. He visited Belgium and Normandy, as well as in various parts of England, Scotland, and Wales. In 1879, he spent two months in France and Italy, touring mainly the principal cities and towns of Italy.31 At a time when past precedents shaped modern styles, sketchbooks provided design inspiration. Moreover, careful observation and the honing of draughting and measuring techniques were all invaluable, especially for restoration work.32 The Scottish Victorian architect Rowand Anderson thought such visual recording “analogous to anatomy in the study of medicine.”33

Memorial Hall and Schools, Dover (1880–81) In 1879 Taylor opened his own office in London, at Moorgate Chambers, 29 Finsbury Place, just north of the City. He had the previous year become an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (riba) and in 1879 received his district surveyor’s certificate: he could now

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supervise local building standards and thereby generate additional income.34 Taylor’s 1889 application for full membership in the riba listed his first commissions in 1880 – all in the London area: alterations to a warehouse on Commercial Road, decoration of the parish church at Highbury, and several villas and buildings in St John’s Wood. For these there is no visual documentation, but a sizeable commission that year in Dover appeared in the Builder (14 May 1881): a brief description and full-page perspective (with plan tucked into one corner) for an attached chapel and school for a Baptist congregation. This early project perfectly demonstrated the Gothic Revival principle of “development,” an idea that first appeared in the Ecclesiologist in 1847 and underlay the style’s theory till about 1900.35 “Development” moved Gothic Revival away from archaeological correctness to address nonmedieval issues such as use of modern building materials and methods. George Edmund Street, whom we met above, considered Gothic not a frozen, finished method of reproducing earlier buildings but eminently viable, ready to evolve and adapt.36 Moreover, he accepted all Gothic, not just its English forms. George Gilbert Scott, who had employed Street in the 1840s, designed both churches and nonreligious structures and sought an evolutionary approach. His popular Remarks on Secular and Domestic Architecture, Present and Future (1857) promoted Gothic’s adaptability: “I want … to show to the public that we aim not at a dead antiquarian revival, but at developing upon the basis of the indigenous architecture of our own country, a style which will be pre-eminently that of our own age, and will naturally … meet all its requirements, and embrace all its arts, improvements, and inventions.”37 Robert Macleod concluded: “To someone like Scott, working in the heart of nineteenth-century commercial pressures, development, or adaptability, was the corner-stone of his architectural doctrine.”38 This approach shaped Taylor’s pupilage, and Frederick Pilkington “exploited the theoretical functional flexibility of the Gothic Revival further than anyone,” in Gavin Stamp’s view.39 Even though Pugin laid the groundwork for Victorian Gothic, the style also attracted nonconformists.40 Taylor’s project for the Dover Baptists demanded flexibility and “rather special planning.”41 The site was difficult: a narrow frontage of about twenty feet, wider behind, narrowing to a strip. Abutting buildings dictated obtaining most of the

1.1 Memorial Hall and Schools, Dover, England (1880–81). Perspective by Taylor, 1880.

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The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

light for the chapel (or “hall”) from the top. The chapel seated between four and five hundred people, and the school, about three hundred children. There were also vestries and a kitchen. The published plan gave little indication of Taylor’s ingenious layout. The chapel occupied the widest part of the lot, where a large rose window, deeply set but facing toward the street, provided some light; more came from sloping skylights set in a monitor straddling the roof ridge. Since natural light was at a premium even on the street front, much of this narrow but tall elevation contained windows on the upper two floors for the classrooms. The Builder’s view showed many (if not all) the squares of glazing as operable, to ventilate portions of the building. The Priory Road front was of red brick with Bath stone dressings, while the rest was of “picked stocks” (common brick). By 1880 the extreme structural polychromy of High Victorian had moderated, but town churches had tended since the 1850s to be of brick, which the Ecclesiologist in 1851 praised as the pre-eminent urban material – tough and colourful. G.E. Street was the leading advocate of brick, by itself or together with stone and suitable for eclectic grafting.42 Taylor’s three-storey facade – gable-ended and set between shallow buttresses – was remarkable for its open appearance and high proportion of glass. The entrance door was placed beneath a round, ever so slightly pointed arch, with three circular lights piercing the tympanum. To the left was a “Tuscan Gothic” motif: a pair of barely pointed windows separated by a mullion with a single circular light in the spandrel beneath an arch to match the entrance. Pointed windows filled in the next level between the buttresses. On the upper level a triplet of similarly arched lights were set under a relieving arch in the gable. The peak contained three tiny lancets. Crowning the whole was a saddle-backed bell turret. Taylor appears to have followed some of Street’s precepts for town churches, including high and smooth walls, slight projections, and large windows to deal with crowded cities’ darker conditions as well as opportunities for colour, contrast, and limited decoration in the alternating use of stone and brick (including a few terracotta ornaments).43 The young architect’s adherence to the principle of “development” was evident in his design – a floor plan and street elevation that he

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cleverly devised to fit a program for which there was no medieval precedent. He struck a delicate balance between sturdy round-arched Romanesque – which nonconformists often favoured – and the soaring pointed vocabulary of Gothic, which the Church of England loved. His materials were practical and economical, but varied enough to afford a limited palette and some opportunities for picturesque display in the streetscape. As the Builder pointed out, he also paid attention to modern ventilation and heating – “the latter being by means of Porritt’s underground stove.”44

Almshouses, Chislehurst (1881) Taylor’s riba application (1889) listed another substantial commission for 1881, which would appear seven years later in the Canadian Architect and Builder.45 This was a row of ten almshouses (charitable housing for the poor) in Chislehurst, Kent, on the High Street near James Brooks’s very notable Church of the Annunciation (1869). A plaque indicates that parishioners Anne and Maria Eleanor Anderdon founded and endowed the houses in memory of their parents.46 Taylor’s former employer Joseph Clarke may have directed this commission (and perhaps the Dover one as well) to Taylor. Nikolaus Pevsner’s architectural guides listed a number of works, large and small, by Clarke all over southeastern England, including the Church of St Bartholomew in Dover, which he designed in 1866 and which was consecrated in 1879, the year Taylor left Clarke.47 The almshouses would give Taylor a chance to work in the Kentish vernacular, in a late-medieval mode, using the bright red brick, half-timbering, and tilework indigenous to the region. Taylor’s row of dwellings was two storeys high, with a continuous low-pitched roof covering all the units. Three cross-gables marked the ends and centre, the largest at midpoint. There the gable overhung a bay of leaded casement windows, with small balconies fronting flanking flush casements. Between the balconies a decorative panel contained a sundial, with a pair of sunflowers in pots (a favourite motif of the Aesthetic movement) bordering it.48 At ground level the entrance door was set back between window bays, while two secondary doorways opened into little gabled porches. Flanking these were two-storey bays

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with dormers crowning casement windows; larger window bays at the ends concluded the sequence. Above the red brick base, there was half-timbering between bays and in the gables, while the upper storey was tile hung. Tiles also covered the roof, although lichens and mosses have darkened these. Tall ribbed chimneys, a weathervane, and finials punctuated the roofline. This type of picturesque, medievalizing composition with its halftimbering, tile-hanging, leaded windows, and massive chimneys, suggestive of ancient custom, was highly fashionable at the time. During the 1860s, the London architect Richard Norman Shaw, who had worked as G.E. Street’s assistant, enriched the austere Gothic Revival stone or red brick domestic architecture of Street and his contemporaries with picturesque elements from the pretty old manors, farmhouses, and cottages of the Weald, a region in Kent, Surrey, and Essex that abounded in superlative brick and tilework. Shaw’s “Old English” mix became enormously popular in the 1870s, following exhibition of one of his modern country houses, Leyswood in Sussex, at the Royal Academy in 1870. Publication of this and other works by Shaw spread his influence through Britain and in North America and spurred development of the Shingle Style.49 For Kent, Taylor’s choice of Old English was ideal, recalling old building traditions and prototypes for modern philanthropy. Architecture involved the art of

1.2 Almshouses, Chislehurst, England (1881). Perspective by Taylor, 1881.

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communication; for Victorians stylistic choices conveyed messages – in this case, perhaps, educated taste along with Christian charity. In 1882 in Chislehurst Taylor designed two cottages and an addition to a residence at Chislehurst Common, possibly from an influential family connection.50 In 1880 his stepcousin Peter Redpath – son of Montreal industrialist John Redpath (who had apprenticed with Taylor’s Drummond grandfather) and hence stepson of Taylor’s aunt Jane Drummond Redpath – left Canada to live permanently in England with his English wife. He settled in Chislehurst, buying the Old Manor House, and set himself up as lord of the manor. A memorial publication at his death in 1894 noted that he “took great pleasure in restoring and improving the house and grounds, till it became an ideal English country house of the olden type.”51

Glasgow Municipal Buildings: Competition (1881–82) During these early years of independent practice Taylor entered a competition for the Glasgow Municipal Buildings, collaborating with little-known English architect Henry Hall (1826–1909).52 Hall had a large and comfortable, mainly country, practice but loved competitions, according to Taylor: “Working early and late at these he was always optimistic, and non-success in one only spurred him on to success in another.”53 Unlike Hall, most architects disliked competitions, often because of the prejudices, ignorance, and ineptitude of nonprofessional committees. Yet they were the normal way corporate bodies selected architects, and the winner might gain much money and fame. Alfred Waterhouse (1830–1905) rose to the heights of the profession after winning the Manchester Assize Courts competition in 1859. The Glasgow contest – one of the great municipal competitions – reflected the extraordinary growth of Britain’s industrial cities throughout the nineteenth century and the need to accommodate an expanding bureaucracy and the new machinery of government. Display was the chief desideratum for the city corporation. In the 1850s one Leeds citizen, campaigning for a tower for the new town hall, said: “The municipal buildings … besides the primary object of furnishing convenient accommodation … are intended to present an appearance worthy of the wealth and prosperity of the town.”54 Glasgow

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experienced a serious depression following a bank failure in 1878 but recovered quickly, largely because of the expansion of shipbuilding; opulent new municipal buildings projected recovery and confidence. A first competition in 1880 was set aside on grounds of cost but left a legacy of plans that fixed the basic outline and ensured an awkward tower and main facade, “hamstringing the best of them.”55 The second competition, which Hall and Taylor entered, took place in 1881. As in the earlier one, Charles Edward Barry (former professor of Architecture at King’s College, London) was a judge; the city engineer joined him following criticism over Barry’s handling of the first competition. With the cost of the building increased from £150,000 to £250,000, Barry now proposed two competitions, a preliminary and a final one. Designs from England, France, Germany, Ireland, and Scotland were among the initial 125 entries, from which ten finalists emerged. Taylor and Hall lost this final round by one vote.56 In his study of Victorian and Edwardian town halls, Colin Cunningham noted that “the development from small market-space-

1.3 Glasgow Municipal Buildings. Second Premiated Design, 1881.

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and-assembly-room to the great municipal palace took place entirely within Victoria’s reign.”57 As an example, the Glasgow building needed, in addition to city offices, a grand council chamber, a large banqueting hall and reception rooms for official gatherings, and a series of galleries for pictures and sculpture. Stylistically, variety was the rule throughout the century. Various forms of classicism emerged for civic buildings, from the Roman temple-form Birmingham Town Hall begun in 1832 to the monumentality and magnificence of St George’s Hall in Liverpool (1841–56) and Leeds Town Hall (1853–58). Gothic also became popular, most notably with Alfred Waterhouse’s Manchester Town Hall (1868– 77), on an awkward triangular site, which highlighted flexible planning and a picturesque exterior.58 An article on town halls in the Builder in 1878 argued that Gothic was more suitable than classical for a building with many functions.59 Glasgow, however, had a strong classical tradition. Moreover, the imposing site, at the head of George Square, as well as the corporation’s towering aspirations, seemed to call for the grandeur of classicism. While William Young, a London-based Scot, won the competition, Taylor noted that “some of the arrangements of [his and Hall’s] … design were considered superior to those in the successful design, [and] the Council asked permission to adopt and embody these in the buildings to be erected, which was granted.” He did not specify these arrangements.60 Hall and Taylor’s design – “Renaissance of a French character” – was square in plan, with rooms around an inner court to provide light.61 This was also true of the winning entry. Apart from the massive tower that soared behind the central bays, Hall and Taylor’s conception owed much to Visconti and Lefuel’s sumptuous Second Empire New Louvre of 1852–57. The hollow-square plan for Glasgow, with pavilions at the corners and in the middle of each range, the mansard roof, the pedimented frontispieces and dormer windows (both decorated with sculpture), and opulent detailing in general all suggest this influence. Yet Taylor and Hall’s is an additive mixture of classicizing details, changing at each floor level, reminiscent of a layer cake. The winning design, also chock-full of details, is more organized – “over-ornate but not fiddly.”62 In Hall and Taylor’s entry, the heavy tower loomed gigantically above the facade in a highly unsatisfactory relationship. Young’s tower has seemed to at least one observer “a Renaissance reworking, stage by

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The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

stage, of St Vincent Street” (the Glasgow architect “Greek” Thomson’s St Vincent Street Church, a city landmark).63 This important competition gleaned Taylor and Hall much publicity – a double-page perspective in the Building News in October 1882 and an article in the Canadian Magazine of Science and the Industrial Arts in 1883, complete with perspective and plans. When Henry Hall proposed Taylor for fellowship in the riba in 1889, he noted their involvement in other competitions, which “gave him the opportunity of testifying to his ability.”64

Partnership and the Montreal Office (1882–83) In 1882 Taylor took on a well-connected partner, George William Hamilton-Gordon (1855–1906). Educated at Eton, Hamilton-Gordon was the son of a Church of England canon and grandson of George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th earl of Aberdeen, prime minister 1852–55. He was also a nephew of the eminent colonial governor Lord Stanmore and a cousin of the 7th earl of Aberdeen, who would serve as governor general of Canada 1893–98. Hamilton-Gordon articled with Alfred Waterhouse in 1874 and became his assistant four years later. During this period Waterhouse carried out Manchester Town Hall; Eaton Hall, the Duke of Westminster’s seat in Cheshire; and London’s Natural History Museum.65 The younger man’s experience with such monumental secular projects would have added breadth to the partnership and, presumably, useful contacts. Now with a partner in London – no doubt a prudent safeguard – in 1883 Andrew Taylor embarked for Canada and opened an office in Montreal. The firm was known as “Taylor & Gordon, Montreal and London, England,” providing the new enterprise with international cachet. While Gordon later referred to his “experience of Colonial Architecture,” it is unlikely that he spent much if any time in Canada or worked on the firm’s projects there. He only appears in Lovell’s 1885–86 directory, where his residence is listed as London, England. In 1886 in his applicaton for associateship of the riba he wrote that he and Taylor had “erected a large number of public and private buildings in Montreal, Ottawa, [and] Toronto in Canada, as well as in this country.” This was a considerable overstatement of the firm’s work in 1886; moreover, the

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riba Kalendar consistently gives his addresses as London, England. According to the Dictionary of Scottish Architects Gordon remained in charge of the London office, and the partnership dissolved in 1888. The Montreal practice was by far the most successful one. In 1904, the year Taylor retired to England, Gordon moved to South Africa to become director of Public Works for the Orange River Colony. He died there in 1906 from the effects of severe dysentery. Taylor did take along a young assistant, Arthur J. Cooke (1863–1903), who had apprenticed in the London office and who eventually set up on his own in Montreal, designing mainly houses. Taylor himself designed a series of houses beginning in 1883, but by 1884 had a large commission from the Bank of Montreal. For this he took on another partner, Robert William Gambier Bousfield (1860–1920) – Lovell’s for 1885–86 listed the firm as Taylor, Gordon & Bousfield. This early partner was born in England and articled in Nottingham, became an associate of the riba in 1882, and ultimately immigrated to Canada. Lovell’s listed Taylor, Gordon & Bousfield until 1888–89, when it reverted to Taylor & Gordon. By this time, however, Bousfield was working on his own in Toronto, eventually settling in New York. Taylor’s firm carried on as Taylor & Gordon until 1902–03, after which it appears as Taylor, Hogle & Davis. Morley W. Hogle (1870–1920) was born in Phillipsburg, Quebec, and trained under Taylor; Huntley Ward Davis (1875–1952) was a native Montrealer and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1898. He returned to work under Taylor, his up-to-date technical training no doubt being especially valuable. The firm continued as Taylor, Hogle & Davis following Taylor’s departure for England in 1904, at which time he retired from practice.66 In 1883, when Taylor opened his office, there were fourteen architectural firms advertising in Lovell’s. The older generation included both native-born practitioners and immigrants from the British Isles. Generally the former, such as A.C. Hutchison (1838–1922), who was born in Montreal, emerged from the building trade and were selftaught. The more fortunate John James Browne (1837–1893) learned in his architect father’s office in Quebec City augmented by travels in Europe. The immigrants, such as the dean of Montreal architects, John W. Hopkins (1825–1905), articled in the British Isles – in Hopkins’s case in Liverpool – before opening their offices in Montreal.

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A harbinger of the next Canadian-born generation was A.F. Dunlop (1842–1923) from Montreal, who worked in the offices of both Brownes – father and son – but went to Detroit to gain experience, a highly unusual step at the time. Interestingly, neither the able John James Browne nor his equally talented colleague, William Tutin Thomas (1828–92), who came to Montreal from Toronto in 1864, advertised in the 1883–84 Lovell’s. Perhaps they had no need. However, for younger Canadians such as Edward Maxwell (1868– 1923) and his brother William (1874–1952), whose father ran a lumber business, gaining experience in the United States became almost de rigueur in order to keep up with recent developments there and bring their expertise back to Canada. They would need this knowledge as Canada modernized during the 1890s, lest they lose even more important commissions to US firms such as Babb, Cook & Willard (New York Life Insurance Company, 1887–88); Bruce Price (Windsor Station, 1888–89); Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge (Board of Trade Building, 1891– 93); and Richard Waite (Canada Life Assurance Company, 1894–96). Thus Edward Maxwell presciently apprenticed with Dunlop in Montreal and then in the late 1880s went to Boston to work in the office of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, successors to the great Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The younger William Maxwell also went to Boston to further his architectural education, but then spent time in Paris in an atelier associated with the École des Beaux-Arts. The partnership the two brothers formed in 1902 would become one of the most significant in Canada’s history.67 Taylor, for his part, followed this trend in the late 1890s by hiring Huntley Ward Davis with his mit degree and calling on two of the most prestigious firms in the United States to undertake work on the Bank of Montreal head office at Place d’Armes. These were the New York decorators Herter Brothers, collaborators on Taylor’s own interior renovation in 1885–86, and McKim, Mead & White, engaged as principals for the grand expansion of 1901–05. More significant, as the new century opened, Taylor designed Winnipeg’s first tall office building for the Merchants Bank of Canada (1900–02). In early 1880s Montreal, Taylor was uniquely placed. He had the most thorough, up-to-date training Great Britain could offer, some familiarity with new work in the United States after a recent trip there, and the

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latest London fashions at his fingertips. At the same time, he was blessed with a client base that was equally unique, most notably Montreal’s powerful Redpath family, with their longtime ties to major institutions including the Bank of Montreal and McGill University. Through the Redpaths’ connections to McGill, Taylor acquired the most munificent client of all – William Macdonald, who, as Stephen Leacock succinctly put it, “seldom had much to say except ‘yes’ for another million.”68 Taylor also enjoyed the patronage of Andrew Frederick Gault, the “Cotton King of Canada,” and Montagu Allan, son of a founder of the Allan Steamship Company, president of the Merchants Bank of Canada, and inheritor of the most famous house in the city, Ravenscrag, built for his father Sir Hugh, in 1861–63. Occasional clients included philanthropist Herbert Brown Ames, author of The City below the Hill, and millionaire railway engineer and businessman James Ross. Other architects in the 1883 Lovell’s list were favoured by individual clients, but none boasted Taylor’s connections. By the late 1890s, things had changed. There were many more architects – thirty-one advertising in 1893, and Edward Maxwell, returning from Boston in 1891 to supervise construction of the Board of Trade Building for his US employers Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, caught the eye of members of the “cpr crowd,” men who had made their fortunes building the now-completed railway. Edward soon went into practice (1892) in his native city, the cpr as important to him as the Redpaths were to Taylor. In 1901 Taylor became a member of the Mount Royal Club, located in the heart of the Square Mile on Sherbrooke Street.69 Founded in 1899 by the financial elite as the most exclusive club in the city, eclipsing the St James on Dorchester Street, George Drummond was the first president and – at the time – Taylor the sole architect admitted. While Edward Maxwell was engaged to renovate the initial premises for club purposes, neither he nor his brother were ever members.70 It says much of Taylor’s unique position within Montreal society that during his two decades in Canada he was closely involved in many of the institutions that employed him as an architect: a director of the Boys’ Home, a life-governor of the Montreal General Hospital, a governor of the Protestant Hospital for the Insane, and a councillor of the Art Association of Montreal. Like many of his clients, he was a member

26

The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

of the Montreal Board of Trade. As though this voluntary service was not sufficient, during his years in Canada Taylor served as president of the Province of Quebec Association of Architects and honorary secretary for Canada of the riba and became an academician of the Royal Canadian Academy. Finally, this tireless individual found time to teach freehand and model drawing in McGill’s Faculty of Applied Science and to lecture on ecclesiastical architecture at Presbyterian College.71 Linked by ties of business, blood, and marriage, the privileged residents of Montreal’s Square Mile welcomed Andrew Taylor as one of their own.

Chapter two

Homes for Montrealers (1884–1902)

The Redpaths Taylor’s decision to open an office in Montreal in 1883 – the year he turned thirty-three – may have been a response to encouragement from his stepcousin Peter Redpath (1821–1894), then living in the Old Manor House in Chislehurst, Kent. Redpath was still a governor of McGill University and would be a major client, entrusting Taylor with the design of McGill’s Redpath Library in 1891. While Taylor’s solid training and varied experience doubtless aided his success in Canada, his Redpath connections were crucial, for this family had long been leaders among Canada’s business and social elite. His mother’s sister, Jane Drummond (1815–1907), became in 1835 the second wife of John Redpath (1796–1869), who established the family’s wealth and influence. John had trained in Edinburgh as a stonemason under George Drummond, Taylor’s builder grandfather, and left Scotland in 1816, seeking a better life.1 He helped develop both the Lachine Canal (1821–25) in Montreal and the Rideau Canal (1826–32), the greatest public works in early British North America. As a contractor he also worked on Notre-Dame Church in Montreal and the original McGill College buildings. In 1825 the Bank of Montreal asked him to repair its building on St James Street, and he began buying shares in the bank with his Rideau Canal fortune. He joined the board in 1833; two years before, as a widower, he married Jane

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The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

Drummond, George’s daughter. At the Bank of Montreal, he became permanent head of the building committee, inspecting new sites and buildings for expansion into Canada West (Ontario). When the bank constructed a grand new head office in 1845 – the building that still stands on Place d’Armes – Redpath worked with the architect, John Wells, and contractors. One of Andrew Taylor’s first jobs in Canada in the 1880s was a major interior remodelling of this building. After a highly successful career as a building contractor, Redpath decided to found a sugar refinery in Montreal – the first in the Province of Canada. In 1853, while visiting Edinburgh, he engaged as its manager his brother-in-law George Alexander Drummond (1829– 1910). The young man was studying at Edinburgh University and arrived in Montreal in 1854 with vital technical expertise. He married Helen Redpath, a daughter of John and his first wife, Janet McPhee. In 1882 he joined the board of the Bank of Montreal, succeeding his brother-in-law Peter Redpath after his departure for England. The Redpath family was active in many institutions that would engage Taylor: John was a supporter of the Montreal General Hospital (and chaired its committee of management for years) and principal founder of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He had a large family: ten children by his first wife and seven with his second (Taylor’s aunt Jane). Despite frequent travels abroad, his eldest son, Peter, became one of McGill’s great early benefactors, continued the family’s gifts to Presbyterian College, and long served as president of the Montreal General Hospital board. Other Redpath children, from John’s second marriage (1835) – and thus Taylor’s first cousins – would be early clients: Francis Robert (1846–1928), a director of the sugar refining company; Emily Jane Bonar (1853–1941), who married Henry T. Bovey, a McGill professor, in 1880; and Augusta Eleanor (1850–1910), who married Charles J. Fleet in 1884. During his first seven or eight years in Montreal, until he married, Taylor lived with his widowed aunt, Jane Drummond Redpath, at her palatial Terrace Bank, which sat in 235 acres on the slopes of Mount Royal.2 His office was in the place where the Redpaths conducted their business: the Union Building on St François Xavier Street in the city’s commercial centre near the harbour. Andrew Taylor’s first Canadian works were designs for houses, almost all of them for Montrealers, that went up in the 1880s. (The

Homes for Montrealers (1884–1902)

29

2.1 Terrace Bank, Montreal. Photograph, c. 1880.

rest of this chapter deals with his country houses [1888–1902] and apartment buildings [1898 and 1899]). His riba statement (1889) listed “9 Residences Montreal for various persons” for the year 1883; the Montreal Gazette of 29 April 1884 reported eleven under construction or nearing completion.3 The majority were for his relatives, and all reflect current English fashion – principally Old English and Queen Anne – but with other influences in play, especially from his recent US travels – for instance, H.H. Richardson and McKim, Mead & White.

American Travels In December 1882, at a riba meeting in London, Taylor commented on a paper by Arthur J. Gale, who had just returned from three months in the United States studying modern architecture – visiting Albany, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Newport (Rhode Island), Niagara, Philadelphia, and Washington, dc. Taylor said he himself had “gone over pretty much the same ground.”4 Current US work greatly impressed him, and he clearly learned much from it. He focused on domestic US architecture. In New York he had noticed “the

30

The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

lavishness … shown in the internal furnishings of even moderatelysized dwelling houses” and the “doors and doorways, chimney-pieces, buffets, and other furnishings,” which were “beautifully executed in a variety of hard woods, and in a manner very uncommon to us.”5 He had seen part of the first of the opulent Vanderbilt mansions (1882) that went up for $2 million on Fifth Avenue for William Henry, president of the New York Central Railroad and eldest son of “Commodore” Cornelius. The Triple Palace comprised three dwellings, for W.H. (considered the richest American) and his two married daughters, and occupied the entire block between 51st and 52nd streets. Haut-monde furniture designers and interior decorators Herter Brothers designed the exterior, collaborating with architect John B. Snook, a Vanderbilt regular.6 Both American Architect and Building News and the trade magazines termed the Vanderbilt mansion a general failure, but it certainly impressed newspaper reporters, society columnists, and Andrew Taylor.7 Taylor recognized that it was to be a showcase of art and culture. “The treasures of the universe seem to have been laid under contribution to minister to the gratification and display of this ‘railway king’; and one comes away from a brief visit dazzled with the splendour and costliness of the decorations, fittings and furniture.”8 When Taylor expanded and renovated the interior of the Bank of Montreal’s head office in 1884, he chose Herter Brothers as decorators, working “under special direction of the architects.”9 When Taylor visited New York, metal framing and the passenger elevator were just starting to make possible taller buildings, and these dazzled the young architect – “offices and dwelling-houses up four, five, or even six storeys.” “No one,” he said, “thinks of laboriously climbing up numerous flights of stairs. There is an attendant all day long in charge of the elevators. You step in, and almost immediately step out at the floor you wish.”10 Cast-iron construction particularly interested him, and he had hoped “to find that the Americans were developing a distinct and rational treatment starting from an understanding of the nature and limits of the material; but in this I was disappointed. So far as I could see, they appeared to be going chiefly on the old lines of stone and brick construction. I could not find any buildings which to my mind fairly met, or even grappled with, the problem.”11

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31

Taylor would have seen stylistically conservative work by George B. Post and Richard Morris Hunt; even in the Midwest, the more pragmatic, experimental work of the emerging Chicago School was still in its infancy, with Jenney’s First Leiter Building (1879) and his Home Insurance Company Building still to come – the first true skyscraper. Taylor would design a tall office building in Winnipeg in 1900. In Boston he encountered the work of two men that would help shape his career. He savoured the fashionable Back Bay area, which had been going up since about 1850 on reclaimed land, and admired especially “that new splendid street (Commonwealth Avenue), and neighbourhood, including Mr Whittier the poet’s house.” This house, a red brick and brownstone edifice designed by McKim, Mead & White, actually belonged to investment banker Charles A. Whittier and formed the northern half of a double house.12 H.H. Richardson had planned the southern half for F.L. Higginson, a partner of Whittier’s. Richardson’s half combined Late Gothic with Romanesque elements; the other was adapted François I. Yet McKim and Richardson took great care to ensure uniform cornice heights, floor levels, and continuous string courses to harmonize the two.

City Houses Mansfield Terrace (1883–84) Taylor’s first domestic commissions in Montreal included a terrace of five rental houses for his mother’s wealthy and powerful brother George Alexander Drummond on Mansfield Street near McGill University; a pair of semidetached houses for Redpath cousins on Ontario Avenue; a semidetached pair on upper Drummond Street for stock-brokers H.C. Scott and H.G. Strathy; and two semidetached houses on Prince Arthur Street.13 All were innovative in the city, markedly different from the greystone houses lining nearby streets. They intrigued the Gazette correspondent who wrote about the Mansfield Street terrace: “These houses differ from the usual terrace house, in that none of them are quite the same. They are of varying widths and depths and vary also in external design, so that the occupier of each house may feel that his house is different from any other and in itself unique. Yet, at the same

32

The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

2.2 Terrace Houses, Montreal (1883–84). Perspective attr. to Taylor.

time, the houses have a unity of design, grouping, as it were, round the centre house, which is the largest and has the most important appearance, and therefore giving emphasis to the whole.” The materials were red brick with a local pressed brick for the fronts and with a little timber and plasterwork “used after the style of the old English houses, the external woodwork being of red pine, stained and varnished. Reddish brown tiles have been used with good effect for the exterior.”14 The design resembled Taylor’s for the almshouses in Chislehurst: the continuous roofline and tall chimneys, the gabled bay windows and spindlework, even the ubiquitous sunflower.15 Yet he was adapting to this new environment. The Montreal houses were larger, set on high, limestone basements, which housed the kitchens and servants’ quarters. External stairs led from the sidewalk to recessed front porches, a typical local response to snowy winters. The exterior, with its red brick, varnished red pine, and reddish brown tiles, echoed the colourful almshouses. The principal rooms were more elaborate, however, with hardwood finishing and fireplaces surmounted by “handsome and ornate hardwood mantelpieces” with “bevelled mirrors and carved work.” The upper parts of the windows were “glazed with delicate coloured glass” from J. & W. Guthrie in Glasgow.16 The houses were compact and featured “hot water and Spence’s new champion furnaces.”17

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33

Redpath and Bovey Houses (1883–84): Outside and In In May 1880, Taylor was perhaps a groomsman at the wedding of his first cousin Emily Jane Redpath (daughter of John Redpath and Taylor’s aunt Jane) to Henry Taylor Bovey, dean of applied science at McGill.18 Taylor received a commission to design semidetached houses in 1883 for Emily (Sunnandene) and for her brother Francis (Inglenook), who had married in 1876 and ran technical operations at the family sugar refinery.19 The site on Ontario Avenue (now Avenue du Musée) in the Square Mile had been the orchard of the spectacular Terrace Bank, where Emily and Francis had grown up (and he himself still lived). A house soon went up next door for their sister Augusta Eleanor, who married Charles J. Fleet in 1884.20 The houses for Emily and her brother were also described in the Gazette: “Two semidetached villas are also being completed on Ontario Avenue, for Mr F.R. Redpath and Mr H.T. Bovey. Contrary to the usual practice of making two houses when they are together exactly alike,

2.3 Bovey-Redpath Houses, Montreal (1883–84). Photograph, c. 1890.

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The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

these houses are quite different in plan and elevation, but they are so harmoniously treated and grouped as to get a variey of effects and a picturesque outline from all points of view. They are also in the old English style and are built of red brick with a little timber, tile and plaster work. The entrances are at the sides so as to give the complete front to the principal rooms.” 21 Such deliberate picturesqueness – a product of the irregular massing, colourful materials, and quaint style – certainly drew on work at Bedford Park. This progressive London suburb emerged as an enclave for the cultured middle class seeking an “artistic” environment. Between 1875 and 1883, 490 houses had gone up on the 113-acre site, many by Richard Norman Shaw. (The designs of E.W. Godwin also attracted admiration.) Although Shaw’s villas were much smaller than Taylor’s, his appealing, innovative designs provided a dignified entrance hall, a front drawing room with a bay window, a dining room, and a bright kitchen on a small lot. Shaw mixed two popular styles that he had helped develop: Old English (as in Taylor’s almshouses) and the eclectic Queen Anne, which blended medieval and English Renaissance in very fine brickwork (a response to London’s tougher building codes after the Great Fire of 1666). Interiors sometimes reflected more exotic influences from China and, notably, Japan. The recurring decorative sunflower – in iron, stained glass, stucco, terracotta, and wood – was the hallmark of Queen Anne and of Aestheticism (Gilbert and Sullivan lampooned it in Patience in 1881), but the Gazette correspondent did not notice it in these houses: a terracotta panel with a sunflower motif on the wall to the left of the Redpath’s main entrance and wrought-iron sunflower finials crowning the two front gables. Taylor had used sunflower panels on his almshouses as well, but in service of the rural Old English. Queen Anne, more urbane and eclectic, was fashionable in Bedford Park and in London itself, especially among artists and aesthetes in Kensington and Chelsea, where it signified advanced artistic taste. Architectural historian James Kornwolf preferred to group Queen Anne and Old English, along with the American Richardson Romanesque, Shingle Style, and even the Chicago School, within the Aesthetic movement (c. 1870–90), which gave way to the Arts and Crafts movement. All had roots in the mid-century Gothic Revival,

Homes for Montrealers (1884–1902)

35

with its notions of principled scholarship, fine craftsmanship, and scientific progress. These modes often overlapped, as did their practitioners, under the influence of John Ruskin’s ideas of high art on the Continent and William Morris’s earthier fascination with indigenous and vernacular traditions.22 “Yet “the distinctions between the two movements were not clear-cut. Interiors and exteriors associated with either were quite plain in some instances [e.g., E.W. Godwin’s Japanism], quite elaborate in others [e.g., the “naturalism” of Herter Brothers]. Some architects developed very open planning; others did not.”23 They all, however, sought to elevate popular taste and believed that everyone could enjoy good design. This comprehensive definition of Aesthetic movement architecture illuminates Taylor’s early work in Canada.24 A blend of Queen Anne and Old English was perfect for his stylish Drummond rental houses and for the young, anglophilic, and fashionable Redpaths, so typical of Montreal’s anglophone elite. In the early 1880s, the local pierre grise (grey limestone) was the pervasive building material in Montreal. A visiting American critic called it an excellent building material, but “a dingy, slaty-colored substance, which is about as agreeable to the eye as … a piece of frozen slush.”25 Taylor enjoyed Late Victorian variety and colour. He remarked in an 1888 lecture: “As we go along the streets every house should be architecturally interesting.”26 And a few years later: “We do not want the exterior of our houses to be like harlequins, but neither do we want them to be like quakers or Gray nuns.” In the past, “a cut gray limestone house was considered amongst ourselves as the sign of eminent respectability, but fortunately of recent years, red brick and terra cotta and red and buff stone, have been largely employed, alone or in combination, and I cannot but think to the beautifying of the city and the advantageous breaking up of the monotony of our streets.” 27 The Gazette noted approvingly that the Bovey-Redpath houses used ordinary Montreal bricks, showing how “with care and good workmanship and finish what results can be obtained with local materials.”28 These two houses were nonetheless altogether sober, reflecting the architect’s Gothic Revival training and perhaps his own and his cousins’ Presbyterian upbringing. Admittedly they lacked the wit and

36

The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

charm of a Shaw design, despite their sunflowers and picturesque touches. Yet already Taylor was responding to the demanding climate. The houses were solid (as partially successful housewreckers discovered in 1986), of durable materials and sparing ornamentation. There is more visual documentation for Francis Redpath’s house, which demonstrated a functional, not whimsical picturesqueness: a tight, vertical composition, it presented a tall, gabled, snow-shedding bay to the street.29 This intersected with a gabled projection on the side elevation that contained a soaring ribbed chimney stack. Beyond lay a cross-gabled wing, with the main entrance porch and a second chimney. On the upper floor was a large balcony with a shed roof, which faced out over the city, toward the St Lawrence River. There was also a small open balcony on the upper floor of the street front. The house rested on a tall base of grey Montreal limestone; the two main storeys were brick, with terracotta tiles for much of the upper portions. Stone lintels topped the rectangular windows, with a graceful soffit supporting a little scrolled woodwork making a transition under the front gable. The semicircular bonnets of the dormers, a Queen Anne touch, contrasted with the sharply pointed gables. Photographs show similar features in the Bovey house. In contrast to Shaw, Taylor placed his cousins’ kitchens in the basement, which was common in better Montreal homes. Large windows – above grade – lit these service areas. As for the interiors of the two homes, an 1884 Gazette article described them in Aesthetic terms: The entrance halls are large and square with coloured glass windows and open fireplaces. The drawingrooms and libraries have recessed fireplaces with seats, and in each drawingroom there is an alcove snuggery raised two steps above the floor of the room with seats and coloured glass in the windows. Small greenhouses or ferneries also open from the drawingrooms. The dining rooms have bay windows and access is attained from them down some steps to the gardens. The ceilings are all panelled, some of the rooms in wood and others in plaster. The floors of these rooms have parqueterie borders, and the whole of the floors of the vestibules and halls are laid with the same. When completed these rooms will be finished

Homes for Montrealers (1884–1902)

2.4 Francis Redpath House. Interior sketches by Taylor.

37

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The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

with Japanese papers and artistic tones of colour. The numerous balconies are special features, and are skillfully worked in with the design of the houses, so as to give great breadth of light and shade.30 Two sketches by Taylor, which appeared in the British journal Building News in February 1886, and later photographs (c. 1920) of the drawing room, library, and dining room provide a record of these interiors. The sketches – of the drawing room and entrance hall – depict typical Aesthetic–Queen Anne interiors, and a brief description notes that “the furniture and fittings, as illustrated, were chiefly supplied by London firms. The wallpapers are by Messrs Jeffrey and Co., of Essex-Road.” 31 Jeffrey and Company was the leading art wallpaper firm in England, commissioning designs from many British architects and designers, including such luminaries as Walter Crane, E.W. Godwin, William Morris, Bruce J. Talbert, and C.F.A. Voysey. In 1875 the company introduced the tripartite treatment similar to that in Taylor’s sketches, a fashion that lasted until about 1890. This used different but harmonious coverings for dado, main upper wall, and frieze – some designed by Bruce Talbert, whose influential illustrations were widely published in both England and North America. In addition to handprinted papers, Jeffrey and Company produced flocks, embossed or stamped paper and leather, and ceiling and staircase papers. Taylor’s scheme appears to involve such differing textures as well as the chair and picture rails that generally demarcated such walls. The curved frieze with sunflower panels in the Redpaths drawing room is akin to one in Talbert’s well-known design for an Old English interior.32 Taylor’s ceilings are also panelled, the infill covered with floral paper or perhaps an embossed material. While none of the designs can be identified precisely, the hall infill seems to be a chrysanthemum pattern, a touch of Japanism signifying artistic taste. While the Building News did not name the London suppliers other than Jeffrey and Company, Aesthetic interiors required art furniture of the type designed for leading cabinet makers such as Gillow’s by – among others – E.W. Godwin. The spindly black (probably ebonized) table in the centre of the Redpath drawing room resembles a Godwin design, while the fireplace surround is typical of Gillow’s work at

Homes for Montrealers (1884–1902)

39

this time.33 In Godwin’s case, when clients permitted, this architect designed “not only the furniture but chose the wallpapers, often of his own design, supervised the mixing of paint and finally selected pictures and ornaments.”34 It would be interesting to know if Taylor, with his firsthand knowledge of current English fashion from his many years in London, performed a similar service for his Montreal cousins. Taylor’s charming vignettes highlight the eclectic mix of furniture and objects crowding Aesthetic interiors, including the multiplicity of bric-à-brac displayed on the elaborate overmantel and other flat surfaces in the drawing room. The parasol lampshade in the foreground is an unmistakable touch of Japanism (Gilbert and Sullivan poked fun at this fashion in the Mikado in 1885). Different fabrics added to the visual complexity: cushions, figured curtains, throws, and upholstery, as well as carpets and the heavy portiere on the left, apparently velvet enhanced with art embroidery. Of hangings and carpets Taylor said in 1888: “The best carpets, rugs, and hangings, are of Persian, Indian, or Turkish design and make, or of English make modelled on these designs, these are invariably of conventional design, and of the most beautiful blend of colors.”35 Entrance halls served as transitions from out-of-doors, with a fireplace to provide welcoming warmth. Ornamental woodwork was often a major feature; in the Redpath hall Taylor’s sketch shows a panelled dado, with overdoors, staircase, and chimneypiece also of wood. Unlike the drawing room, where the fireplace occupies a cozy inglenook – much in vogue at the time – the entrance hall in this semidetached house has a corner fireplace, allowing space for the elaborate staircase with its turned balusters and decorative newel posts. Architect-designed houses typically had specially commissioned staircases, but overdoors and wooden chimneypieces were available from London. Here sunflowers occupy pride of place, embellishing the lower stair casing and the fine leaded window. A panel over the fireplace features a sunburst motif, while a Japanese style pot holding an arrangement of peacock feathers occupies the shelf above – another sign of advanced taste. The overabundance of these settings seems to belie the Redpaths’ Presbyterianism but may have owed much to the gospel of the critic John Ruskin. The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Two

40

The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

Paths (1859; nineteen American printings 1859–91) convinced many people that ornament was art: “a powerful tool of moral influence, so powerful that the way to reform society was to reform its art.”36 Ruskin’s direction to make “our ordinary dwelling-houses … as rich and full of pleasantness as may be, within and without” allowed, even encouraged, householders such as the Redpaths to fill their homes with the decorative arts. Taylor, too, shared Ruskin’s belief in art’s “high moral and refining influence upon any people.”37 Art was “a necessity of a full rich life.”38 However, while interiors such as his cousins’ reflected up-to-date taste and artistic interests, they might also advertise wealth and class. To the great reformer William Morris, who so influenced the emerging Arts and Crafts architects of Britain (and further afield), some such interiors were anathema. As a design reformer and ardent socialist, Morris wrote in 1882: “I have never been in a rich man’s home which would not have looked better for having a bonfire made outside of nine-tenths of all it held.”39 Scott and Strathy Houses (1883–84) Like the homes for the Redpaths and Boveys, those of 1884 on Upper Drummond Street in the Square Mile for stockbrokers Henry Castle Scott and Henry George Gordon Strathy were dissimilar in plan and elevation but “balance[d] each other.”40 According to the Gazette, Taylor based them on “French château architecture of the time of Francis I [with] high pitched roofs and angle tourelles”41 and built them of Montreal grey limestone (“the sign of eminent respectability” in Taylor’s words) lined with brick. The English Builder described them in February 1885.42 American architects Richard Morris Hunt and Bruce Price had popularized the Château style, which became fashionable in Montreal only in the 1890s for such mansions as Price’s for James Ross (1890– 92) and Edward Maxwell’s for Duncan McIntyre, Jr and Elizabeth H. Angus (1892–94) and Edward S. Clouston (1893–94).43 In New York, Taylor would have seen the palace that Hunt built 1879–82 for William Kissam Vanderbilt, son of William Henry, on Fifth Avenue, when he visited William Henry’s house (1879–82) next door. Hunt overlaid an essentially formal design with delicate Gothic ornament in the manner of the École des Beaux-Arts, where he trained.

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2.5 Scott-Strathy Houses, Montreal (1883–84). Perspective attr. to Taylor.

Taylor, in contrast, used the picturesque English scheme of his cousins’ houses but added châteauesque tourelles at the corners – one capped by a sunflower finial! The eclectic window treatments paired large round-arched windows beneath semi-elliptical arches or within rectangular openings, while smaller windows (in the tourelles) boasted strapwork heads. The smallest dormers he finished with curved pediments, but the most elaborate had pediments above and consoles flanking, which he derived directly from Queen Anne townhouses in London.44 Round-arched recesses on the street front opened onto balconies, and the entrances were on the sides, as in the Redpath and Bovey residences. Additional balconies jutted out on all four elevations. These exteriors were certainly picturesque – the Redpath-Bovey pair, despite their colourful materials, appeared plain by comparison. Here a multiplicity of historical details jostled one another with no overall discipline. While Taylor may have admired Hunt’s ordered mansion for W.K. Vanderbilt, his own extreme eclecticism here – including the Mannerist strapwork motif – was typically English. In the School Board Offices that G.F. Bodley designed in London in 1872, for example, Bodley combined elements from French Renaissance châteaux and the gabled brick town halls and merchants’ houses of the Low Countries

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The Architecture of Andrew Thomas Taylor

in the sixteenth century. As Mark Girouard noted, after this structure, “a French, Dutch, or Flemish strain became increasingly apparent in buildings designed by members of the [Queen Anne] movement and made the name ‘Queen Anne’ even more inapposite.”45 Visual complexity notwithstanding, the Builder’s perspective shows a compact overall shape, easier to heat – a necessity in Canada. While the style came from the era of François I, “owing to the severe winters of Canada, heavy snowfall has to be considered, and a frequent descent of the mercury below zero, necessitating the preparation for, and providing of double windows, and other contrivances for equalizing the temperature indoors, so that some modifications would have to be made in almost any European style which might be adopted.”46 Rather than François I, however, the style Taylor adapted was of course contemporary Queen Anne. Plans or photographs have not survived, but the Gazette described the Aesthetic interiors. The drawing room of the upper house (the site sloped) had a large recess containing a fireplace, masked by a “handsome oak screen.” The entrance and hall “were large and commodious, and under the staircase which is of hard wood is placed an open fireplace under an archway with a seat at same.”47 Here Taylor used the fashionable “living hall” concept with its inglenook. The principal rooms and staircases were in oak, while most of the painted and ornamental glass came again from Messrs Guthrie in Glasgow.48 The lower home had a greenhouse opening off the drawing room and library that gave access to the garden. With the advent of modern heating, greenhouses or conservatories became popular in more affluent Montreal residences as antidotes to the long winters. Davis House, Ottawa (1884–85) Research by Robert Hill for his Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada 1800–1950 revealed that a number of Taylor’s early Montreal houses have disappeared without a trace. In 1884, however, Taylor was designing a substantial house with accompanying stabling and offices in Ottawa for William H. Davis, a local contractor. The site was at the corner of Theodore Street (now Laurier Avenue) and Salisbury Avenue (now Range Road) in the fashionable Sandy Hill section.49 “Here are

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2.6 William H. Davis House, Ottawa, on (1884–85). Perspective by Taylor.

comfortable and often handsome and extensive villas, the more distant of which command charming views of the adjacent country and the valley of the Rideau River.”50 The Architect in Britain published a perspective and brief description of the completed house in February 1887: “The materials employed were red brick with limestone dressings, with a little terra-cotta and brick diaper work. Half-timberwork, and tiles from Ruabon and ornamental plasterwork, have been introduced. Verandahs and balconies are much more of a necessity in Canada than in England, and are much used in the summer, which will explain the special prominence given to these features.” 51 Indeed this suburban house fairly bristled with balconies and verandahs. All displayed elaborately turned Queen Anne wood posts and railings. Stained-glass panels filled the upper sections of the windows on both the ground and second floors. A frieze of sunflowers decorated a turreted, polygonal corner bay, a sunflower finial topped a gable, and the tall ribbed chimneys displayed ornamental caps. Yet the residence had a compact overall shape, making it easier to heat, like the Scott-Strathy houses. This did not, however, serve to control an essentially additive composition.

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A pair of Taylor’s sketches showing the entrance hall and library appeared in the American Architect and Building News for May 1886.52 “The internal furnishings of the public rooms are in hard-wood, the entrance-hall and staircase being of oak. The aim was to get good effects, both of grouping and of lines, at a very moderate cost.”53 Nevertheless, the hall in this freestanding house was a spacious room with a grand l-shaped staircase sheltering a deep inglenook set apart by an arcade resting on elaborately carved posts matching the stair rail. These and the panelled dado, which rose to half-height, contributed to the Old English flavour preferred for halls. Wall and ceiling coverings had different patterns as did the several carpets. Davis’s hall was certainly designed to accommodate social gatherings, another example of the living hall – surely an important feature for this prominent Ottawa contractor. Taylor’s sketch of the library showed an extensive use of woodwork as well – likely by Gillow’s – including a number of built-ins, which were popular features in Aesthetic interiors. A sideboard-bookcase occupied the wall to the left of a bay window with wooden seating, this design perhaps also inspired by Bruce Talbert. Taylor’s bay was set off by a decorative wood frame crowned by an arcade hung with “artistic” portières to ward off draughts. To the right was an inglenook framed by a semi-elliptical arch containing an elaborate fireplace and a stained-glass window with an allegorical figure half hidden by a curtain, glazing that William Morris popularized in the 1860s. A variety of figured papers covered the walls, with a stylized Japanese sunburst motif used for the frieze. Further touches of Japanism included various ceramics and – most recognizable – the sunflower firedogs referencing those of English architect and designer Thomas Jeckyll, known in North America since the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. The furniture is a typically eclectic mix, the chair to the right partly hidden by the table – possibly a Talbert design (he designed for Gillow’s), with the ornate portfolio holder providing a touch of Middle Eastern or Indian exoticism.54 Exposure in the Architect and the American Architect and Building News would have been useful to both Taylor and his builder-client. A motto adorned the title of the exterior perspective: “Build Truly Yea Well” – which Taylor did throughout his career – and hopefully client Davis as well.

2.7 William H. Davis House. Interior sketches by Taylor.

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Drummond House (1886, 1888–89) Taylor designed one of the great mansions of Montreal for his uncle George Drummond. The Builder for November 1886 published a perspective of a “Residence near [sic] Montreal, Canada” by Taylor and Gordon, which included a plan of the principal floor. It had been on exhibition at the Royal Academy in London that year as a house “in contemplation, for which plans and specifications have been prepared.” It was to have a basement of local rock-faced limestone ashlar, with the rest “in red brick with Credit Valley or other red stone dressings.” The plan featured a double conservatory with access from both the ground and first (i.e., first and second) floors, with a large picture gallery and billiard room at the back.55 The commission was likely occasioned by Drummond’s marriage in 1884 to Grace Julia Parker (his first wife died in 1883) and by his rise in the Montreal business community. By now he was president of the sugar refinery and president (1886–88) of the Montreal Board of Trade.56 He rose from director to vice-president of the Bank of Montreal in 1887, when Sir Donald A. Smith became president. During much of Smith’s tenure, when he was serving as Canadian high commissioner in London (1896–1904), Drummond acted as president, taking the office in 1905.57 Sir John A. Macdonald named him to the Senate in 1888, and he received a knighthood in 1904. Drummond’s mansion was to be at Sherbrooke and Metcalfe streets opposite McGill University, on property he already owned (and where Taylor had designed the rental terrace houses on Mansfield for him). Final plans received approval only in January 1888, and the owners moved in on Christmas Eve, 1889.58 The powerful and asymmetrical house was one of the city’s grandest, a dominating presence on both Sherbrooke and Metcalfe until its demolition in 1926.59 A correspondent to the Canadian Architect and Builder wrote that “this house, with Sir Donald A. Smith’s premises on Dorchester Street, by Messrs. Hutchison and Steele, ought to convince any impartial mind that there is no absolute necessity for importing foreign talent whenever anything more than a stereotyped 28 foot front ‘villa residence’ has to be erected.”60 (The journal clearly by now considered Taylor and compatriot A.D. Steele – A.C. Hutchison’s partner – “local.”)

2.8 George Drummond House, Montreal (1888–89). Photograph, 1891.

2.9 George Drummond House. Scheme of 1886. Perspective attr. to Taylor.

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2.10 Higginson-Whittier Houses, Boston (H.H. Richardson and McKim, Mead & White, 1881–83). Photograph, 1883.

Fortunately, Taylor’s 1888 drawings have survived, as have early photographs of the exterior.61 The design comprised a rectangular block on a high basement, three floors, and an attic. Following the pattern in other early Taylor houses, the entrance (protected by a porch) was at the side (facing Metcalfe), but the steps led up from Sherbrooke. High gables terminated large bays on both the Sherbrooke and Metcalfe elevations, while an eye-catching tourelle, corbelled out between the two principal floors, turned the corner with panache. A tall chimney with a sundial added to the corner interest by sheer restraint. The composition was reminiscent of McKim, Mead & White’s Whittier house (1882–83) in Back Bay Boston. Taylor converted McKim’s circular tower into a tourelle and pushed back the entrance porch, with its flat, balustraded roof and supporting columns, to protect the main doorway (which Taylor chose to place at the side). Taylor’s first design (published in the Builder) was fairly delicate, with red brick on a rock-faced ashlar basement. Except for the fussy François I detailing of his pedimented gables, it was akin to the Boston

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house, which had a basement and ground storey of Longmeadow stone with red brick above. As executed, the Drummond house was far more robust, with walls of powerful rock-faced Credit Valley brownstone on a grey limestone base.62 Despite its affinities with Victorian Scottish Baronial – a picturesque mix evoking Scottish Renaissance castles, which Drummond’s industrialist countrymen loved – the powerful masonry treatment and overall simplification of the detailing, notably in the gables and windows, rendered it “modern Romanesque” (now known as Richardsonian Romanesque). The transition from the Queen Anne first proposal to Romanesque was not surprising. In 1889 the Canadian Architect and Builder remarked of a new block of houses on Sherbrooke Street that their “fronts are very effective, and free from the prevalent indispensable ‘Queen Anne’ mansions.”63 Richardson’s Romanesque was very popular in the United States and crossed the border with construction (1886–92) of the Ontario Legislative Building at Queen’s Park in Toronto to the design of Buffalo architect Richard A. Waite. In Montreal Bruce Price’s Windsor Station, the grand headquarters of the Canadian Pacific Railway, went up between June 1887 and February 1889, as Taylor was reworking the plans for Drummond. The house lacked the unity of Richardson’s mature work but displayed much more simplicity and cohesion than his first design and his work in general. In 1897 Taylor commented on Richardson and the Romanesque: “What appeared to be one of the most hopeful developments of this time was the romanesque movement, and in the hands of such a master as Richardson, gave not only promise, but fruition of great charm, suitability and beauty. Had he lived longer, a permanent and distinctive style might have been evolved. But there was no one to wear the mantle of the prophet, and, in the hands of numberless followers and imitators, it degenerated, and is not now a live factor in the architecture of today.”64 Taylor chose eyebrow windows, a trademark of Richardson’s, for the reworked tower and simplifed the elaborate gables, placing mythological beasts at their apexes. The sculptor was Henry Beaumont, an English-trained craftsman, who would work with Taylor on many of his Montreal buildings.65 Architectural sculpture was an essential aspect of revived medievalism, and Ruskin had promoted it tirelessly as an expression of creative work, in the face of increasingly mechanical, dehumanizing industrial labour.

2.11 George Drummond House. Metcalfe Street elevation, 1888, attr. to Taylor.

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While the drawings and photographs do not indicate the subject matter of all the decoration, the capitals of the porch columns stood for architecture, music, painting, and sculpture.66 George Drummond was a noted art collector, president of the Art Association of Montreal (now the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), and chairman of the National Gallery of Canada. The first set of designs for his house called for a picture gallery at the rear, although the shortened final version deleted the gallery and adjoining conservatory (which became a “fernery” off the drawing room). Nonetheless art filled the house. When Drummond died in 1910, Taylor (then living in England) wrote to the Times, noting that his uncle’s “beautiful home on Sherbrooke Street was a focus for all that was best in the music, the literature, and the art of Montreal.” He was, Taylor went on, the doyen of Canadian collectors. For one immersed in the business life of the community as he was, he had a wonderful knowledge of art, which was true and discriminating … He always bought pictures of the highest quality; in consequence his collection is perhaps uniformly choicer than that of any other in Canada. So careful was he in selection and so sound was his art judgement that I never knew him to resell or exchange a picture. He did not buy them because it was the fashion, but he loved all his pictures and found great enjoyment in them; he often spoke of building a large picture gallery, but this was never done, preferring to have them in all his rooms and live amongst them. His house was always open to visitors who wished to see his pictures, and it was a great pleasure to him to have others enjoy them; he very willingly lent them to exhibitions, not only in Montreal but all over the country.67 In the catalogue to her groundbreaking 1989 exhibition Discerning Tastes: Montreal Collectors 1880–1920, Janet Brooke analyzed Drummond’s collection, noting that he and Canadian Pacific Railway president Sir William Van Horne and a handful of Montreal businessmen who helped set up the transcontinental line owned the most significant private collections of European art in Canada. Like “discerning” US collectors – Henry Clay Frick, Henry Huntington, Potter Palmer, and William H. Vanderbilt, among others – they represented

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2.12 George Drummond House. Ground floor plan, 1888, attr. to Taylor.

“a new category of collector [who was] middle-class by birth and aristocratic in fortune.”68 Private galleries were a “new category” of interior space popular among wealthy Americans during the 1880s and 1890s.69 Unfortunately no descriptions or photographs of the interior of Drummond’s house have come to light, but the ground-floor plan showed four ample formal rooms interconnecting through the grand hall, all suitable for entertaining and the display of art. On entering

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guests found a small inner porch and vestibule, which kept out the cold, and a cloak room. From the vestibule they could move to a reception room opening into the grand drawing room overlooking Sherbrooke Street or proceed into the spacious hall at the centre of the house, which contained the main stairs, a large inglenook with u-shaped seating around the hearth, and gave access to the drawing room, dining room, and smoking room in orderly succession. A segmental window bay recessed behind the stairs lit this pivotal space, which helped circulation and served as a living and reception area. The living hall was a major fashion of the 1870s and 1880s, and smaller versions appeared in Taylor’s earlier houses. Fashionable, too, was the treatment of the magnificent staircase, which is visible in a surviving elevation. At the rear of the hall and the focus of this space, it was dogleg in shape, with the great window bay flooding the main landing with light. Wood was the primary material in the staircase: wood panelling as well as elaborately carved arches, columns, newels, and other components. Richardson, his circle, and his contemporaries in general delighted in such staircases. The house, on its prominent corner, provoked considerable comment, even during construction. The Montreal Witness reacted in February 1889: The building which proves beyond question how great the advance of architecture as an art has been in Montreal is the house which is being erected at the corner of Sherbrooke and Metcalfe Streets for Senator Drummond. This beautiful house is still in such an uncompleted state, at the time of writing, as to make a study of it as a whole impossible, for it is to be enriched by a wealth of carving and ornament, every detail of which has been thought out by the architect with as much care as if he were working out his ideal in marble instead of sandstone. The general design of the house is strong and good. The strong corner tower, which is still the tower of a house not of a fortress, and the two gables rising steeply to the grotesque “beastes” that terminate them, produce a most admirable effect. The material of the two street fronts is a very rich and beautifully textured sandstone, and not only are capital and panel to be richly carved, but these belts of carven ornament are to

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sweep about the house; and richly carved and ornamented porch, oriel window, and balcony, add beauty and expansion to the whole. Besides this grandly artistic house, even stronger evidences of a new era are to be found in the great number of very beautiful sandstone and brick, and sandstone, brick and terra cotta houses, which are neither large nor costly, and the most of which have been built within the last year or two.70 Some of these less costly houses must have been Taylor’s. Drummond himself thought his mansion quite perfect. He wrote to Peter Redpath during construction: “My house has been, in an artistic point of view a great success, but has been much exaggerated in importance. I expect to finish for less than $80,000.00. It is much smaller than Angus’ [Richard Bladworth Angus, a founder of the Canadian Pacific Railway and Drummond’s successor as president of the Bank of Montreal] home or Abbott’s [Sir John Abbott, mayor of Montreal 1887–88, government leader in the Senate, and prime minister 1891–92] and in short is not a bit too big for my present requirements.”71 Vicereine Lady Aberdeen recorded in April 1894. “We lunched also at Senator & Mrs Drummond’s in their very nice house. They do everything v. well & know how to do it … Lovely pictures.”72 Drummond’s new home towered over its reserved greystone neighbours, different not only in scale but in style and materials, all changes that would intensify throughout the 1880s, a decade that saw the first tall office building in Montreal – the red sandstone New York Life Insurance Building (1887–88). More comparable, however, were two smaller, contemporaneous mansions, one not far from the Drummond house in the Square Mile, the other further east on Sherbrooke Street in an upper-middle-class francophone neighbourhood. Both were constructed for leading Montreal building contractors: Peter Lyall’s on Bishop Street in 1889, Arthur Dubuc’s in 1894. Lyall’s Scottish red sandstone house was designed by a leader of the older generation of architects, the versatile and prolific John James Browne – the last of Browne’s domestic building before his untimely death in 1893. With its corner tower, front-facing gables, and colourful stonework with carving by Beaumont, it bears a passing resemblance to the Drummond house, but its inventive eclecticism differs from

2.13 Peter Lyall House, Montreal (John James Browne, 1889). Photograph, 1891.

2.14 Arthur Dubuc House, Montreal (Alphonse Raza, 1894). Perspective, c. 1894.

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Taylor’s – more reminiscent of Browne’s near contemporary, the eccentric Philadelphia architect Frank Furness (1839–1912). On the other hand, the remarkable Dubuc house of 1894 by Montreal architect Alphonse Raza (1846–1903) was surely inspired by the Drummond house and perhaps intended as a challenge to Lyall’s.73 Flamboyant in the extreme, the profusely ornamented house nonetheless resembled Taylor’s design to a marked degree despite the greystone material and entrance porch placed on the front. The extravagant mix of styles – with châteauesque predominating – no doubt reflected Raza’s recent travels (he had toured England, France, Germany, and Italy in 1890) and a more European orientation on the part of Montreal’s French-speaking community. Even so, the impact of Drummond’s palatial home on this divided city was clearly profound.

Shingle Style and Colonial Revival Reford House, Little Métis, qc (1888–89) In 1888, Taylor tried something completely different – a wooden, Shingle Style summer house in Little Métis on the Lower St Lawrence for shipping merchant Robert Wilson Reford.74 Richardson and McKim, Mead & White used this mode, popular in the United States in the late 1870s and the 1880s, for both suburban and resort architecture.75 Taylor would have had no experience with wood construction in Britain; even in 1897 he reported that he had responded to a question about whether Canada had any wood architecture: “I had to confess,” he said, “that so far as I knew she had not.”76 Early in the 1800s, Métis, a former seigneury, was sold to Quebec City banker John McNider. By the 1870s the property had been divided, and one portion, Little Métis, began to emerge as a summer resort.77 Many McGill professors discovered it following Principal Sir William Dawson’s endorsement of its air quality and rich resources for his own geological research; Picturesque Canada described it as “the resort of the scientist, the blue-stocking, and the newly-married.”78 The Redpaths settled there in the mid-1870s, commissioning Peter F. Leggatt, a local carpenter and contractor, to build châteauesque Staquan Lodge. In the 1880s, Jane Redpath bought property nearby for daughter Emily and

2.15 Reford House, Little Métis, qc (1888–89). Photograph, c. 1915.

2.16 Reford House, Little Métis, qc. Sketch plan attr. to Taylor. Redrawn by Steven Dumont, 2012.

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her husband, Professor Bovey. For the Boveys’ parcel of land Andrew Taylor designed a clapboard summer house in 1886 – Sassaquiminel (the Indian word for bunch berries).79 Robert Reford must have admired this house, for a letter from Bovey to Reford names his architect (Taylor) and his builder (Peter Leggatt of Grand Métis). Bovey praised the completeness of Taylor’s plans and specifications for his own house – crucial, he noted, for most of the local workers spoke only French. Leggatt accepted a contract from Reford for his own house by Taylor in early September 1888, and work began at once; as Taylor wrote to him, “The winter is very long in Métis [and] the time is very short.”80 For the Reford house a set of preliminary sketch elevations and plans as well as photographs have survived. On the bank of the river, it was a fine essay in the picturesque Shingle Style, with a polygonal tower and brick chimney anchoring the composition and a large verandah sweeping around three sides of the structure. The upper part of the verandah formed a balcony for the main bedroom floor, accessible from a door in the tower. On the uppermost floor on the entrance front (facing the main road) the round-arched opening of a loggia – a recess with a shallow balcony at the front – pierced an overhanging gable. Shingles apparently covered the entire house, with wooden posts and balustrades and simple wooden trelliswork in the peak and two ends of the verandah roof. The tall windows of the ground and second floors had wooden shutters. The rural setting and seasonal use made wood a practical option. The plan was straightforward. A staircase hall led on the left to the drawing room, one corner of which extended into the tower. The verandah bounded the whole of this spacious room. The chimney abutting the tower served corner fireplaces in both the drawing room and the hall. To the right of the hall was the dining room, and behind it the service area, including the kitchen, scullery, and servants’ stairs. The upper two floors contained family bedrooms. The master bedroom was over the drawing room, was the same size, and had its own fireplace and encompassing balcony. Two servants’ bedrooms were over the kitchen. This design shows the growing coherence and simplification of Taylor’s work. Use of a single material, shingle, helped, as did a lucid

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plan and the masses that arose from it, pairing the tower and chimney once again but now using them to anchor the sweep of the porches. Taylor certainly knew about American “modernized colonial” – famously redefined by Vincent Scully as the Shingle Style – which grew in response to the proliferation of seaside resorts following the Civil War. It was a US variation of Aesthetic movement architecture, growing out of English Queen Anne, but modified and disciplined by a new appreciation of the simpler wood-frame construction of colonial-era houses, many of which survived along the New England seacoast. The best architects – William Ralph Emerson, Arthur Little, McKim, Mead & White, Bruce Price, Peabody & Stearns, and H.H. Richardson – used it in an engaging and flexible manner, grand or simple to suit the client.81 The shingle cladding provided a pleasingly continuous exterior surface, the verandah – an indoor-outdoor space – was large and integral to the plan, while the interior space became less formal, more open and welcoming. The architectural press, notably the American Architect, doted on it, and examples abounded in George W. Sheldon’s Artistic Country Seats (1886–87). In an 1897 speech Taylor expressed his appreciation of “the old colonial buildings scattered across the country [the United States], many of them possessing great charm.” We can deduce his opinions about “modernized colonial” from the same address. With McKim, Mead & White obviously in mind, he criticized the nondomestic work of “some of the leading architects in the States,” which he thought practically copies of their Italian Renaissance sources. However, “their domestic architecture can be more readily praised, and many country houses have a picturesque charm, a comfort, and a striking suitability most commendable.”82 While Taylor’s Reford house did not fully develop the innovative American manner that Scully characterized – the interior space flowed less and the hall remained a passageway, despite its fireplace and staircase – it was a respectable rendering, expressive of its resort setting and surely as novel there as his early Queen Anne houses were in Montreal. An early postcard described the house, which no longer exists, as a “princely residence” (“Résidence Princière à Petit Metis. qc”).83

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2.17 H. Montagu Allan House, Cacouna, qc (1899-1900). Photograph, 1901.

Allan House, Cacouna, qc (1899–1900) Taylor designed another home on the Lower St Lawrence in 1899 in Cacouna, upriver from Little Métis, for another wealthy Montrealer, Hugh (later Sir Hugh) Montagu Allan. A banker, shipowner, and sportsman, he was the second son of Sir Hugh Allan, a founder of the Allan Line, Canada’s leading steamship company, which carried the Royal Mail, passengers (including thousands of immigrants), and lucrative cargo (including wheat) across the Atlantic. Despite his involvement with the Allan Line (which he chaired 1909–12), Montagu Allan focused his energy on the family’s bank, the Merchants Bank of Canada, and was president or director of many other companies.84 His city residence in Montreal was Ravenscrag, the towered Italianate mansion his father had built high up on Mount Royal overlooking McGill, the city, and the Allan steamships in the harbour. For decades Ravenscrag was the city’s social centre, hosting successive governors general during visits, and the setting of grand dinners for visiting dignitaries. In 1889 Taylor designed an extension to the east wing.85

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Montagu Allan was an avid horseman, for many years a master of the Montreal Hunt and president of the Montreal Jockey Club. His horses won numerous trophies including the Queen’s Plate and the Montreal Hunt Cup. In 1898 Taylor had designed a handsome enlargement of the stables at Ravenscrag, complete with carved stonework – including a horse’s head over the doorway and an elaborate frame for the clock in the main gable.86 Cacouna, where the Allan family summered, was “the Saratoga of Canada, the abode of fashion for three months of the year … [where] a series of horse races wound up the season with a flourish.”87 J.G.A. Creighton, writing in Picturesque Canada, disapproved of it: “Cacouna has its quiet cottages, but also the most pretentious hotel, and too much dancing and dressing that characterize American watering-places.”88 In keeping with its setting, Taylor designed the Allans’ house, Montrose, in a grand Colonial Revival manner, a style that became increasingly fashionable in the 1890s and suited a man of Allan’s status. Taylor’s inspiration was the formal mode that McKim, Mead & White pioneered, evoking eighteenth-century Georgian Colonial architecture. The firm’s landmark house in the style was H.A.C. Taylor’s (1886) in Newport, Rhode Island, which Sheldon published. This overscaled house, a mansion of wood, had far more geometrical order in both elevation and plan than the firm’s early Shingle Style houses. It featured both early Georgian and Adamesque motifs: a prominent entrance portico, slender columns, balustrades, Palladian windows, fanlights, and decorative swags. While the harsh St Lawrence climate did not encourage swags, Montrose displayed all the other motifs. In contrast to the darker, richer Shingle Style, the H.A.C. Taylor house was light yellow with white trim, which McKim, Mead & White based on colonial Newport sources. Early photographs showed the Allan house painted similarly, either white or a light colour with dark shutters. Taylor’s city residences in Montreal had the principal doors on the side to provide generous windows in the drawing rooms, but in his rural Colonial Revival houses, which occupied spacious grounds, the main doorway was the focus of the entrance front. At Cacouna the doorway centred a gabled frontispiece, slightly projecting, with a porte cochère to protect it. A full-length Palladian window opened onto and gave access to the balustraded roof of the porte cochère. A fanlight graced the gable. While axiality and symmetry shaped the main block

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2.18 H. Montagu Allan House, Cacouna, qc. Sitting room. Photograph, 1901.

of the house, asymmetrical verandahs and subsidiary blocks affirmed the additive, functionalist approach of his Gothic Revival training. As McKim, Mead & White’s work grew more and more orderly, Taylor remained flexible. At Montrose, a spacious verandah extended along a side elevation, wrapped the corner, and continued the length of the long river front. The verandah’s balustraded roof, accessible from the main bedroom floor, provided further views over the gardens to the St Lawrence. Extending from the other side elevation, linked pavilions must have accommodated service areas and quarters for staff or perhaps guests. These teemed with galleries, too – atop roofs and a breezeway. Beyond the house, on the garden slope just below the verandah, was a circular and balustraded viewing platform. “Cacouna [offers] beautiful views of the panorama of the opposite shore, here just at the right distance for the most magnificent of sunset effects.”89 Taylor carried the Classical Revival theme through to the interior, noticeable in a 1901 photo of the sitting room with a view through to the ground-floor stair hall. The sitting room abounded in delicate Adamesque motifs. The cornice and ceiling beams featured dentils and egg-and-dart moulding to correspond with the room’s Ionic pilasters

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2.19 H. Montagu Allan Stable, Cacouna, qc. Photograph, 1901.

and columns. The mantelpiece, too, was in a graceful Adam style: the panel below the shelf boasted floral swags, their sides in the form of consoles. The doorway to the hall recalled a favourite Adam screening device: an enriched architrave resting on a pair of columns. In contrast to the restrained delicacy of Taylor’s architectural treatment, the overpowering floral wallpaper, patterned carpet, and clutter of furniture and ornaments denoted lingering nineteenthcentury taste. While floral wallpapers were fashionable for summer homes of the 1890s, Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman dismissed them in their immensely influential The Decoration of Houses (1897),90 which Taylor, if not his clients, had surely read and which heralded the more subdued aesthetic of the twentieth century. Taylor also used Colonial Revival for two charming outbuildings, a stable and a cottage, that appeared in early photographs. The former featured the gambrel roof typical of American Dutch Colonial architecture, while the cottage drew on a French Colonial house type popular in Quebec, which had a pitched roof and a verandah.91 Taylor added to this mix such classical details as Tuscan columns, scrolled pediments, and oeil-de-boeuf windows. For a portion of the stable roof,

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however, he used the eyebrow dormers of Richardsonian Romanesque. Both these smaller structures displayed a unity of design unusual in Taylor’s work before the turn of the century and contrasting with his additive scheme for the main house, despite its Colonial Revival manner.92 Drummond House, Beaconsfield (1902) In 1895 George Drummond (by now a senator) purchased some 500 acres of farmland in the western part of the Island of Montreal (present-day Beaconsfield), stretching back from the St Lawrence. Two years later he ordered a house for the property, which was habitable by 1898. There he raised a special stock of cattle and Southdown sheep, the latter from stock given him by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.93 A Scot, Drummond was a passionate golfer. In 1876 he had joined the first permanent golf club in North America, the Royal Montreal (1873).

2.20 George Drummond House, Beaconsfield, qc (1902). Photograph, c. 1902.

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The club’s principal founder was Alexander Dennistoun, another Scot who had married a Redpath daughter. George Drummond would serve as captain and president from 1883 to 1889. He was a popular choice; the club, at that time using a public park in Montreal, held meetings in Drummond’s Sherbrooke Street mansion, “where the rooms were large and accommodating; the refreshments choice and ample.”94 When the Royal Canadian Golf Association started up in 1896, Drummond became its first president. He was, by all accounts, an exacting player. One of the club’s younger members who had partnered him wrote: “I had the Hon. Geo. Drummond as my partner and a very testy old partner I found him.”95 By 1899 Drummond was seventy and decided to build his own ninehole golf course on land next to his house in Beaconsfield. Early in 1902, however, he determined to build a larger house, which he named Huntlywood, after the birthplace of his father and grandfather in Scotland.96 Andrew Taylor was the architect for this second house, but it is unclear whether he helped with the earlier structure. Drummond already owned a summer home, Gads Hill,97 at Cacouna, next door to Montagu Allan’s estate, which he must have admired, for he chose Colonial Revival for Beaconsfield and the McKim, Mead & White combination of pale yellow (“primrose”) with white trim. Furthermore, he added a far grander portico and an eye-catching Colonial Revival tower. The Canadian Architect and Builder in December 1902 noted the home’s “recent completion” “adjoining his well-known stock farm and golf grounds.” Its wide, cool galleries and portico and its great hall, over 40 ft. long, are special features. It is an adaptation of the old Colonial and Georgian style, and is very substantially built of wood on a stone substructure. It is finished in white and primrose and the roof is stained moss green. The interior is elaborate, and is finished in white enamel, and the walls hung with bright charming Morris papers. The fireplaces and mantels are a feature, and are numerous and large. The tower was specially designed for an extensive view over Lake St Louis [part of the St Lawrence River] and the surrounding country.

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The work has been carried out very satisfactorily by Mr John Allan, contractor, from the designs and under the superintendence of Mr Andrew T. Taylor, friba, architect, of Montreal.98 While Montrose consisted of a symmetrical main house with a central, pedimented gable and a series of discrete, attached pavilions, Huntlywood, as photographs show, was a single, asymmetrical block. It, too, had Old Colonial detailing – Ionic columns, a fanlight in the gable, dentilated cornice, dormers with classical pediments, and corner pilasters – but there the similarity stopped. An imposing, two-storey portico, which jutted far out over the verandah, was off-centre, with a single bay to one side and three to the other. At this juncture a slightly recessed wing extended the house even farther, ending in a porch. The verandah ran around most of the main front, enlarging at the portico, then turned the corner and ended in a graceful semicircle. The portico’s gable, on giant Ionic columns, sheltered part of the balustraded roof of the verandah, which rested on smaller Ionic columns. Helping to tie together these varying parts was the great portico, which overwhelmed the eye, and the prominent tower rising from the central portion of the house. These key elements in particular were surely responses to Taylor’s trip to the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, where a number of Colonial Revival state pavilions attracted attention.99 Connecticut, for example, had a similarly gigantic portico extending over a single-storey porch, while Massachusetts, echoing John Hancock’s house in Boston, boasted an eye-catching tower. Nonetheless Taylor still adhered to the functional, additive method of the Gothic Revival – planning from the inside out. Unlike his city houses, however, which occupied restricted sites, in this expansive composition horizontal spread helped offset the vertical thrust of the portico and tower. In the end, the relationship between the differing components was not fully resolved. Huntlywood was easily accessible from the city by rail – indeed the tracks ran through the property. Near the little station that served the estate were “modern brick farm buildings housing Drummond’s imported prize cattle and Southdown sheep and Buff Orpington hens.”100 The approach to the house was “a splendid avenue of blue spruce alternating with horse chestnuts,” which overlooked Drummond’s private nine-hole golf course, which his sheep kept in trim. The facility supplied

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2.21 Richard B. Angus Estate, Senneville, qc (Edward & W. S. Maxwell, 1901–05). Photograph, undated.

lambs weekly to the city’s Mount Royal Club, of which Drummond was founding president 1899–1902.101 Immediately in front of the house was a putting green, and below that lay a rose garden. Following George Drummond’s death in 1910, Montagu (now Sir Hugh) Allan bought the 300 acres above the railway track, which included the house and the farm, and he renamed it “Allancroft.” Drummond’s heirs kept the 200-acre property on the river for many years and finally sold it for development. It is useful to compare Taylor’s summer houses for Allan and Drummond to one the Maxwell brothers designed in 1901 for railway financier Richard B. Angus in Senneville on the western tip of the Island of Montreal. For his clients Taylor adapted the refined resort style popular among wealthy Americans, with its classical details, light coloured wood cladding, and ample size. Angus, in contrast, called for a vast Château-style mansion built of rock-faced stone with a symmetrical facade featuring two massive towers and a tall, hipped roof pierced by decorative dormers and chimneys.102

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Angus had turned to the young Edward Maxwell in 1898 to enlarge his existing summer house following the demise of his preferred firm, J.W. & E.C. Hopkins. This picturesque expansion burned in 1901, and Edward, now with his brother William, designed its replacement. For his new home Angus chose a style associated with the railway he had helped to create – the Château style used by Bruce Price for the spectacular Château Frontenac, which opened its doors in 1893. This quickly became the signature style of the cpr’s luxury hotels and stations (some by Edward Maxwell). In the 1890s it appeared among the many Maxwell-designed houses in the Square Mile. Angus’s grand château differs dramatically from Taylor’s summer houses, not only because of its style and rough material but because of its disciplined formality. This new quality in the Maxwell firm’s oeuvre is traceable to William’s return from France and study in a Beaux-Arts atelier. His training in the United States and Paris, unlike Taylor’s in Great Britain, represented the future.

2.22 Marlborough Apartment House, Montreal (1899–1900). Photograph, 1902.

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Apartment Buildings Marlborough Apartment House, Milton Street (1899–1900) In summer 1899 Taylor prepared plans for one of the city’s early apartment buildings, the Marlborough on Milton Street, a short walk from the McGill campus. Enjoying “beautiful views of the mountain,” the venture belonged to Andrew Frederick Gault, the “Cotton King of Canada.” Born in Northern Ireland, Gault was a son of a wealthy merchant and shipowner who had fallen on hard times and immigrated to Montreal with his family in the 1840s. With a brother, Andrew formed the wholesale traders Gault Brothers and Company, ultimately becoming a prominent member of the Montreal Board of Trade and a director of a number of insurance and banking firms, including the Bank of Montreal (1893–1903). In the 1870s the Gault brothers started making cotton textiles, an expanding domestic industry; by the 1890s Andrew was president of the industry’s three largest concerns and “a millionaire twice over.”103 Like his more famous contemporaries Carnegie and Rockefeller, Gault, through mergers, transformed an industry, controlling prices and production. Also like his counterparts, he became a philanthropist. In the 1870s, Gault had built Rokeby, a battlemented mansion at Sherbrooke and Mountain in Montreal, designed by John James Browne (1837–1893). In 1895 Gault, a keen Anglican, engaged Taylor to design Diocesan College (see below) around the corner from his future apartment building. Montreal’s rapid population growth during the second half of the nineteenth century did not in fact encourage construction of apartment houses. The long ranges of duplex and triplex housing, so characteristic of the city from the 1880s on, provided acceptable, inexpensive accommodation for many working-class inhabitants, so that Montreal avoided the crowded tenements of New York and – until the early twentieth century – luxury apartment houses such as the Linton on Sherbrooke Street (1907).104 For the poorest of the poor, living in the industrial slums of lower Montreal just south of the Square Mile, conditions remained dire. The Marlborough, located at the eastern edge of the Square Mile near McGill, aimed to attract better-off tenants, so Taylor looked to a

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speculative enterprise in London intended for wealthy, smaller families and perhaps bachelors. This was Richard Norman Shaw’s Albert Hall Mansions (1881 and later), a fashionable Queen Anne block of flats overlooking Kensington Park. Although the Marlborough was much smaller and the style “Elizabethan,” its picturesque, triple-gabled front, predominantly brick material, and external balconies drew directly on Shaw’s design, as did the concept of apartments for “the fashionable classes.”105 Shaw used gables, recesses, and balconies to lighten the solid, bulky frontage on Kensington Gore. The Queen Anne style domesticated his monumental structure, and many future builders of blocks in London, where red brick and terracotta abounded by 1900, followed suit. Taylor and his client were perhaps also familiar with 126–129 Mount Street in fashionable Mayfair, W.H. Powell’s 1886 structure. However, as John Summerson noted, Albert Hall Mansions was “the first and also the last time in the Victorian period [in London] that the new problem of flat-building came into the hands of a major architect.”106 Taylor’s abiding admiration for Shaw’s work made him an obvious source for this new challenge. A picturesque, red-brick treatment was also logical for a residential street near where Taylor had already designed the red-brick Diocesan College and, prior to that, in 1884, a pair of semidetached houses on Prince Arthur Street – red pressed brick with a little half-timber work and tiling. He used red pressed brick with cream-coloured sandstone trim for the Marlborough. The two-storey main entrance, with its elaborate carvings, was also of sandstone. Taylor must have learned, too, from New York, where recent apartment houses had superb interior planning – witness Henry J. Hardenbergh’s luxurious Dakota Apartments (1882). The Dakota’s interior courtyard provided light and air to the floor-through apartments – crucial before air conditioning. The courtyard – the Dakota’s boasted a fountain and could accommodate carriages – obviated the need for light wells, which were standard in tenements and that promoters wished to avoid. The Marlborough’s courtyard plan meant that “every room has direct light and air, the use of light wells of any description being entirely done away with.”107 Taylor’s courtyard – 60 feet by 30 feet – was far smaller than the vast Dakota’s, but it had grass and a fountain. The twentyseven apartments, which ranged from two rooms (plus bathroom)

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for bachelors to nine rooms, boasted internal central passages, with the rooms along the exterior walls. Taylor’s design for the Glasgow Municipal Buildings provided for a central courtyard with offices along the peripheries. The tawny-brick Dakota, though not Queen Anne, featured a picturesque roofline. In 1886, a critic called the Dakota the “most excellent of any of the kind in New York … with its lofty and handsomely ornamented roof [it] proclaims afar the palatial character of all its rich and comfortable dwelling suites.”108 Taylor’s stylistic treatment for the Marlborough, with its gables and pepperpot towers, while English, gave distinction to his building. Taylor’s gables allowed – on the 110-foot frontage – four suites for artists, with two large, bright studios, 30 feet by 18 feet. Essentially the building was three storeys high on a basement, except in the front, which housed the gables, where an attic accommodated the artists’ suites. Unlike Shaw’s much taller structure, the Marlborough did not have a passenger elevator, although it did have lifts for heavy articles and tradesmen’s supplies adjoining each stairway. There were three main staircases in iron and marble, encased in brick walls, with landings of mosaic, as fireproofing measures. Mosaics paved the common halls throughout. All the drawing and sitting rooms had fireplaces with tiled facings and hearths and Elizabethan mantelpieces. The floors of the principal rooms and halls were of hardwood. Always an enthusiast for balconies, Taylor provided every apartment with an open, iron balcony on iron brackets. For Albert Hall Mansions, Shaw provided a spacious entrance hall, borrowing from France, where apartment buildings had a long tradition. The Marlborough, too, featured “a spacious and welllighted entrance hall, paved with marble mosaic and completely finished in quartered oak. On the left is the waiting room, from which communication can be had to each suite by means of speaking tubes.”109 Opposite the waiting room was the janitor’s office, which had a telephone for tenants. Two ground-floor suites on either side of the entrance were for doctors’ offices. The Canadian Architect and Builder in January 1900 described the building’s modern conveniences, including hot-water heating and electric light, and made much of the ample storage, including larders

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with cooling “by the ammonia process from the basement.” Kitchens boasted handy dust-chutes, while the bathrooms were “fitted up with enamelled baths and marble basins, the hot water being supplied from the boilers in the basement.” The journal congratulated “Mr A.F. Gault … upon his enterprise in providing what will undoubtedly be cosy and comfortable homes, suited to the varying requirements of residents.”110 Apartment House for Artisans (1898) A.F. Gault also commissioned Taylor to design a “model apartment house” for “the better class of artisans,” described by the Gazette as “something of a new idea” in the city. The site, on the northwest corner of Guy and St Antoine south of the Square Mile, was deemed a “a convenient and suitable location” for the intended occupants. The three-storey structure contained thirty-six “good sized” apartments for the “artizans” and on the ground floor “six remarkably handsome stores.” There was only a “moderate rental,” and it was “Mr Gault’s intention … to receive only an ordinary income for the large outlay.” Unfortunately, the only surviving record of this pioneer work was a newspaper account from March 1898, when excavating and foundation work had begun. The article called the building’s style “old Colonial” and the materials brick and stone. Like the Marlborough, the structure also had a court, but it opened directly on the street, with entrances to the apartments around it; “handsome iron railings and gates of fine design” closed it off from the street. It was the Gazette reported “hailed with joy,” since the conveniences of apartment houses had so far “been confined to the wealthier classes.”111 Perhaps inspired by philanthropic industrialists in England (Salt and Lever come to mind) Gault looked after his own workers. After forming the Dominion Cotton Company in 1890, he had engaged John James Browne, architect of Rokeby, to design additions to his cotton mill in Magog, together with workers’ cottages, a club, a lecture hall, and a bowling green.112 Ten Houses for H.B. Ames (1897) While Gault concerned himself with affordable housing for a “better class” of workers and the needs of his own employees, a fellow

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Montrealer decided to tackle one of the worst slums in the city, calling on Andrew Taylor to assist him with a possible solution. Unlike many members of the city’s business elite, Herbert Brown Ames (1863–1954) inherited wealth and was a university graduate (Amherst College). In 1894 he retired from business and embarked on a career as a social and political reformer that earned him a knighthood in 1915. In 1897 Ames focused his attention on Griffintown, an industrial and residential area bordering the Lachine Canal where “rows of houses, rickety, propped up facing dirty sheds and germ-breeding closets” (often community privy pits in the backyards) were the norm.113 Here he conducted his famous sociological study, published in 1897 as Th City below the Hill, which described the grinding poverty and social problems faced by the working-class poor. In this study, initially published in the Montreal Star, Ames wrote: “Most of the residents of the upper city [alluding to the Square Mile] know little – and at times seem to care less – regarding their fellow men in the city below.”114 Yet Griffintown, located just south of the Square Mile and known as the cradle of Canadian industrialism, was where many Square Milers’ wealth was produced. Hoping to convince business and industrial leaders that adequate housing was an essential means of alleviating social ills, Ames personally funded a model housing complex called Diamond Court in Griffintown, constructed in 1897. The complex, on the southeast side of William Street between Ann and Shannon Streets, comprised “four blocks of buildings, containing homes of varying size and rental, for 39 families, with a grocery store upon the corner where no liquor is sold.”115 Among the innovations apart from the solid brick construction were concrete kitchen floors with central drains, stove, sink, washtub (provided), and water closet. A janitor resided on the premises.116 Taylor’s task was to design ten houses, although at least one other Montreal architect, Robert Findlay (1859–1951), who arrived in Montreal from Glasgow in 1885 and built up a successful practice, is known to have designed two “lodging houses” for Ames on William Street at Shannon in 1896.117 Sadly this historic Canadian experiment in social housing was demolished during the 1960s. Moreover, no photographs have come to light. Ames, however, was surely pleased with Taylor’s work, for he commissioned him to design his own house (1898) on Ontario Avenue not far from the Redpath-Bovey pair.

Chapter three

Bank of Montreal: From Sea to Sea (1884–1904)

Head Office: Interior Renovation (1885–86) While Taylor prepared his first plans in Canada for a series of private houses, very soon – in 1884 – he embarked on a significant corporate endeavour: renovate and redecorate the head office of Canada’s powerful and rapidly expanding Bank of Montreal.1 He would design branches for that institution throughout his two decades in Canada, and its competitors too eagerly sought his services. These commissions for the Bank of Montreal arose surely from family connections, since Taylor’s uncle George Drummond had become a director in 1882 when his brother-in-law Peter Redpath retired. Moreover, with his known taste for art, Drummond oversaw his nephew’s renovation of the head office.2 For this complex project Taylor took on an additional partner, Robert Bousfield, who would be with the firm until 1888. The monumental bank headquarters on Place d’Armes (John Wells architect, 1845) is still one of Canada’s landmarks. The institution had commenced business in 1817 with a modest capital of $150,000, but within seventy-five years it had “become a giant among banks, with the largest capital [$54 million] of any in North America.”3 In 1888 the Montreal Daily Star noted that “it stood about second to the Bank of England.”4 When the renovation began in spring 1885, the bank had twenty-eight branches from Halifax to Regina and was deeply involved

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in the financing of the Canadian Pacific Railway. With access to the fertile lands and resources of the vast country and likely expansion into new territory, the bank clearly needed more space at its head office, which had undergone only minor modifications over the years. Taylor hardly touched the historic exterior but nearly doubled the size of the banking room – a considerable challenge since expansion was only possible at the back, over the boiler house, and operations had to be carried out away from banking hours. Work therefore went on day and night, with the noisiest jobs after hours.5 The existing banking room was rectangular, about forty by fiftyfour feet. Four columns supported the ceiling beams, while the tellers’ counter extended across the middle of the room, with desks, offices, vaults, and undistinguished stairways jammed into the space, leaving only a narrow passage for customers. At the back, three large windows overlooked the roof of the boiler house. Taylor began by clearing out the crowded interior and opening the banking room to the outside walls of the building, leaving only two

3.1 Bank of Montreal Head Office Renovation, Montreal (1885–86). Photograph, 1891.

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3.2 Bank of Montreal Head Office. Plans before and after alteration.

offices at either side of the entrance vestibule for the president and manager. The removal of a number of thick walls necessitated many more interior columns to support new iron beams. Near the centre of the west elevation went the entrance to a new main staircase, which led to the boardroom and banking offices on the floor above. The opening boasted two pairs of reddish marble columns and pilasters, which supported iron beams above. Near the uppermost landing of this staircase was “a recess for the hats and coats of the directors while they [were] attending the board meetings or other business of the bank.”6 A new eastern staircase led up to the office corridor and down to the basement to vaults. Taylor oversaw as well redecoration of the building’s interior “in a style quite new to this part of the world.”7 The decorators were Herter Brothers of New York, who had designed and fitted up the W.H. Vanderbilt mansion on Fifth Avenue, which had so impressed Taylor. Previously, the banking room, white with gold accents, echoed the neoclassical exterior, but the new late Victorian creation was luxuriously Aesthetic. The deep warm red walls contrasted with deep green woodwork, with bronze and old gold scrollwork for relief. Murals depicting Canada’s history were in preparation for eight panels in the freize.8 Implicit was the bank’s critical role in the country’s development. The room’s new counter – a semicircle in the centre – featured coloured marbles from both the United States and Europe. The railing in front of the tellers was of highly polished bronze with panels of

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bevelled plate glass, while the floor consisted of coloured marble mosaic with a border and occasional centre patterns of conventionalized foliage. This floor was from England – according to the Gazette, “the first of its kind laid out here, [so] the manner of laying it was of course new to the contractors.”9 The contractor was John McLean, who had started out in Montreal in 1870 as an ornamental plasterer. He was the first Canadian to lay marble mosaic floors and later executed terracotta fireproofing – another first – for the city’s earliest tall office building, the New York Life Insurance Building, which went up nearby in 1888 on Place d’Armes.10 The interior was rich in polished woods. The president and manager’s offices, despite differing treatments, each had a fireplace with a polished mahogany mantelpiece and mahogany furniture, including desks and bookcases. All the furniture in the banking room was new, and most of it mahogany. Handsome woods added to the overall effect elsewhere as well. The main door was of panelled, carved, and polished teak, while the entrance vestibule had mahogany swing doors with plate-glass panels in the sides. The grand main staircase was of carved oak. Upstairs, the boardroom had an elaborate fireplace with a carved

3.3 Bank of Montreal. Banking room. Photograph, 1887.

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3.4 Bank of Montreal. Boardroom. Photograph, 1886.

mahogany surround and overmantel and gave on to an adjoining room through folding doors. Japanese leather – typical of Herter Brothers work at the time – covered the walls, while relief panels depicting classically draped figures formed an elaborate frieze. “The ceiling was richly panelled with wood beams and pendants.”11 The new interior had superb lighting. The coved panels of the banking hall’s beamed ceiling had gold and colour decoration on a silver-leaf background that reflected light. Taylor refitted plate glass into the large, small-paned windows at the back. The new main stairway featured stained-glass windows from Guthrie and Co. of Glasgow, the central panels representing the four seasons. More important, lighting throughout came from electricity “on the Edison incandescent principle.”12 Edison had developed the first commercially practical incandescent lamp only recently, in 1879. The bank initially used engines and dynamos in the basement to generate power, and the architects custom-designed bronze lamp brackets.13 The little shaded lamps at each teller’s station appeared in a perspective in the Canadian Architect and Builder in July 1889.14

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In 1882 Herter Brothers completed redecoration of the banker J. Pierpont Morgan’s house on Madison Avenue, New York, where they had introduced electric lighting. The Morgan partnership had helped fund creation of the Edison Electrical Illuminating Company, and Morgan’s house may have been one of New York’s first to electrify.15 In London, the world’s financial capital, electricity appeared in a bank in 1887 in the new Lombard Street office of Lloyd’s,16 and Montreal’s city streets received electric lighting in 1889. Taylor and his collaborators transformed the historic building into “one of the most commodious and handsome banks on this continent” (Gazette). The newspaper marvelled at the striking new decoration and listed all the contractors and craftsmen including Toronto sculptors Holbrook and Mollington, who had executed four relief panels designed by Taylor symbolizing Commerce, Mechanics, Agriculture, and Navigation.17 “Suffficient space has now been gained to meet all the requirements for years to come.”18 At the same time Taylor was involved in this major project, his exact contemporary, Canadian-born Frank Darling (1850–1923), then in partnership with Samuel George Curry (1854–1942), was at work on a splendid new Toronto main branch to replace the existing fortyyear-old Bank of Montreal on the corner of Front and Yonge streets. This exuberant structure, designed by the partnership that had won the competition (1880) for the Ontario Legislative Building (the commission was ultimately awarded to another architect) departed from the restrained palazzo formula that had long served Canadian banks. The side elevations facing Front and Yonge referenced the Montreal bank’s grand, porticoed facade, while the monumental corner entrance, embellished with three tiers of elaborate classical detailing, was unusually opulent, an obvious challenge to other banks in the city.

Branch Banks Meanwhile Taylor became architect to the Bank of Montreal, embarking on a series of branches to follow the railway west across Canada. Although the various provinces had many competing banks, gradually the more powerful, like the Bank of Montreal, absorbed weaker institutions, creating the system in place today, in which a handful of

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eastern institutions control the nation’s banking. The appearance of branches and regional offices played a key role in securing business in new locations. The Bank of Montreal expanded rapidly during Taylor’s years as its architect. Lovell’s Directory for 1885–86 listed twenty-eight branches; in 1900–01, there were forty-six. Unfortunately, the bank has few records about its historic buildings and nothing about their architects, and Taylor’s office records have also disappeared. We can learn part of the story from his fellowship application to the Royal Institute of British Architects (1889) and contemporaneous journals, newspapers, and photographs.19 Certainly Taylor did not design all the new branches while he was the bank’s architect, but all the ones he did were notable in their respective locales – solid, dignified, and meant to last. Taylor’s firm designed new branches for the Bank of Montreal in Perth, Ontario (1884–85); Calgary (1888–89); West End, Montreal (1889–90); Vancouver (1892–94); Seigneurs Street, Montreal (1894– 95); Regina (1897); Ottawa: addition (1900); Point St Charles, Montreal (1901); Sydney, now Nova Scotia (1900–01); Lindsay, Ontario: additions and alterations (1902). He probably designed the Edmonton branch at 100 Street and Jasper Avenue (1903).20 There may have been others. He designed for rivals as well: the Bank of Toronto, Montreal (1893– 94): Molsons Bank, Vancouver (1897–99); the Merchants Bank of Canada, Winnipeg (1900–02); and the Bank of British North America, Winnipeg (1903–04). Many of Taylor’s buildings replaced temporary quarters. The local character of banking in the United States meant that no US architect worked across the nation as Taylor did; in Canada, only the Bank of Montreal could build so extensively and ambitiously. About Vancouver, the Canadian Architect and Builder wrote in 1895. “Buildings, as a whole, in this new Pacific Coast city show a marked improvement in quality of workmanship, durability of material, and in a few isolated cases the designing and planning are far in advance of past years. The Bank of Montreal is the most noticeable example of this.”21 Frank Darling emerged as a major bank architect only after the turn of the century when the rival, Toronto-based Canadian Bank of Commerce began a period of rapid expansion.22 Historically, in Canada’s branch banks, usually the manager and sometimes lesser employees lived “above the shop.” The manager was

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always a person of consequence in the community, and the architecture conveyed both his status and his institution’s. When Taylor arrived, classicism was still the norm for banks, especially adaptations of the palazzo-style gentlemen’s clubs of London. Since clubs were prestige buildings with both public and private functions, they were an obvious prototype. Moreover, their models were the grand Renaissance palaces that had housed business and residence for such great banking families as the Medicis. Taylor confidently broke with this staid, generally monochromatic pattern, but adapted the more picturesque, colourful Queen Anne and neo-Romanesque to bank design. These styles allowed for colour, height, and lively rooflines, helping to distinguish the bank on main streets, yet both could be suitably domestic. All responded to their individual sites. His designs called for local materials and variously simplified forms and ornament, especially on the prairies, where skilled labour was scarce. Perth, Ontario (1884–85) Taylor’s first branch bank was in Perth, Ontario. The British had laid out the town as a military settlement in 1816 to defend the inland water route between the Ottawa River and Lake Ontario. The town had begun to grow in the 1830s, thanks first to the Rideau canal system and then to the Brockville & Ottawa Railroad, which reached Perth in 1859. The Bank of Montreal had opened a branch two years earlier on Gore Street, the principal thoroughfare.23 In 1882 the Canadian Pacific Railway took over the Brockville & Ottawa and opened shops to build railway cars, employing about five hundred men. In 1885 work was complete on Taylor’s new branch on Gore Street, probably on the same site. The structure was exceedingly austere Queen Anne, the only hint of the style being the plain, central, pedimented gable: “an adaptation of the English Renaissance style of the period of Queen Anne,” using rock-faced, cream-coloured sandstone with dressed corners.24 Early photographs show no architectural embellishment, except for dressed surrounds and a ground-floor band course. The street level, with the banking room, received different treatment from the two upper floors, where the manager lived. The ground floor featured two arched entrances: one opened into a porch beyond which lay the

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3.5 Bank of Montreal, Perth, on (1884–85). 1891.

banking room; above this entrance, carvers incised the bank’s name in the band course. The other, more modest entrance, was recessed and led to the manager’s quarters above. Between the two entrances, a large, arched, plate-glass window lit the banking room and helped attract the eye. The windows of the manager’s dwelling were rectangular. At attic level, the gable, which a pair of windows pierced, had two roundheaded dormers flanking it. A balcony topping the porch subsequently became a sun porch, and later views show the entrance at the centre.

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3.6 Bank of Montreal, West End Branch, Montreal (1889–90). Photograph, c. 1895

Taylor’s severe building contrasted with an award-winning English “bank in a country town” that appeared in the Builder in 1885.25 Also in gabled Queen Anne, it is far larger and more ornate, with intricately curving gables, leaded windows, a carved frieze at ground-floor level, and a highly ornate entrance. Taylor’s simplified design was a response to local conditions in a plain stone town that Scots settled early. Course-grained sandstone was indigenous, and rockface a typical masonry treatment. Yet Taylor’s up-to-date Queen Anne and high attic

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3.7 First Alliance Assurance Office, London, England (Richard Norman Shaw, 1881–82). Photograph, c. 1997.

distinguished the bank from its neighbours on Gore Street; it was a trend-setter, for only in 1882 had the Builder featured a Queen Anne ­– style bank in the little mill town of Leek in Staffordshire.26 West End, Montreal (1889–90) His first two bank projects showed Taylor up-to-date and adventurous, able to master the differing needs of renovating a splendid head office in the metropolis and designing a modest branch on a mixed residential and commercial street in a small Ontario town. Another pioneer project was Taylor’s West End Branch (1889) at St Catherine and Mansfield streets, the Bank of Montreal’s first branch in its hometown and the first branch of any bank in the city’s Upper Town. It was in a prosperous residential district soon to become the city’s retail core. A corner site attracted custom from two directions, and Taylor’s building garnered attention. The conical tower, steeply pitched roof,

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and prominent gables facing both streets drew the eye to both the bank and its corner entrance. The design derived surely from Shaw’s flamboyantly Queen Anne Alliance Assurance Offices at Pall Mall and St James Street in London, which inspired derivatives “on corner sites all over England.”27 George Drummond’s house, which probably also drew on this source, was underway. The West End Branch was similarly neo-Romanesque but even more colourful, with two shades of red Corsehill sandstone from Scotland and a buff Ohio sandstone. Shaw loved architectural colour, using pink brickwork alternating with bands of light Portland stone for his Alliance building. In contrast, the branch bank’s colourful surface was highly textural à la Richardson, thanks to the rock-faced masonry treatment and abundant sculptural ornament highlighting the corner entrance. Carving decorated the capitals of four squat columns, and interlace surrounded the name of the bank. The sculptor was Henry Beaumont, who also worked on the Drummond house. Like the mansion, Taylor’s bank reflected his awareness of Bruce Price’s Richardsonian Romanesque Windsor Station a few blocks away.

3.8 Bank of Montreal West End Branch. Floor plans attr. to Taylor redrawn by Steven Dumont, 2012.

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Following Shaw’s lead, Taylor employed arched windows on the ground floor – a practice the Alliance block did much to popularize.28 Shaw had used such openings only at street level to light a series of shops, but Taylor repeated the round – arches on the top floor of his three-storey structure, with dormers lighting the attic above. The bank’s site was long and narrow, the narrow end fronting on St Catherine Street, the main thoroughfare. Photocopies of Taylor’s original plans (now missing) show the interior arrangement with his soon-to-be added two-storey extension at the rear.29 The basement contained a coatroom and lavatory, storage for coal, and three vaults – one of them a new service for customers: “fire and burglar proof safety vaults for rent.” 30 Nearby, the base of the corner tower served as a private room for looking at papers and documents from the vault. On the ground floor, a vestibule opened into the banking hall, with the manager’s office at the front overlooking St Catherine and with lighting from the largest arched window. At the back were the clerk’s office and the money vault. Separating the two areas was a stairhall to all levels, which one could enter from Mansfield Street. Early photos show an elaborately carved beam ceiling with decorative pendants and hanging electric lamps. The plans indicate that the bank intended to lease the two upper floors to other organizations. The first floor (above the banking hall) contained a council room in the front, behind which was a library, the stairhall, and, beyond, a smoking room.31 At the rear were two rooms for records and storage. The second also contained a council room and a combined library and reading room. The initial tenant was the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers (1887) – the country’s first engineering society; Taylor’s early client and cousin-in-law Professor Henry Taylor Bovey was a founding member. Here, the attic housed the messenger, the bank’s official courier. Far more than the Perth bank, the West End Branch, with its lively profile and colourful materials, stood out among its early neighbours, the sober greystone row houses that Taylor found so uninteresting. His stylish city branch advertised its presence and fulfilled the architect’s mission to beautify the city and break up “the monotony of our streets.”32 It was also a harbinger of the district’s shift to retail. In 1889, Henry Morgan announced his intention to relocate his department store from the old city centre near the harbour to a

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proposed new building on St Catherine three blocks east of the bank. Four years later a large store and office building started on the opposite corner – young Edward Maxwell’s first commercial building – for the jeweller Henry Birks & Sons. The trend was underway.

3.9 Bank of Montreal, Calgary, nwt (1888–89). Photograph, c. 1890.

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Calgary (1888–89) A highly simplified version of the West End Branch appeared at about the same time in Calgary, which had been a handful of log dwellings when the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived in 1883. Three years later the Bank of Montreal opened a branch in a rented frame store, and in 1889 it moved into Taylor’s new building. The branch was at Stephen Avenue (now Eighth Avenue South) and Scarth Street (now First Street West) in the centre of the developing commercial district. New buildings for Calgary and Montreal’s West End were announced at the Bank of Montreal’s annual meeting in June 1889,33 and the two were similar in design. Like the West End Branch, the Calgary bank was neo-Romanesque and had a circular corner tower, high-pitched roof, pointed gables, and arched openings at street level (facing Stephen Avenue). However, its entrance was not in the tower but opened onto Stephen, Calgary’s main street. There the tower served as a transitional element between the business facade fronting on Stephen and the residential facade containing the manager’s entrance, which opened on Scarth. Unlike the West End Branch, which had a narrow frontage on St Catherine and a much longer one along Mansfield, the Calgary bank’s two main elevations were roughly equal, although Taylor gave them different treatments. In contrast to the arched openings on Stephen, the residential front had a pedimented central entrance door flanked by rectangular windows and a chimney cutting through the gable. This branch had no rental space, the upper floors being the manager’s residence, reached by a winding staircase in the tower. These quarters comprised a drawing room, dining room, smoking room, kitchen, pantry, and servants’ quarters with bedrooms, bathrooms, and drawing rooms above. The building materials were mainly local: cream-coloured freestone, rock-faced, from Butlin’s Elbow River quarry, brick from McNaughton’s Calgary brickyard (presumably to back the sandstone), and British Columbia cedar.34 Ornament was sparing, since skilled labour was scarce, and the roof was shingle rather than slate as in Montreal. Yet this was an exceedingly fine building for its time and place.35

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Vancouver (1892–94) Calgary, Vancouver, and Regina were all 1880s creations of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which determined their locations and laid out their townsites. Andrew Taylor designed the first permanent Bank of Montreal branches in all three. In 1888 a correspondent for the American Architect and Building News noted that while Vancouver was the youngest city in the Dominion, as

3.10 Bank of Montreal, Vancouver, bc (1892–94). Photograph, c. 1897.

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the railway terminus and the new port for the East, it appeared “a child of great promise.”36 In August 1887 the Bank of Montreal had opened a branch in “a modest frame building” on Hastings Street. In spring 1892 it called for tenders for a new stone structure, and in September 1894 it moved into Taylor’s building, on the corner of Granville and Dunsmuir streets.37 As the regional head office, the new building was imposing, consisting of a basement, three storeys, and an attic. The base, including the ground floor, was grey granite, while the upper storeys were of light-coloured Newcastle Island sandstone from Nanaimo, British Columbia. Brick backed the sandstone. The basement and ground floor, in solemn grey, were for banking. The lighter-coloured superstructure housed the manager, whose quarters, suitable for extensive entertainment, overpowered the rest, boasting three floors and elaborate gables, dormers, and a tower. There was a lively roofline, and architectural ornament included aedicules atop the gables and little tower dormers with pediments and bull’s-eye windows. The style was

3.11 Bank of Montreal, Regina, nwt (1897). Photograph, 1889.

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“English Renaissance, picturesquely treated.”38 The Vancouver Daily World enthused: “A more ornate building than that [which is] erected … by the Bank of Montreal cannot perhaps be found in any city in America. Coming down Granville it presents a pleasing appearance that lingers long in the memory … From the southeast corner rises a commanding tower which adds dignity and impressiveness to the general effect … The cost of this elegant structure is about $75,000.”39 Vancouver’s population jumped from five thousand in 1886 to fifteen thousand by 1892, and Taylor designed his bank to serve his client for some time, which it did, until 1925.40 Regina (1897) The Canadian Pacific Railway created Regina in 1882; the town became capital of the North-West Territories in 1883 and of the new province of Saskatchewan in 1905. The Bank of Montreal opened a branch there in 1882 – a plain wood-frame structure. In 1897 it erected a new branch, to Taylor’s design, at Scarth Street and Eleventh Avenue. The new building, brick with stone trimmings, was a major edifice in this outpost.41 Taylor used “the English domestic style” and applied such favourite Queen Anne motifs as tall gables, soaring chimneys, and oriel windows – simplified versions of Shaw’s for his New Zealand Chambers in the City of London and his own house in Hampstead. Taylor also employed another of Shaw’s favourite window treatments, elongated with segmental window heads. For the bank premises, he chose round-arched openings, as Shaw had done in the Alliance Assurance Offices and as Taylor himself had done in the West End and Calgary branches. On a side elevation, however, a wooden balcony projected out from the upstairs family quarters. This and other aspects of the design recalled Taylor’s early houses for his Redpath cousins in Montreal, though with a symmetrical facade and an unusual central gable that projected high above the main roofline and caught the eye, much as the tower and tall, decorated gables did for the Vancouver branch. This feature housed perhaps a cistern for water storage. The lot also contained a brick stable and coach house and an ice house. Despite its solid construction, fire destroyed the building in 1905.

3.12 Bank of Montreal, Seigneurs Street Branch, Montreal (1894–95). Photograph, c. 1895.

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Seigneurs Street, Montreal (1894–95) The second branch in Montreal, the Seigneurs Street Branch, still stands at the southeast corner of Notre Dame and Seigneurs. It served the growing industrial sector near the Lachine Canal, Ames’s “city below the hill.” The rectangular, three-storey structure – one of Taylor’s most successful designs – went up in 1894 and opened 1 May 1895.42 It was of red Scotch sandstone and in a Flemish Renaissance variant of Queen Anne, with a high-pitched, slate roof and elaborately ornamented gables and dormers. The bank occupied the main floor and basement, the floor above was for leasing, and the bank messenger resided on the top floor. The bank entrance was on the corner, and a secondary doorway on Seigneurs served the upper floors. Despite the picturesque roofline and elaborate ornament, the overall composition was calmer than Taylor’s previous banks, with an almost Richardsonian unity to the design. The American Architect and Building News deemed it “simple but picturesque.”43 The two street elevations were symmetrical, but treatment for each floor derived from its function. The ground floor had arched openings, the rental floor large rectangular windows, and the floor above rectangular and bull’s eye windows in addition to dormers. The elaborate ornament, which had a heraldic theme, was very charming – especially a large carved panel of the bank’s arms that filled the front gable (now a window) – the work probably of Holbrook & Mollington of Toronto, who executed the sculptural decoration on Taylor’s Bank of Toronto branch (1894) on St James Street. The American Architect and Building News noted that the banking room was in old mahogany and antique brass with a mosaic floor and that the ceiling and walls were “somewhat elaborately decorated.”44 Taylor exhibited his design at the Royal Canadian Academy exhibitions in Toronto and Montreal in 1895 and 1896, respectively, and a perspective – possibly his exhibition piece – appeared in the Canadian Architect and Builder in 1899. Taylor’s colourful branch was not alone at this important intersection. Edward Maxwell’s new building for the Merchants’ Bank of Halifax (later the Royal Bank of Canada) also opened in 1895 on the

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3.13 Merchants’ Bank of Halifax, Montreal (Edward Maxwell, 1894–95). Photograph, 1896.

opposite side of Seigneurs – very different from Taylor’s distinctive Flemish Renaissance creation. Reflecting Maxwell’s years in Boston, the olive green sandstone and buff pressed brick structure drew on a current American type for commercial buildings with rounded corner, flat roofline, and heavy cornice, similar to his recent Henry Birks & Sons Store (1893–94) and to his former employers’ Montreal Board of Trade (Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, 1893), which Edward had supervised.45 This commericial type could also be seen in Toronto at the corner of Queen and Yonge streets: Curry & Baker’s Jamieson’s department store (1895), both buildings predicting the more standardized approach of the new century.46

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3.14 Bank of Montreal, Sydney, ns (1900–01). Photograph, 1901.

Sydney, Nova Scotia (1900–01) In 1893 Andrew Taylor visited the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which galvanized public taste for monumental classicism in architecture. By the turn of the century, Taylor had begun designing classical banks, although he had already used classical treatments – most notably for the Macdonald Engineering Building (1890–93) at McGill and the Art Association addition (1892–93) on Montreal’s Phillips Square. Taylor commented on the fair to the annual convention in 1893 of Quebec architects: “To pass from the noisy, dirty, half paved, half-

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baked chaotic city of Chicago, to the fair white city on the shores of Lake Michigan, with its lagoons and islands, pleasant winding walks, fountains, statuary and architecture, is like a translation from Purgatory to Paradise.”47 The fair’s organizers had selected “the best architectural talent of the United States,” including Adler & Sullivan, Charles B. Atwood, Richard Morris Hunt, William Le Baron Jenney, McKim, Mead & White, Peabody & Stearns, and George B. Post. Sophia B. Hayden designed the Women’s Pavilion: “She stands, if I mistake not, in the proud position of being the first woman to design a building of such magnitude which has been executed, and it puts to the blush many of the secondary buildings on the ground, such as the United States Government Building, the Illinois State House, and others.” Taylor added: “We shall have to look to our laurels when our sisters enter into competition with us, and there seems no reason why women should not engage more largely in architectural designing, and the tendency I think is to do so.”48 Taylor approved of the fair’s disciplined plan and prevailing classicism, since the result was “unity and harmoniousness of effect,” while the designs of leading architects created “variety and interest.” As to Louis Sullivan’s colourful Transportation Building, famous for its golden doorway, he referred to it as “orientally nondescript,” predicting accurately that “the [classical] architecture of the Fair will have a powerful influence on the architecture of this continent for good or evil for some time to come. The style adopted will be the predominant one, and we may expect to see reproductions of the various buildings more or less spoilt, springing up all over the country.” He disparaged, however, the cheap, impermanent, plaster-based material used for some buildings, which, he argued, could inhibit “truth and genuine progress in architecture.” Taylor’s most notable classical branch for the Bank of Montreal was in Sydney, Nova Scotia. This small fishing and farming settlement in the midst of the richest coalfield in eastern Canada had just become home to Dominion Iron and Steel Company. In November of the same year, 1899, the Bank of Montreal opened a branch in a two-storey frame building on the corner of Charlotte and Prince streets. The following year it purchased a site at Charlotte and Dorchester streets. Taylor’s new branch was a one-storey structure on a basement, the main body of olive sandstone from the Wallace quarry in New

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Brunswick and the base of Halifax grey granite. The cornices and other trim were stone, and copper covered the roof and dome.49 The style was “English Renaissance” – often a synonym for Queen Anne, but in this case for monumental classicism. Combining Palladian and BeauxArts motifs, the bank was cruciform, with a dome atop the central space – an adaptation of Palladio’s Villa Rotunda, with pedimented cross-gables replacing Palladio’s four porticoes. The two street fronts featured large Palladian windows that shed light on the banking hall.50 At the corner was the bank entrance – a polygonal vestibule with two oculi and a balustrade above. A second balustrade terminated the dome, with further oculi piercing the drum. Elaborate cartouches decorated the gables, and plaques adorned the street fronts. In the banking hall, four piers carried arches to support the dome, with plasterwork enriching the dome. The interior featured a high oak dado, a counter of white quartered oak with a railing of antiqued brass, and desks and other fittings of oak. The floors were marble mosaic in ornamental patterns. With its graceful dome and supporting arches, its classical columns and detailing, this handsome space evoked Wren’s London churches, most particularly St Mary-at-Hill and St Stephen Walbrook, both of which had internal cross-in-square plans and appeared in Taylor’s The Towers and Steeples Designed by Sir Christopher Wren. An early photograph, which appeared in the Canadian Architect and Builder in March 1904, shows how remarkable this fashionable branch was among the drab frame and brick structures of Sydney’s downtown.51 Like Taylor’s earlier bank branches, the building was a landmark. Its neighbours would ultimately include the post office and, on the other corners, two rival banks: the Royal Bank and the Canadian Bank of Commerce.52 The branch became a “rich, historical heritage” building and, with some alterations, continues as a bank. Point St Charles, Montreal (1901) Resembling the Sydney branch with its domed banking hall and classical treatment, the Point St Charles branch (1901) stood at Wellington and Magdalen streets on the south side of the Lachine Canal, then the largest industrial sector in Montreal and all of Canada.53 Together with Griffintown on the north side of the canal, “the Point,” as it was called,

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3.15 Bank of Montreal, Point St Charles Branch, Montreal (1901). Photograph, 1910.

developed at the hub of Canada’s transportation system where the harbour, canal, and railway system joined. One of the early factories here was the Redpath sugar refinery (1854) and nearby the vast Grand Trunk Railway yards and workshops. Industrialization and residential construction accelerated during the last quarter of the century; and Wellington Street, one of the neighbourhood’s major thoroughfares, was an ideal location for a Bank of Montreal branch. Three of the four tellers’ cages were in service only twice a month on railway paydays. The small branch – forty by forty feet square - was a simpler brick version of the Sydney design, setting arched lights in rusticated surrounds and sheltering the corner entrance with a handsome shell hood resting on consoles supported by Ionic pilasters. The curve of the hood nicely echoed the shape of the semicircular windows. An elaborate cartouche centred in the shell contained the date “Anno Domini 1901,” while friezes on the two street fronts read “Bank of Montreal.” Here again the plan was cruciform, with a forty-foot dome crowning the interior, which an attic storey masked on the exterior. More recent owner architect Pieter Sijpkes described the dome as popping through

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3.16 Bank of Montreal, Ottawa, on (1900). Photograph, 1901.

the attic apartment (occupied by the bank’s messenger and his family) like the hole in a doughnut. A removable panel in the dome allowed a view onto the main space and vault.54 The branch manager wrote in 1925 that the dome also afforded splendid light and ventilation.55 Not surprising for Taylor, this design combined old and new. Like its prototype in Sydney, the interior looked back to Wren and, according to Sijpkes, was of wood frame construction and elaborate plaster. The supporting structure, however, was both up-to-date and fire resistant, comprising a steel frame and concrete floors. Sijpkes considered the building a gem, “one of the neighborhood’s foreground buildings, surrounded by background forms of modest rowhouses and storefronts.”56 Ottawa Branch: Addition (1900) In contrast to the branches in Sydney and Point St Charles, the branch in Ottawa was the most important in Canada. The Bank of Montreal had settled in lumber town Ottawa (then Bytown) in 1842, renting space in a hotel on Wellington Street. In 1857 Queen Victoria named

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Ottawa the capital of the Province of Canada, and in 1863 the Bank of Montreal became banker for the government, a position it held until 1935, when Parliament established the Bank of Canada. In 1867, when Ottawa became capital of the new Dominion of Canada, the bank purchased a prominent site on the corner of Wellington and O’Connor streets facing the Parliament Buildings. John W. Hopkins, architect of the Redpaths’ Terrace Bank, designed a spacious Italianate building of four storeys, which reached completion in the early 1870s. It featured Ohio buff sandstone on a limestone basement, and a slatecovered mansard roof. Some time later a small limestone house went up against the south elevation, with access from O’Connor Street, to host visiting bank officials.57 In 1900 the bank asked Taylor to design a two-storey addition extending along Wellington Street to the west. It would provide an impressive new entrance for the manager and more accommodation for entertaining, including a pleasant colonnaded gallery – perhaps inspired by the famous Renaissance loggia at the Villa Medici at Careggi, near Florence. Taylor’s extension adhered to Hopkins’s Renaissance treatment, but with the Palladian Beaux-Arts flavour he had used in Sydney. The addition’s western elevation featured two Palladian windows, a bay and a bull’s-eye window, as well as the entrance porch with its classical pediment and richly carved frieze. An elegant double staircase accessed the porch, while, above, slender Ionic columns supported the gallery roof. Grace Parker was daughter of the manager who transferred to Ottawa in 1909 from a small branch in Brantford, Ontario.58 “This time our house was really tremendous. The rooms were large and there were four storeys if one counted in the large hall at our front door, and a big cloak-room as well as a room with a piano we called the schoolroom.” She added that there “was a huge top floor where the cook and two maids had their rooms and there was a large sewing room where there was always something in the process of being made.” As well, “the bank supplied a butler who was certainly kept busy. Not only did he wait on table and have complete charge of the dining room, but he helped in the kitchen, polished the floors and silver, answered the front door which was down a long flight of stairs and it was important he always kept himself presentable. He always wore a white jacket when serving

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3.17 Bank of Montreal Head Office Remodelling (1901–05). Banking room. Photograph, 1905.

meals.” Grace described her parents’ social life: “In Dad’s position it was essential that he and Mother entertain often. Mother gave large luncheons and together she and Dad gave dinner parties. They made a fine pair as host and hostess. They loved people and every gathering at our house was gay.” Her aunt Grace Julia Parker, George Drummond’s second wife, likely attended some of these festive gatherings.

Head Office: Second Remodelling (1901–05) Taylor’s major project as the new century opened was the interior remodelling of and addition to the Montreal head office. The huge increase in number of branches across the country, which the old building on St James Street supervised and co-ordinated, put enormous strains on the structure despite Taylor’s extensive remodelling in 1885. St James Street was now the financial heart of Canada, but the recasting of headquarters required modern grandeur on a scale new to Canada,

3.18 Bank of Toronto, Montreal (1893–94). Photograph, 1894.

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and the commission went to McKim, Mead & White, then the leading US architects. This four-year project was the greatest Canadian bank commission of the time. Although it correctly belongs to the New York firm’s oeuvre, Taylor’s role was key.59 In a letter in 1926 to the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Taylor recorded that when “this very important work of the head office came to be executed I was asked by the Bank to associate myself with some leading architect in the United States, and I selected Messrs. McKim, Mead and White.”60 Historians have cited McKim as partner in charge, since a younger partner, William Mitchell Kendall, made this attribution around 1920. However, according to Taylor, “Mr Mead and I … collaborated on this building, sharing the remuneration equally, and our relations all through were of the happiest. It was a pleasure to work with him.”61 His published lectures and writings show Taylor anxious more to create high-quality work than to promote himself. He wrote to the Journal at the time of McKim’s death in 1909 and emphasized his admiration for the three partners and their cordial relations.62 However, he was keen to keep the record straight: in 1902 he wrote to the Canadian Architect and Builder to correct “several errors” in a report by its Montreal correspondent, who had credited McKim, Mead & White as sole designers and architects, an attribution that has continued to the present day. Taylor stated that he was “joint architect with McKim, Mead and White, and the building has been jointly designed, and is being carried out in every particular under the joint care of the above named architects.”63 Once again Herter Brothers did the interior work. Taylor informed Mead on 19 October 1903 that he had “got authority to accept Herter bros. price for the furnishings of the seven rooms including Board room in English oak, plaster panelling of walls of general meeting room, and the frames and soapstone near hearths of fireplaces for a total of $24571.00 fixed and finished complete in the building.”64 This work, however, showed more restraint and classicism than Herter Brothers’ colourful, profusely ornamented, earlier work at the bank. Taylor mentioned elsewhere to Mead his own furniture designs “for some of the rooms,” which the bank had approved, subject to McKim, Mead & White’s approval.65

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Bank of Toronto Montreal Branch (1893–94) His extensive work for the Bank of Montreal did not prevent Taylor from designing for its competitors, which were also expanding – the Bank of British North America, the Bank of Toronto, the Merchants Bank of Canada, and Molsons Bank.66 Especially noteworthy were his Bank of Toronto branch in Montreal and the Merchants Bank building in Winnipeg. The Canadian Architect and Builder noted in January 1895 that among public buildings that went up in the preceding year “the branch of the Bank of Toronto standing at the corner of McGill and St James streets is the most important of all. It is built of sandstone, five storeys in height, well proportioned and richly carved. The building is a decided credit to the architects, Messrs Taylor and Gordon; the sculptors, Messrs. Holbrook and Mollington, of Toronto, and the contractors for the masonry, Messrs Whighton and Morrison.”67 This bank and office building, at the gateway to Montreal’s financial district, differed compositionally from Taylor’s branches for the Bank of Montreal. The Toronto bank wanted a major branch in Canada’s financial capital; it needed to project presence on this key corner. After paying $100,000 for the site, the bank soon refused an offer of $125,000 for it. Not surprising, the tall building – seventy-eight feet high – sported aedicule-like pinnacles rising above the roofline parapet, while at the corner a cupola crowned the forty-foot domed tower.68 The structure was colourful as well: alternating courses of red and buff sandstone. The Romanesque style allowed for rich carved ornament on the recessed porch, which formed the entrance to the banking room – not unlike that of Taylor’s earlier West End Branch. Also similar was the use of columns (here of Tennessee marble) at the corner entrance and arched openings on the ground floor. The Canadian Architect and Builder praised the interior: “The banking room is large, airy, and exceedingly well lighted. The floor is laid with mosaic. The walls, to a height of eight feet, are lined with colored marble, with which the decoration of the upper portion and ceiling is made to harmonize. A very handsome semi-circular counter, in which marble, antique brass, plate glass and grille work have been judiciously employed, is a striking feature. The wood-work is in mahogany. The upper portion of the building has been suitably fitted up for offices.” 69

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3.19 Merchants Bank, Winnipeg, mb (1900–02). Photograph, c. 1902.

One initial renter, the Union Assurance Society of London, England, appreciated its “elegant” new quarters, calling the location, immediately opposite Victoria Square, “the most desirable and central in the city.”70 Early photos of the square reveal the effectiveness of Taylor’s design. In January 1896, the Canadian Architect and Builder illusrated three Montreal banks deemed to be among the five “best buildings of recent construction” in Montreal. They were Taylor’s Bank of Toronto and Seigneurs Street branch and Maxwell’s Merchants Bank of Halifax.71

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Merchants Bank of Canada, Winnipeg Branch (1900–02) Even taller than the Bank of Toronto and more advanced in style, Taylor’s Merchants Bank in Winnipeg was a trailblazer. At Main and Lombard streets in the heart of the business district, it was the city’s first tall office building – seven storeys high, with two electric elevators.72 A Historic Winnipeg marker commemorating the building (demolished 1966) describes it as the city’s first steel-frame “skyscraper.” Winnipeg had occupied a strategic position since the days of the fur trade. Initially a small settlement near the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Garry, it lies midway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at the confluence of two rivers, the Red and the Assiniboine. Rail transportation made it the seat of the Canadian grain trade: the wholesale, administrative, and financial centre of the west – Canada’s Chicago. Indeed its early growth had no equal in Canadian urban development. The Allans’ Montreal-based Merchants Bank had been the first to reach Winnipeg, establishing a branch in 1873, preceding the Bank of Montreal by four years.73 By 1900 this extraordinary growth led the Merchants Bank to tear down its branch on the site – “an ornament to the city, not so long ago” – in favour of “a costly and more suitable up-to-date construction.”74 Taylor’s design reflected his continuing responsiveness to modern US architecture. While at the Columbian Exposition in 1893 he probably studied Chicago’s tall buildings – for instance, Jenney’s Home Insurance Building (1884–85), with its steel frame and elevators. He responded perhaps even more strongly to the more “artistic” solutions of Louis Sullivan in the 1890s. His combined bank and office building featured the tripartite base, shaft, and capital composition that Sullivan favoured, allowing him to express both the height and the various functions of this new form of urban bank. The new building’s base comprised a ground floor of “creamy white” Indiana limestone on a granite basement, a shaft of “a fine toned red pressed brick from St Paul [Minnesota], with a great deal of stone dressings, and surmounted by a very elaborate and handsome ornamental copper cornice.”75 Most of the ground floor consisted of the bank, which displayed Taylor’s typical arched openings. The heavy rustication of this lower division provided a solid-looking base for the tall building, as well as the impregnable quality that banks sought. The shaft, grouping

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multiple windows within tall, narrow arches, was Sullivanesque. In the two uppermost floors, engaged columns separated the windows, and a boldly projecting cornice crowned the whole. Taylor may have differentiated this portion for aesthetic reasons or to express a special function. The Maxwells similarly distinguished the top floor of their ten-storey Dominion Express Building in Montreal (1910–11), which was home to a private dining club. Contemporaneous accounts do not provide a full account of the structure of this Canadian pioneer, apart from its being fireproof with all metal joists and that special precautions were necessary with the foundations since the subsoil was somewhat soft clay. Darling & Pearson’s nearby Union Bank building (1903–05), which topped the Merchants Bank in height, had “a foundation of 21 concrete caissons sunk to the bedrock and a frame of interlocking steel girders manufactured by Dominion Bridge of Montreal.”76 The Canadian Architect and Builder in 1895 reported increasing use of steel in Winnipeg construction, although, when the American Architect and Building News commented in 1899 on a scarcity of steel in Canada, it noted minimal employment of the material in buildings and that the country was currently “in the transition stage.”77 Steel was expensive, and the costs could only “be justified in the erection of expensive or impressive buildings” – certainly the case with this one.78 Taylor had used steel in his earliest bank commission in 1885, strengthening the old floor of the Bank of Montreal Head Office with steel girders to support the weight of the new mosaic floor and marble counter. Steel and concrete figured in more recent projects such as his Point St Charles branch for the Bank of Montreal and the Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay, Ontario, and he undoubtedly employed these materials for the Merchants Bank as well. Although the Historic Winnipeg marker describes Taylor’s structure as the city’s first skycraper, the term is generally reserved for curtain wall construction. It was, however, Manitoba’s and indeed western Canada’s tallest office building prior to the Union Bank’s completion in 1905.

Bank of British North America, Winnipeg Branch (1903–04) A year after the Merchants Bank opened, a surviving three-storey branch designed by Taylor for the Bank of British North America in

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3.20 Bank of British North America, Winnipeg, mb (1903–04). Photograph, c. 1904.

Winnipeg was constructed of steel and reinforced concrete with concrete footings.79 It featured a pedimented frontispiece and entrance porch, a neo-Palladian treatment that served as a corporate style.80 This smaller bank distinguished itself by its elegant, traditional facade, even as Taylor’s Merchants Bank, dominating the prime corner of Winnipeg’s Bankers’ Row, towered over its competitors, which included new branches of the Dominion Bank (1899–1900) and the Bank of Commerce (1899–1900), both by leading Toronto firm Darling & Pearson. By 1912, however, the grand, new Bank of Montreal branch, by McKim, Mead & White, dominated them all.

Chapter four

Building McGill, Building Canada (1890s)

The Redpath family had been involved with McGill College long before Andrew Taylor arrived in Montreal. As a building contractor, patriarch John Redpath had constructed the institution’s first buildings in the 1830s and 1840s. He also contributed to the first endowment fund. His eldest son, Peter, who joined the governing board in 1864, became one of McGill’s greatest benefactors, paying for the museum, library, and chair of mathematics that bear his name. Even after moving to England in 1880, he remained active, serving as a governor until his death in 1894. Taylor carried out all of his considerable work at McGill in the 1890s – major commissions that included three state-of-the art science buildings (the heavy machinery for Engineering and the delicate instruments for Physics provided special challenges) and the Redpath Library (when library design was in dramatic transition). He was also responsible for substantial additions to the Medical Building and the first addition to the library stack. By the time he left Canada in 1904, the majority of McGill’s purpose-built buildings were his, or, in the case of the Medical Building, had been significantly expanded by him. In McGill’s building history, Taylor’s only rival as an architect was Scottish-born Percy Nobbs, in the early twentieth century. When Taylor began his work, McGill had survived an inauspicious beginning and, under Principal John William Dawson (later Sir

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4.1 Macdonald Science Buildings, McGill University. Photograph, c. 1898.

William), was well on its way to world-class status. The campus lay at the base of Mount Royal on a portion of the farm that wealthy fur trader James McGill bequeathed at his death in 1813. Nonsectarian from the start, McGill eschewed the cloistered model of the older English universities and adhered to a more open, North American pattern,1 setting free-standing buildings apart on spacious grounds. John Redpath was the contractor for the Arts Building (1839–43), which John Ostell designed in the prevailing plain, late Georgian mode. Occupying pride of place, it stood on a slight rise overlooking a sweep of lawn bisected by a long avenue leading from Sherbrooke Street. When Dawson arrived in 1855, the campus was literally a cow pasture. Later low corridors attached two flanking pavilions to the Arts Building; a small observatory to the west went up in the 1860s. To the northeast rose the severely classical Medical Building (1870s). Below, the magnificent Peter Redpath Museum of natural history in late Victorian Grecian mode, opened in 1882; Redpath hoped it would keep Dawson, one of the era’s foremost geologists and palaeontologists,

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at McGill. As well, Dawson and his wife had planted many trees on campus. The buildings, despite their varying classical styles, were all in local grey limestone – a tradition Taylor would maintain. Also in limestone, on the western edge of campus but not part of McGill, Presbyterian College, in Ruskinian Gothic, was completed in 1881. It reflected Dawson and the Redpaths’ religious affiliation; John had been instrumental in its founding, and Peter continued support. Just below, construction began on the Redpath Library in 1892. Taylor’s three science buildings would ultimately form an impressive row along the campus’s eastern edge. Their erection reflected Dawson and McGill’s bias toward the practical sciences. Born in tiny Pictou, Nova Scotia, Dawson had acquired vast experience in Canada and a towering reputation around the world. In the mid-1850s he set about transforming a nearly moribund institution into an educational powerhouse for a developing country. He valued the physical sciences especially for their practical applications, and Taylor’s first commission at McGill would be the Macdonald Engineering Building – the first of three science buildings that tobacco magnate and governor William Christopher Macdonald (later Sir William) paid for at McGill. Macdonald was the ideal benefactor for this endeavor. Grandson of a Highland chieftain, he lived modestly and had no interest in “the dynastic ambitions, social life, and art collecting of his fellow Montreal millionaires.”2 He asked only that the buildings he commissioned be among the best in the world. Working with Dawson, he practically refounded the institution, transforming it from a medical school attached to an arts college into a full-scale university with particular strengths in science. His first gift, in 1869, was $1,750 for biological equipment; in 1871 he gave $5,000 for the general endowment. Thereafter the benefactions continued with very particular objects in view: whole buildings and their necessary professorial chairs for physics, engineering, and chemistry, large numbers of books for the library, many of them individually chosen (10,000 in all), and substantial grants to other faculties, including arts, law, education, music, architecture, and by bequest even medicine, although during his lifetime he left that area to the generosity of Lord Strathcona.3

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Taylor’s structures were significant elements in this undertaking. The catalyst for Taylor’s Engineering Building was Henry Taylor Bovey, professor of civil engineering and applied mechanics, who had married Taylor’s first cousin Emily Redpath in 1880. Three years later Taylor designed their house. A graduate of Queen’s College, Cambridge, Bovey had emigrated from England in 1876. The practical sciences at McGill were the purview of the arts faculty, which taught them in a makeshift manner without a building or proper equipment. While Bovey had learned engineering by costly “trial and error … [the] knowledge of different forms of energy had greatly increased; new materials of construction were being introduced, and the demand for new effects was making the old rules insufficient or useless. Theory and practice had become so interdependent that an absolute connection between them was necessary for their advancement.”4 In 1878 McGill made applied science a separate faculty with Bovey as dean; by 1890 it had four departments: civil, mechanical, and mining engineering and practical chemistry, and money was flowing in. First, Thomas Workman endowed pay for staff and workshops in mechanical engineering to give students useful knowledge of construction materials and of hand and machine tools and to provide manual training. In 1890 William Macdonald provided money for an engineering and a physics building. Construction began in spring 1890 on the five-storey Engineering Building and attached three-storey Workman Workshops, and in early 1891 on the Physics Building. Governor General Baron Stanley of Preston opened them both on 24 February 1893. It had soon become clear that engineering and physics required independent facilities. John Cox, first holder of the physics chair that Macdonald endowed in 1891, explained that some research depended on “the great and powerful machines which are to be found in the Engineering Building.” Other investigations “require such delicate apparatus that they could not be conducted in the midst of moving machinery and powerful currents traversing the building.”5 These considerations led to separate structures and their respective designs. For example, Engineering housed all the power for lighting and for running machines in both buildings. To further protect work in electricity and magnetism, the two lower storeys in the north half of Physics were iron-free, with copper nails in the wooden flooring and copper heating coils, pipes, door locks, and other metal fittings.6

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4.2 Macdonald Engineering Building and Workman Workshops (1890–93). Photograph, c. 1895.

The Macdonald Engineering Building and Workman Workshops (1890–93) When the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell organized the famous Cavendish Laboratory (1873) at Cambridge, he had had to work from scratch, but physical science labs had followed elsewhere, including in the United States. William Macdonald visited various US universities, paying special attention to Cornell, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins.7 At the opening of McGill’s Engineering and Physics buildings in 1893, Cox related that McGill had drawn on the experience of Australia, France, Germany, and the United States and that he himself had visited Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit), the University of Pennsylvania, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Yale.8 Shaw and Hunnewell’s Jefferson Physical Laboratory (1884) at Harvard was surely an influence. At a time when laboratory science

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was taught almost exclusively at special scientific and technical schools such as mit and not as part of a liberal arts education, Harvard built the first US home for undergraduate teaching and for research. The two functions were confined to separate wings to minimize vibrations, each with its own entrance. Independent internal piers supported instruments sensitive to vibrations,9 and the research wing contained no ferromagnetic materials. Taylor too would deal with these issues. The Jefferson lab focused on facilities and equipment: “Its very design and ‘plainest possible’ furnishings – down to the unpainted inside brick walls – were statements opposing the ornate European style of laboratory construction.”10 Taylor’s limestone exteriors were more ornate, but he too used exposed brick for the interior walls in corridors, offices, and laboratories. McGill’s Engineering Building, home to “the great and powerful machines,” was a fairly straightforward composition. The symmetrical facade, which faced northwest across the campus, comprised a long, seven-bay mid-section framed by two cross wings. This arrangement, together with the high base, hipped roof, and classical treatment, echoed the Harvard building, but the McGill facade was more compressed and had a single entrance portico in the centre. Also, the slightly projecting, pedimented bay on the end elevation facing Sherbrooke Street provided a suitable formality. The roof ’s long penthouse boasted a cupola containing a fan to take air from all the rooms. Pressed brick lined the limestone structure, which was internally “of mill construction.”11 The style chosen was “a severe treatment of the Italian Renaissance.”12 Taylor’s interior was skillfully organized. The slightly elevated main entrance gave access directly to the first floor and – by a staircase – to the ground floor below. Here the heavy machines were housed: the experimental dynamos and high-speed steam engine, the hydraulic laboratory with its tanks and experimental pumps, and a lab for thermodynamics, half of which occupied two storeys. The first floor had a cement-testing room, electrical and mathematical labs, a lecture room, offices, and cloak room. These two lowest levels were treated as a powerful rusticated base with rectangular headed windows lighting the ground floor and round arched windows the floor above. The next two storeys had smooth ashlar facing and rectangular windows: most of the offices and classrooms were located on the

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INSTRUCTOR

METAL WORKING SHOP

ENGINE ROOM

LABORATORY

ENTRANCE

COATS

LAVATORY

STORE FOR DOUBLE WINDOWS

STOCK & TOOLS

STOCK & TOOLS

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FOUNDRY

FORGE

COALS (AT LOWER LEVEL)

YARD BOILER HOUSE (AT LOWER LEVEL)

DYNAMOS

GEODETIC LABORATORY

THERMODYNAMICS DYNAMOS

HYDRAULICS

TESTS OF MATERIALS

GROUND FLOOR

4.3 Macdonald Engineering Building and Workman Workshops. Ground floor plan redrawn by Steven Dumont, 2012.

second floor as well as a library; the third was taken up by well-lit rooms for drafting. The technical museum, with excellent lighting from the continuous windows of the penthouse, filled the top floor, its most notable feature the magnificent collection of over three hundred Reuleaux kinematic models (“the finest and most complete collection in America”) – cutting-edge teaching tools that helped standardize the fundamental building blocks of basic machinery.13 The top floor was designed, however, to serve as studio and drafting space for a future architecture department at which point the technical museum moved to the floor below. The Workman Workshops, in a wing at the rear, contained a metal working shop, a wood turning and pattern making workshop, a forge, and a foundry. As well as access from the ground and first floors of the Engineering Building, the workshops had their own entrance on the

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4.4 Macdonald Engineering Building. Museum. Photograph, c. 1893.

4.5 Macdonald Physics Building (1891–93). Photograph, c. 1901.

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north, while the boiler house and coal storage occupied a lower level on the south with access to a delivery yard. Here, as elsewhere on the campus, Taylor took advantage of the natural topography, making optimum use of the sloping site. Fire gutted the fine structure on 5 April 1907, with the Montreal Daily Witness reporting “a splintered mass of charred woodwork and the twisted steel of girders and piping.”14 According to the Montreal Star, “records and results made and attained by some of the most distinguished men in their line in the world … have been lost forever.” Macdonald funded a new building, with work beginning immediately on the old foundations. The design was by Taylor’s successor as architect to McGill, Percy Nobbs, director of the fledgling architecture department, with its home in the destroyed structure. Fortunately, it was possible to overhaul and clean some of the most important equipment in the building, which was in the basement, and fire doors had saved the Workman wing. Professor Henry Taylor Bovey was doing an excellent job as head of Engineering, and Nobbs made the new structure both more capacious and up-to-date.

The Macdonald Physics Building (1891–93) It would be useful to know if Taylor, like Macdonald and Cox, visited Harvard’s Jefferson Physical Laboratory (1884); beside it stood the law school: H.H. Richardson’s Romanesque Austin Hall (also 1884), which Taylor’s Physics Building echoes. The Romanesque’s massive structural forms – its powerful arches and heavy masonry – “a style which Mr Taylor has made so justly popular and in which he takes a special delight” – provided the stability that Taylor required for his Physics Building.15 Unlike the more formal Engineering, the five-storey Physics structure combined symmetry with variety, a technique that Richardson exploited. The exterior of limestone, which the austere Macdonald admired, matched Engineering, and the plans were similar: a wide corridor bisected a recessed mid-section and gave access to end bays, which housed the largest labs. Variety prevailed in the disposition and treatment of the windows and in the placement of a large, conical roofed tower – a favourite Richardson device – at the northwest corner. The main elevation faced south toward Sherbrooke Street where the principal entrance was located.

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The overall appearance conveyed overwhelming strength and solidity, fitting for its program. As Professor Cox noted, there were experiments and demonstrations requiring the most delicate, exacting apparatus, free from vibration or current. Thus Taylor’s supporting structure consisted of bearing walls, which were three feet thick at the base, and heavy brick arching, with the main-floor beams of solid oak. The wood for the floors was four inches thick. Interior walls were exposed brick with oak fittings –ceiling beams, balconies, brackets – and the floors were stained maple. The principal lecture theatre lay behind the three, double-storey arched windows that faced the campus; the table for demonstrations was solid slate, with independent support from brick piers that carried down to the foundation. Two round-arched windows to the left of the entrance porch on the main elevation also lit the space. Two heliostat (from the Greek Helios, God of the sun) windows directed beams of sunlight to the floor, reflecting them vertically upward to the slate table. The prominent tower adjoining the lecture theatre housed the preparation room. It in turn connected to the apparatus-storage room, where the tops of the quartered-oak cases for instruments had doors that closed on felt strips and ventilators packed with cotton wool to prevent dust reaching “the most perfect series of instruments on this continent, perhaps anywhere in the world.”16 On the south-facing elevation, the main entrance was protected by an unusual semicircular porch that jutted out from a recessed mid-section. This distinctive shape corresponded to a long, dark, semicircular-ended laboratory in the basement, where a photometer measured light intensities. At fifth floor level the deep recess on this front featured an arcaded balcony resting on massive corbels facing the city. At this level as well was a similar balcony on the north elevation, an uncovered balcony supported by brackets that ran around the tower, and prominent sills beneath many of the windows. The fifth floor housed optics research and a large elementary physics lab. While the galleries themselves provided magnificent views, and their doors gave access to fresh air, they were highly functional. The balconies and broad window sills permitted out-of-doors experiments. Even the tall well of the main staircase afforded a vertical suspension of eighty feet, ideal for suspending a pendulum.17

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Macdonald had given Taylor, Bovey and Cox carte blanche to provide the best. Cox related that it was sometimes so difficult to choose among first-class makers and instruments that he almost wished Macdonald had given him a price limit. Equipment in the two buildings cost nearly £100,000, in contrast to £23,000 for the Engineering Laboratory at Cambridge.18 Macdonald was also willing to spend money on aesthetics. While the minimal interior ornament focused on the entrance hall, the Romanesque structure boasted rich exterior sculpture by Henry Beaumont, who also executed Engineering’s more modest scheme.19 The names of Faraday, Franklin, Maxwell, and Newton, among others, appeared on corbels and capitals, along with Galileo’s telescope, for example, and scales representing Archimedes.20 Such ornament helped lighten the massive structure and gave it personality and meaning.

4.6 Macdonald Physics Building. Staircase. Photograph, c. 1901.

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Unlike Harvard’s rigorously symmetrical Jefferson lab, Taylor’s arresting design, with its multifarious and unusual components, drew attention to its use, an inventive and original response to the needs of modern physics education. However, while Richardson’s work was doubtless an influence, Taylor’s early experience with the creative Goths Pilkington and Bell was surely key. At the official opening, Professor Cox observed that the creators had been fortunate in finding a gentleman who brought to this novel task a mind free from prejudice and untrammeled by traditions, and full of keen interest in the problems to be solved. All our difficulties he met with an endless fertility of resource, and spared no pains to make the building what it should be. It was not until after many months of careful study of the various problems connected with the proper place and relative position of the different rooms, and their requirements of stability, light, etc. had been laboriously worked out, that any attention was given to the outside, generally so dear to an architect, and when he came to it I think his choice of the Romanesque style, the type of stability and permanence, has been fully justified by the way in which it has worked out. How far he has succeeded in investing our strictly practical needs, with outward dignity and beauty, it needs no words for me to explain, I leave anyone to judge for himself.21 The building’s historical significance would emerge soon after 1900, perhaps presaged by the two columns of the entrance portico that represented Knowledge and Power. In 1893 many experts believed that physics had nothing more to discover; its practitioners needed merely “to carry on measurements of the great physical constants to another place of decimals.”22 Hence the perfect stability and freedom from interference in Taylor’s design. James Clerk Maxwell at the Cavendish, however, thought that experiments at the atomic and molecular levels would soon change everything.23 In 1895, Roentgen discovered X-rays and launched modern physics. Then, between 1895 and 1898, Ernest Rutherford, at the Cavendish, explored radioactivity and nuclear science, helping to establish physics as the premier science of the next half-century. Although McGill’s Physics Building antedated these revolutionary discoveries, it led the field as a laboratory building and

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helped secure Rutherford as second Macdonald professor of Physics from 1898 to 1907. Using a liquid-air machine that was Macdonald’s gift, Rutherford pursued experiments that won him the Nobel Prize in 1908. Two of his young collaborators at McGill would themselves become Nobel laureates: Frederick Soddy (chemistry, 1921) and Otto Hahn (chemistry, 1944). Hahn’s splitting of the uranium atom in Germany prepared the way for the development of the atomic bomb.

The Macdonald Chemistry Building (1896–98) The last of Macdonald’s trio of science structures, the Chemistry Building (1898), stands midway between the other two, facing west across the campus.24 It housed Mining and Metallurgy as well as Chemistry, departments vital to a country with new railways and

4.7 Macdonald Chemistry and Mining Building (1896–98). Photograph, c. 1901.

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fabulous natural resources. After the close of the 1896 session, Macdonald and Taylor, with Professors Bovey and Harrington (a chemist and mineralogist), “toured principal United States colleges with a view to seeing how far the plans already drawn up agreed with the best institutions on the Continent.” They saw “nothing equal to the McGill Physics and Applied Science Buildings and determined that Chemistry and Mining should be no less vigorous.”25 While Chemistry would similarly boast load-bearing limestone walls with brick backing, it could safely use iron and steel. A McGill architecture student in 1951 cited it as an early example of steel framing in Montreal, with steel from Dominion Bridge (founded 1882),26 which would build much of Canada’s infrastructure, including major bridges (many to replace the Canadian Pacific’s wooden trestles), dams, and, before long, skyscrapers. On the campus side, Chemistry echoed the Renaissance formality of Engineering, but with a richer, more Venetian treatment, along with “florid French Renaissance” for the prominent dormers.27 A richly carved cornice extended across the front, and at the centre eleven broad steps approached the ornate entrance, with on either side a balustrade ending in pedestals topped by stone lions holding shields and books. An 1896 newspaper article reported the design “a happy combination of the Italian Renaissance and Romanesque” so that Chemistry “might harmonize more perfectly with the Engineering and Physics buildings.”28 Like its neighbours, it had a high, rusticated base, but with three full storeys above. Two wide chimney stacks rose high above the roofline, so that a sophisticated heating and ventilating system could expel chemistry’s noxious fumes. One observer saw a brise-soleil in the distinctive southeast elevation facing Physics, where a fivebay central section jutted out some fifteen feet, with four deep piers running from base to cornice separating vertical rows of windows.29 Apparatus in the high attic generated distilled water, which pipes conducted to laboratories – “a luxury not often afforded to the student of chemistry.”30 The Gazette noted provision on the ground floor for women: “a snug little room set apart specially for the comfort and recreation of the women students.”31 In 1884 Donald Smith (later Lord Strathcona) had endowed the first two years of separate classes for women. While coeducation was never his intention – in 1896 he paid

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for a women’s college, Royal Victoria, next door to McGill – sharing of space was necessary in the new Chemistry Building. The construction and equipping of the three Macdonald science buildings and the Workman Workshops would help train young men to build a modern industrial nation. For example, electrical engineering was beginning to transform industry and commerce, and soon research professors working in Taylor’s new Engineering Building would be investigating forms of ice that could impede or damage turbines in power stations on Canadian rivers.32 Abundant hydroelectric power and rich mineral resources soon made the country a leader in electrochemistry – in converting mineral products into chemicals, metals such as aluminum, fertilizers, and industrial gases. Indeed Canada’s originality among industrial nations “lay chiefly in the field of electrochemistry.”33 As the Montreal Herald and Daily Commercial Gazette wrote about Macdonald and his counterparts: “Men who spend their wealth on objects [academic buildings] of this kind build themselves a monument far more enduring than brass or iron, and leave their memories enshrined in the hearts of a grateful people.”34 William Macdonald was the nation’s greatest educational benefactor of his generation, and his name endures not only at McGill but throughout Canada.

Redpath Library (1892–93 and 1901) In November 1891, McGill governor Peter Redpath wrote to Chancellor Sir Donald Smith that he had “had a plan prepared for a library building which … has been adapted to the site immediately below Presbyterian College.”35 The architect, he stated, was Andrew Taylor, and he hoped for the laying of foundations the following spring.36 McGill’s books occupied a single, overcrowded room in the west wing of the Arts Building. The new library (1893) was second in creation only to the University of Toronto’s (1892).37 These two academic libraries were among the few freestanding library buildings in the country, for the familiar public library only began to appear after the turn of the century with the advent of Carnegie grants.38 In addition Toronto and McGill launched the stack system of book storage in Canada. Library design in North America was in a state of flux – even revolutionary change – and so Redpath and Taylor set out to learn

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everything they could, studying the plans of many libraries and visiting as many as they reasonably could.39 The comfortable, book-lined rooms, evoking private gentleman’s libraries, that had accommodated the relatively small collections of the past no longer served the large national, public, and university libraries that began to appear in the nineteenth century. D.B. Dick, who designed Toronto’s facility, had visited libraries under construction at Cornell and the University of Michigan and learned about the 1890 structure at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia,40 which Frank Furness had planned with the help of Justin Winsor, head librarian at Harvard, and Melvil Dewey, creator of the Dewey decimal system. Contemporaries praised Furness’s library for its utilitarian arrangement. Dick’s resembled it: both possessed an apse-like reading room reached from an entrance hall joined to a stack. Taylor’s reading room and stack would have a similar layout.

4.8 Redpath Library, McGill University (1892–93). Photograph, c. 1894.

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Redpath and Taylor probably visited H.H. Richardson’s Billings Library (1886) at the University of Vermont in nearby Burlington. A smaller, more traditional facility, it did not have a stack. Its navelike plan contained a polygonal reading room with an open timber roof and a rectangular book room, also with an open timber roof. Taylor must have visited the Boston Public Library by McKim, Mead & White, under construction 1888–95. The palatial, American BeauxArts structure was to have several floors of stacks within a u-shaped block surrounding a courtyard at the back of the main building. With its pale, restrained, classical exterior, its design stood in great contrast to H.H. Richardson’s colourful, Romanesque Revival Trinity Church, which stood opposite on Copley Square. Taylor told his architect colleagues in October 1894 that he found the Boston library “very unsatisfactory in relation to its environment.”41 He might have appreciated Richardson’s small libraries (1877–85) in the Boston suburbs. While their planning was not advanced, their handsome neo-Romanesque exteriors and inviting interiors evoked great admiration. Taylor’s own library would be a “free treatment of Romanesque”; its exterior, with its churchy square tower and triplet windows, saluted Richardson’s Trinity Church, and its warm, welcoming interior also owed a debt to his idol. He must have noticed, too, the new Toronto library’s neo-Romanesque mode. An endemic challenge faced Taylor and Redpath; during the 1880s “the stack problem dominated any discussion of library architecture.”42 This mid-century European invention had just begun to appear in the United States to increase storage. Harvard had introduced it in 1877 in a six-storey addition to Gore Hall, the 1838 Gothic Revival library, which then became the central reading room. Libraries had previously shelved books in the reading room or, as collections grew, in adjacent “book rooms.” Gore Hall had been typical – a tall reading room resembling the nave of a church with the books in tiered alcoves along the sides and clerestory windows lighting the whole. Another form – the central-court reading room, as in Baltimore’s Peabody Institute (1875–78) – had balconied tiers of books and skylights. By the 1880s, however, vast reading rooms of either type seemed deficient, for heating them was expensive and problematic, retrieving books was troublesome, light was poor, and expansion was difficult. As William Jordy noted of the old, courted Boylston Street library in

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Boston, “the very spectacle of the books, and of the Library staff wearily climbing to fetch them, was distracting to readers.”43 Centralized plans of the 1870s, such as the cruciform libraries at Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) and Brown, with domed centres serving as book-lined reading rooms, also presented expansion problems, as did Richardson’s town libraries, which had alcoved reading rooms. Even when the plan joined the reading room to a bookroom, as at the University of Vermont, it was useful only for smaller libraries. The new library at Toronto, on which Melvil Dewey and C.A. Cutter, another pioneer in cataloguing, consulted, combined tradition and innovation. A lofty, church-like reading room with an elaborate, medievalizing timber-framed ceiling linked to a modern, fireproof metal stack resting on a concrete floor. It exemplified, as did Furness’s in Philadelphia, a “transitional” facility, embodying “experimental attempts to incorporate theories of library administration in the layout of buildings.”44 How to accommodate a reading room; expandable, fireproof storage; seminar rooms; and work space for cataloguing and other library activities? Both the Toronto and Pennsylvania libraries boasted linear, ecclesiastical plans, arranging the reading room and stack end to end, with an entrance hall separating the two.45 Other transitional arrangements centralized the plan in the form of a Greek cross, as at Princeton and Brown; Redpath’s presented an angular configuration of two wings in the form of an l, one containing the reading room, the other the storage element. The “inequalities and narrow limits of the site” influenced this choice of layout.”46 Taylor’s design also fused tradition with innovation. He sought “a commodious, convenient, well-planned, well-lit library, which would also allow of easy expansion, and be at once collegiate, dignified, monumental and beautiful.”47 He chose the stack system and felt the need to defend it because the stack, while familiar to librarians, was novel to the public. He noted that it protected books from heat, dust, and fire.48 Moreover, the Redpath’s location, extending south along McTavish Street, provided ample space for expansion. This early stack was the latest in modern design: an independent, four-storey structure cut off from the rest of the building by fire doors. Floors consisted of metal grating or iron and rough plate glass, the stairs were iron, and the bookcases were generally of iron, with shelves of iron or wood.49

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The exterior – once more – was of Montreal grey limestone, with dressed ashlar for all but the basement, which had a rock-faced finish, the same combination that Taylor used for the main block. Joining the northern end of the stack at a right angle and extending into the campus, the longer main block contained the principal entrance flanked by a ninety-foot stair tower, the lofty reading room, and rooms for the librarian and for cataloguing. Fireproofing was a major concern there as well. The main floor had steel beams and porous, terracotta arching. Other floors boasted solid oak beams with slow-burning flooring. The stairs were of iron and slate, the roofs of blue Rockland slates and copper, and the doors of polished oak, with wrought-iron grille work and fittings.50 Adequate space was now essential for librarians’ working areas, i.e., for receiving, unpacking, and cataloguing books. Taylor’s plan provided for these activities and seminar rooms and included a

4.9 Redpath Library. Reading room. Photograph, c. 1894.

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caretaker’s apartment. He combined these newer features with the traditional great reading room, which occupied most of the main block and extended through two storeys. At the library Taylor could indulge his love of the decorative arts in ways inappropriate for science labs, where he relied mainly on the natural colours of his materials. At the Redpath he called on artistcraftsmen for stone and woodcarving, furnishings, and stained glass – skills revived during the Gothic Revival and promoted by Ruskin and Morris. Taylor treated the reading room in the medievalizing manner of traditional libraries.51 The nave or great hall-like interior had an elaborate open timber roof, with carved heads of grotesque animals ornamenting the hammer beams. Groups of tall, round-arched windows were glazed with leaded, coloured glass. The room was to be both comfortable and beautiful – to entice “the spirit to linger with the great ones of the earth,” as one observer nicely put it.52 (McGill’s old library room had such inadequate space and lighting that few students lingered there.) In the centre of the southeast wall, a cozy inglenook featured a fireplace with a red stone mantel carved with the motto, “Cease not to learn until thou cease to live.” The great, carved oak mantelpiece at the entrance to the inglenook quoted Proverbs: “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.” On the opposite side of the room a tall, square, recessed window contained seats, as did the two oriel windows facing the campus. There were long oak tables and chairs for study, arranged across the room to receive natural light from the right and left, although each table also had three double electric lamps with green shades. Brass electroliers suspended by chains from the roof provided additional artificial light. The windows were the room’s highlights – especially the three-light window facing the campus and the five-light one at the opposite end. Filled with painted glass, these were the gift of Mrs Peter Redpath. The three-light depicted groups of famous artists, musicians, and poets, while the five-light honoured astronomy, history, law, medicine, and philosophy and contained medallion portraits of their great masters. Clayton and Bell of London manufactured them, but “the thought, the design, names, pose, colors must be credited to Mr Redpath and Mr Taylor, who gave a great deal of time and aesthetic fancy and taste to the pictures.”53

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Taylor noted that he had chosen “a free treatment of Romanesque” for the library because it lent “itself to the requirements of such a building, as being at once dignified and yet picturesque.”54 Despite his borrowings, however, Taylor’s approach differed from that of Richardson’s libraries. In James O’Gorman’s view, Richardson, thanks to his Beaux-Arts training, was able “to discipline the picturesque,” creating large, simple, massive works.55 Taylor, in contrast, continued to exploit the functional flexibility of the English Gothic Revival. Thus the ninety-foot tower beside the entrance doorway contained the main staircase, while the small extrusion capped by a conical tower on the McTavish elevation housed a staircase for librarians and a lift to take books from the basement delivery area to the cataloguing room above. The two towers at the end of the stack provided bay windows on each level so that privileged readers could consult books on the spot; ultimately they formed the centre of Taylor’s 1901 extension. Window

4.10 Redpath Library. View from the campus. Photograph, c. 1894.

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shapes and placement throughout reflected differing requirements within. Also following Gothic Revival practice, stone carving (by the sculptor Beaumont) accentuated the “salient” points of the design, with such subjects as the four Evangelists, the McGill arms, and the crest and motto of Peter Redpath, who throughout had been a keen participant in the process. The result was nevertheless a disciplined composition with the various parts arranged hierarchically – the long arm containing the great reading room taking precedence, the whole anchored by the tall stair tower. Finally, the main elements – the reading room and stack – were contained under the broad expanse of a simple cross- gable roof, punctuated here and there by the pointed caps of the towers and bays. Taylor’s handsome perspective drawing was featured in a double page layout in American Architect and Building News in May 1895. Governor General the Earl of Aberdeen opened the library on 31 October 1893. In his last public appearance, Peter Redpath praised Taylor: “I do not think that I could have had a professional man, either on this side of the Atlantic or the other, who could have taken more interest in the matter, or produced a better result.”56 Redpath died on 1 February 1894.

Medical School: Additions and Alterations (1885, 1895, 1897, and 1901) Taylor’s commissions at McGill also included major additions to the Medical Building (1872) by Hopkins & Wily of Montreal. Medicine was McGill’s senior faculty, its saviour during its early, precarious existence. After James McGill’s death in 1813, lawsuits and disputes among his heirs threatened to destroy his dream. After final settlement of his estate in 1829, McGill incorporated the existing Montreal Medical Institution (1824) as its first faculty so that it could obtain full legal rights. The staff of the Montreal General Hospital had set up this first program of medical education in Canada, and association with the university allowed it to incorporate and confer degrees. Hopkins & Wily’s structure, northeast of Arts, replaced the medical faculty’s old quarters on Coté Street near the hospital. Its restrained classical style harmonized with the Arts Building and its pavilions, and Taylor’s additions would follow suit. His first (1885), attached to the rear

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4.11 McGill Medical Building with additions (1895–1901). Drawing by Taylor, 1901.

4.12 McGill Medical Building with 1901 addition. Photograph, c. 1901.

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of the existing building, was fairly modest. It followed the appointment of noted physician Robert Palmer Howard as dean in 1882 and the first ($50,000) of Donald Smith’s many gifts to the medical faculty. In 1893 Smith endowed chairs of hygiene and pathology, requiring further extensions. A pathology wing to the northeast opened in 1894. A gift of $60,000 from J.H.R. Molson funded a further addition by Taylor (1895) that dwarfed the original Medical Building, joined the pathology wing to the older buildings, and featured a lecture room seating 450 people, a large chemistry lab, and rooms for dissecting, histology, and physiology.57 Taylor designed a new pathological museum and bone room (1897) within the Medical Building, in effect overhauling and improving two rooms already in such use. Observers considered Taylor’s refitting quite ingenious, for he greatly increased the display area, partly by constructing galleries on all sides of the two rooms. A new door allowed access between galleries and to the main staircase. There was electric lighting throughout, with reflectors concentrating light on the display cases. The frieze area above the cases being too shallow for specimens, Taylor contrived sloping frames for “diagrams of various peculiar diseases.”58 Perhaps at this time, too, Taylor added a pedimented portico and new exterior staircase to the Hopkins & Wily building, linking it visually to his nearby Engineering Building.59 In 1901, a final addition by Taylor replaced his modest first extension: a vast, three-storey cross wing topped by four tall cupolas that likely served as ventilators. Despite the additive nature of the complex and the inequalities in size, Taylor managed a degree of unity thanks to his consistent use of classical forms.

Chapter five

Architect for All Institutions (1889–1905)

The British citizens of Montreal following the Conquest had had to provide for their own. James McGill was a prime example, bequeathing £10,000 and his Burnside estate to found a college. In Taylor’s time, the Anglo-Protestant elite still took responsibility, both financial and as board members, for the institutions and organizations that served the English-speaking community. Hospitals, schools and colleges, the art gallery – all fell under the purview of this group, much as the Catholic Church looked after the welfare of its flock. Taylor’s patronage group were leaders in this realm, their interlocking directorships of companies echoed by their multiple directorships of Montreal’s social and cultural institutions. Indeed, Taylor served on a number of these boards. Margaret Westley outlined this interconnectedness: “McGill University was one of the centerpieces, a linchpin in the whole English community. Its significance in the network of institutions run by the powerful group of English Montrealers is illustrated by the charter of the Royal Victoria Hospital. The governors were to include the presidents of the Board of Trade, of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the Bank of Monreal, as well as the Principal and the Dean of Medicine of McGill.”1

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5.1 Trafalgar Institute, Montreal. Chalderton Lodge with Taylor additions (1889–90, 1902). Photograph undated.

Schools and Colleges Trafalgar Institute (1889–90 and 1902) Montreal’s oldest private school for girls, like McGill College, grew from the bequest of a young Scot who immigrated to Canada and prospered. Unusually for his day, this benefactor, Donald Ross (1811–1877), decided to use his wealth “to do the greatest amount of good possible in educating the female sex.” His bequest together with $25,000 from Donald Smith (later Lord Strathcona), enabled Trafalgar Institute to open its doors in 1887. Smith had already given McGill $50,000 in 1884 so that women could enter the Faculty of Arts. Trafalgar was affiliated with McGill, with Principal Dawson serving on the board and drawing up the school’s original curriculum. McGill’s library and museum were open to the school’s pupils and teachers. Trafalgar also had special links with Montreal’s Presbyterian community (Ross was a Presbyterian) and was mainly for “children of the respectable and middle ranks.” However, pupils might also be “mechanics’ children, as well as the children of merchants in reduced circumstances, or any others, being Protestants … who may be able to maintain and clothe them during the whole term of four years.”

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Ross also provided scholarships for daughters of the Protestant clergy, especially Presbyterians. In 1887, the school finally opened in a spacious, brick, Gothic Revival villa – Chalderton Lodge – on one-and-a-half acres at the top of Simpson Street in Montreal’s fashionable Square Mile. The handsome gabled house had gone up in the 1840s for Sir Charles Wetherall, deputy adjutant-general of the local British garrison, and featured a greenhouse, a coach house, stables, and a kitchen garden.2 Initially all the classrooms, dormitories, and common rooms were in Chalderton Lodge, but by 1889 the school needed more space. It converted the coach house to a gymnasium that also housed art classes, piano practice, plays, and dances. Taylor designed a fairly austere brick east wing (1890), providing a new dining room, music room, and dormitories.3 Trafalgar kept expanding, however, and in 1902 the School House, also by Taylor, was constructed northwest of the Lodge. This substantial Queen Anne building comprised three storeys and an attic. It was of red brick with pale stone trim and had high, stepped, Flemish gables on the front and rear. Dormers lit the attic. A pair of three-storey, polygonal window bays framed the main doorway, which boasted a striking, Mannerist surround, recalling Taylor’s equally elaborate entrance to his Marlborough apartment house (1899).4 Taylor found inspiration from recent educational architecture in England, including the highly visible red-brick Queen Anne London Board Schools –”the style of progress” when building began in the 1870s.5 Basil Champneys, a key figure in the board’s adoption of the style, also served as architect in Cambridge for a series of charming Queen Anne buildings for Newnham, the pioneer women’s college, between 1874 and 1910. In contrast, Girton, the rival women’s college, was “minimally Tudor Gothic,”6 perhaps inspiring Taylor’s 1890 addition at Trafalgar, which, like Alfred Waterhouse’s work at Girton, had modest half-timbering in the gable, adding a domestic air.7 Taylor served Trafalgar Institute not only as architect but as lecturer. In 1888 he began a course of lectures on art. Donald Ross had proposed such lectures in his will, which various McGill professors gave over the years. The Montreal Gazette published Taylor’s talks, which the author occasionally recycled – for example, “The Harmony and Function of Colour in Art” read before the Province of Quebec Association

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of Architects (1894) and republished in the Canadian Architect and Builder.8 Taylor also lectured to the Young Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Art Association of Montreal.9 Bishop’s College (1891–98) Around the time Taylor was at work at Trafalgar, he was engaged by Bishop’s College in Lennoxville, a small town in the Eastern Townships about ninety miles southeast of Montreal. The college was founded in 1843 by the third Anglican bishop of Quebec to provide a liberal education for young anglophone men in the surrounding area and to train Church of England clergymen for the two dioceses of Montreal and Quebec. The adjoining Bishop’s College School served as a “Junior Department and Grammar School of the College.”10 The college buildings lay at the confluence of the St Francis and Massawippi rivers; Picturesque Canada observed in the early 1880s: “Overlooking this meeting of the waters at Lennoxville, and surrounded by a landscape of rare loveliness, is the University of Bishop’s College, with its pretty Chapel and Collegiate School. The friends of Bishop’s College, undisheartened by repeated fires, have not only restored the buildings,

5.2 Bishop’s College Grammar School, Lennoxville, qc (1891). Photograph, c. 1910.

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but extended them, and provided anew a good working library.”11 Sadly, in February 1891 fire struck again, destroying the boys’ school, the shared chapel, and the rectory.12 The college engaged Taylor’s firm to rebuild the school during the same year and to restore the chapel, which took considerably longer. The commission may have come by way of Montagu Allan, an alumnus of the school. Taylor came up with a new, fire-resistant, three-storey design. He called for red brick with pale stone trim and a slate roof and placed a large water tower atop the roof with pipes running to every floor for hoses. Fireproof doors separated the two wings of the l-shaped building, interior stairs were broad, and exits were plentiful. The southwest wing faced the magnificent view of the two rivers and contained the main offices and public spaces and some classrooms. On the ground floor were the prefects’ room, the secretary’s office, and the boardroom, as well as the library, a reading room, and four classrooms. The floors above contained more classrooms, including science laboratories and a large and spacious assembly hall running through two storeys. In the basement were recreation rooms and lavatories. The other wing served as a dormitory for students, servants, the matron, and masters.13 Taylor paid “little attention” to ornamentation, aiming “rather to make the building convenient, sanitary, and fire proof, than architecturally attractive.”14 The style was “simple collegiate Gothic,” which echoed the earlier buildings, Gothic being the usual choice for nineteenth-century Anglican architecture. The restoration of the chapel commenced in 1892 and was still incomplete in 1897, since it lacked most of its interior furnishings and fittings. The college in June 1897 called for tenders for the interior woodwork and carving, with designs by Taylor & Gordon, and work was complete by February 1898.15 The contractor for the woodwork (in stained and polished ash) was George Long of Sherbrooke.16 In 1897 Contract Record reported that Taylor was preparing plans for the headmaster’s house and gymnasium, which went up in the same year.17 Diocesan College (1895–96) In 1895 Taylor received a commission that would draw directly on his experience with the church architect Joseph Clarke. This was a

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home for the Montreal Diocesan College, one of several theological colleges affiliated with McGill. The site would face the campus on the eastern side of University Street north of Sherbrooke. Despite his seven years with Clarke, Taylor had relatively few ecclesiastical commissions. The ones he received before he left England included decoration of the parish church (1880) in Highbury (North London) and design of the Memorial Hall and Schools (1880–81) in Dover. The church in Highbury may have been William White’s St Saviour (1866) – a possible source for his early Dover design and later for Diocesan College chapel. In Canada he carried out repairs and designed fittings – an altar cloth, a memorial window in the left transept, and brass chandeliers – for Christ Church (Anglican) Cathedral, Montreal, for which he served as architect to the fabric; the chapels at Bishop’s College (1890s) and Diocesan College (1895–96); and a chapel (1897)

5.3 Diocesan Theological College, Montreal (1895–96). Photograph, c. 1896.

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for St Stephen’s Church at Dorchester and Atwater in Montreal.18 As well, for the Church of St John the Evangelist in Montreal, he designed carving for the ends of the choir stalls.19 The bishop of Montreal, Ashton Oxenden, had set up Diocesan College in 1874; this Evangelical or Low Church clergyman wanted to stave off the more ritualistic Tractarian or High Church influence emanating from Bishop’s College, which had been training Anglican clergymen since 1843.20 The province incorporated the new college in 1879, and the institution affiliated with McGill in 1880. Initially it lacked a home, but in 1881 the wealthy benefactor Andrew Frederick Gault, a leading member of the Church of England in the city and an Evangelical, purchased a building at 846 Dorchester.21 After adaptation it housed the thirteen original students, lecture rooms, a chapel, and a library. Growing enrolment, however, and the need to be nearer McGill stimulated Gault to donate $50,000 in April 1895 for a new building on his land facing the eastern perimeter of the McGill campus. Gault’s gift expanded to $200,000, for he also furnished and endowed the college. (In 1899, he would engage Taylor to design the Marlborough apartment house for property fronting on nearby Milton Street.) Despite the anti–Tractarian impulse of its founding, Diocesan College drew inspiration from the Tractarians’ model church, William Butterfield’s All Saints (1850–53), Margaret Street, London. All Saints was a landmark in High Victorian Gothic, and Taylor, as the assistant of a prominent Ecclesiologist architect, would have studied it carefully. Butterfield’s masterpiece provided an ideal modern urban religious complex, including a church, a choir school, and a clergy house, all around a courtyard on a restricted site. Its design drew on ancient and modern precedents, resulting in a uniquely Victorian creation, which recalled the Middle Ages but was also very much of its own time. Taylor looked to this model, for he, too, had to address religious, residential, and academic needs, with little land at his disposal. His design similarly disposed independent but linked structures around a small courtyard. As at All Saints, a Gothic arcade topped a low wall, and a pointed gateway separated the courtyard from its urban surroundings, creating a quiet oasis, a tiny cloister.

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The three major components of Taylor’s college were: the chapel, a simple, one-storey, gabled structure on the south side; the two-storey principal’s residence on the north, similarly with its end gable facing the street; and, at the rear, the three-storey academic and residential building, which extended back for some distance. Each component possessed distinguishing features. First, the smallest structure, the chapel, presented its finest window, that over the altar, to the street.22 This window, with its pointed arch, tracery, and stained glass; the corner buttresses; and a crowning cross gave the modest building a churchy look. Second, the principal’s residence had a domestic character, featuring a tall bay window that lit a servant’s bedroom, drawing room, and master bedroom at basement, first-, and secondfloor levels, respectively. The building had flat-headed windows, and the entrance opened to the courtyard. Third, the academic and residential component contained the main entrance, where a tall, centred bell tower served as focal point for Taylor’s composition. With an oriel running through three floors and a steeple, this feature had appropriately both academic and religious connotations. The largest component, the academic and residential building, contained a long central corridor running from a vaulted entrance hall to a large convocation hall at the back. A narrow vestibule at the front provided access both to the principal’s quarters and to the chapel. Shallow steps led to the entrance hall, which opened on to a reception room on the left and the joint secretary’s room and boardroom on the right, and to the main corridor. On the north side of the corridor, beyond the reception room, lay the library, a classroom, and a secondary staircase. The oak-lined library contained a fireplace inglenook and three bay windows, the latter also lighting the student dining room in the basement below. Occupying the south side of the corridor were the main stairway, which featured a carved oak balustrade, two classrooms, and a students’ coatroom. The two floors above housed student bedrooms, and the basement, under the convocation hall, which rose through two storeys, a gymnasium. The plans did not identify the spaces in the tower that the oriel windows lit, and their use remains a mystery – perhaps offices or studies for the teaching staff? Taylor’s composition was quieter than Butterfield’s. The latter’s church

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lay along and parallel to the back of his constricted site, with a tall, offcentre tower heralding the entrance, a restless, vertical composition in the manner of the now-outdated High Victorian Gothic. At All Saints, Butterfield had popularized brick for city churches, and Taylor followed suit, since Diocesan College was not on the McGill campus. He chose Laprairie pressed brick as the principal material, with a considerable amount of buff Ohio sandstone for trim and grey Montreal limestone for the base. Slate covered the roof. Constructional colour, which Butterfield exploited, became prominent in High Victorian Gothic and lasted, in less strident form, past 1900, until the classical revival took hold.23 Thus Taylor’s late Victorian Gothic reflected none of the exaggerated colour and pattern of Butterfield and the style at mid-century. Taylor spoke to his fellow architects about Victorian Gothic in 1897: while Gothic Revival was a “spent force in civic architecture … in ecclesiastical work it is erecting new cathedrals and churches that for knowledge of style, beauty of form and detail rivals mediaeval work, and in the restoration and reparation of old work is on the same high plane.”24 Taylor did not single out Butterfield, whose discordant, idiosyncratic work drew much criticism from contemporaries, despite the influence of All Saints.25 Rather, Taylor listed William Burges, John L. Pearson, George Gilbert Scott, and George Edmund Street and their followers.26 Taylor’s own polychromy at the College followed the quieter Street; Taylor, too, loved pure red brick with irregularly spaced horizontal strips of contrasting light stonework, which did not, as in Butterfield, add to a busy surface pattern but rather emphasized the line of construction.27 Taylor used his buff sandstone at Diocesan College to enliven the exterior wall surfaces but always associated it with features of construction, such as windows – marking bases, upper lights, and heads – or as quoins and buttresses. For further emphasis, the contrasting material faced the prominent bay of the principal’s house, the tower and its oriel window, and formed the entrance gate and arcade. Once again, Taylor had a client whose generosity extended to interior finishes and furnishings. Though small, the chapel, like Taylor’s Redpath Library, had oak furnishings; the latter included an elaborately

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5.4 Diocesan Theological College. Chapel interior. Photograph, c. 1896.

carved entrance screen, communion rail and table, and stalls. A handsome hammerbeam roof, the hammerbeams ornamented with angels, covered the space. The floor there and in the college entrance hall was marble mosaic. Taylor intended that the chapel give “the same effect on a small scale as is seen in most of the College Chapels at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.”28 Arthur W. Wallace, grandson of Principal Canon Henderson, recounted his grandmother’s recollections. The planning stage was

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long, arduous and burdened with trials. Taylor was unyielding in resisting the requirements demanded by my equally obstinate grandmother. She couldn’t care less about the chapel, the accommodation of thousands of greek & latin books, let alone the architectural trimmings etc. She was interested only in the practical needs with respect to the kitchen and student facilities. As a last insistence she did achieve her request for a balcony off the second storey. This she wanted for hanging out washing and a place to shake the mop. The balcony was duly erected and can still be seen on the north elevation, a reluctant concession of the architect. Mrs Henderson had been a simple Irish country girl from Golden Tipperary Co.29 In November 1896, at the time of the opening, the college magazine noted: It has been suggested by some that such a handsome building and furniture will spoil our men for mission work. We shall be very much mistaken and disappointed if this is the case. We have never heard that the comforts and luxuries of English University life have unfitted men to take prominent places in enduring all the hardships and privations of the Mission Field. Nor do we for a moment believe that art, refinement, and civilization and modern conveniences will ever deprive men under the influence of the Holy Spirit, of the desire and will to consecrate their all to the service of the Cross and to end[ure] hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.30 The Art Association of Montreal: Addition (1892–93) The heyday of Montreal art collecting coincided with Andrew Taylor’s two decades in Canada, reflecting fortunes that derived from completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway and its associated enterprises. Taylor himself had an abiding interest in the fine arts, lecturing frequently on the topic and enjoying access to his uncle George Drummond’s rich collection. Drummond had been a councillor of the Art Association of Montreal since 1880, as was Taylor himself from 1889 to 1904. When

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5.5 Art Association of Montreal with Taylor addition (1892–93). Photograph, c. 1893.

the body received a large bequest of paintings and funds in 1892, it called on Taylor to design a major addition to Canada’s oldest museum of fine art. The Art Association of Montreal (which became the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1949) received incorporation in 1860 to foster the arts by holding annual exhibitions and by instituting a school of design. It antedated by a decade the founding of the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and by several years more their counterparts in Philadelphia and Chicago.31 In 1877, thanks to a bequest by a wealthy merchant, Beniah Gibb, the Association was able to build a gallery on the northeast corner of Phillips Square. Hopkins & Wily designed (1877–79) the rectangular, two-storey structure of Montreal limestone in a Victorian Italian Renaissance mode.32 The exhibition space, on the upper floor, comprised a large and a small gallery, with access from Phillips Square. The Association rented out retail space in the arcaded ground floor, with its longer elevation fronting on St Catherine Street. Marking the discreet Phillips Square doorway was the inscription “Art Gallery.”

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Significantly, it was the first such building in Canada.33 The large J.W. Tempest bequest of 1892 made additional space both necessary and feasible, and Taylor’s large addition would extend back along Phillips Square.34 The new building, which opened in summer 1893, was roughly the size of the old structure and continued its material and arcaded Renaissance style. It also contained two rental stores at street level. However, Taylor gave the addition a far more elaborate public demeanour, enriching the Phillips Square facade with carving and capping it with twin towers pierced by oculi and with crowning bulbous roof forms resembling upturned goblets. Improving on the blank, upper floor windows of the old gallery, Taylor inserted niches into the frames on the new facade, which could eventually hold sculpture. The names of famous architects, musicians, painters, and sculptors embellished the frieze. At the roofline, in the centre, two standing figures supported a cartouche; flanking the oculi in the towers were figures representing painting and sculpture on one and architecture and music on the other. Henry Beaumont executed the sculpture.35 Taylor’s addition provided ample space. Occupying the basement were storerooms, an unpacking room, a vault for valuable pictures, and cloak and dressing rooms for art students. On the ground floor, in addition to the two retail stores, there were a new reading room and, at the back, a large classroom. The floor above contained a large gallery extending all along Phillips Square, which connected with the old gallery, but fireproof steel rolling shutters could separate the two spaces. At the back was another large classroom. The attic floor, with skylight, contained artists’ studios. At the opening by Governor General Lord Aberdeen, in November 1893, a speaker expressed the hope that, imitating the influence of the South Kensington Museum in London (which became the Victoria and Albert in 1899), “something would be done for the development of art in conjunction with industrial education, in order that the knowledge of art might be employed for the purpose of beautifying manufactures.”36 For Taylor and his architect colleagues, the Art Association provided a place to show their drawings and travel sketches. The exhibitions of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (rca), which the Art Association of Montreal and the Ontario Society of Artists set up in 1880, always included an architectural section; the National Gallery of Canada grew

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out of this joint endeavour and opened in 1882 in Ottawa. Beginning in 1884, Taylor regularly showed his work at the (rca) exhibitions, which took place two or three times a year and generally rotated between Ottawa, Toronto, and (at the Art Association) Montreal. He became an associate of the rca in 1885 and an academician in 1890. Taylor exhibited drawings and sketches at the Art Association’s own exhibitions as well and during annual conventions of the Quebec Association of Architects. Nevertheless, a review of the Art Association’s spring exhibition of 1901 commented: “As usual there was not much interest shown in the architectural drawings, but then there was little in which to take an interest.”37 It singled out only drawings by William Maxwell and Andrew Taylor, Taylor exhibiting a colour sketch of the Merchants Bank of Winnipeg and his small Bank of Montreal branch at Sydney, Nova Scotia. Despite occasional adverse criticism, such prestigious exhibitions advanced the Canadian profession.

Homes and Hospitals During his career in Canada, Andrew Taylor received commissions to design or alter a number of buildings for medical or institutional use. He sat on the boards of three such institutions: the Montreal General Hospital, the Protestant Hospital for the Insane, and the Boys’ Home.38 His smaller commissions incuded a three-storey, brick building for the Boys’ Home, located on Mountain Street in Montreal, in 1886;39 a fourstorey addition behind the old Notman house on Sherbrooke Street (John Wells, 1843) in 1893, purchased by George Drummond after Notman’s death to serve as a home for incurables;40 a new west wing for the Protestant Hospital for the Insane (J.W. & E.C. Hopkins, 1890) in 1896, southwest of the city centre in Verdun;41 additions to the Jeffrey Hale Hospital in Quebec City in 1896;42 and in 1903 alterations to the old laundry building at Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital (Saxon Snell, 1893) to serve as an isolation pavilion.43 Sailors’ Institute, Montreal (1897) In 1897 Taylor began work on the new Sailors’ Institute at Place Royale and Commissioners streets near the Montreal waterfront. The Montreal House, an old hotel, occupied the site, and the new building

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reused the external walls. For some four decades the Institute had provided a gathering place for sailors arriving in Montreal. The wealthy shipowning Allans were its major patrons, the board of management “twenty gentlemen, prominent in shipping circles.” Andrew Allan, chairman of the steamship line and uncle of Montagu, was the longserving president (1862–1901).44 Religion and temperance formed major components of the Institute’s work, but so did visits to hospitals to comfort sick seamen and the dispensing of money for lodging, food, clothing and other necessities. Even Christian burials were provided in the Institute’s own lot in Mount Royal Cemetery, since sailors, far from home, typically feared burial in a pauper’s grave.45 Typical of Victorian philanthropy, the Institute, resembling both club and home, was intended to “guide sailors’ time in port toward productive middle-class social activites” and away from the temptations of the city’s unsavoury harbour area. Taylor’s conversion would thus provide a coffee room with access from Commissioners Street plus various reading, writing, and club rooms on the next three floors allocated by rank: captains on the first, officers and engineers on the second, stewards on the third. The fourth floor provided sleeping accommodation for sailors. The facility also boasted a chapel for eight hundred people and a concert hall for weekly concerts involving sailors and local talent, seating six hundred. According to one source, the annual closing concert in November became one of Montreal’s notable social events, with attendance – comprising both sailors and the city’s social elite – ranging from four to eight hundred people.46 The Institute filled a need in British North America’s major port: some seven thousand seamen visited Montreal annually, and in 1897, prior to the opening of the new building, there had been about fifteen thousand visits to the old premises nearby.47 Jubilee Nurses’ Home, Montreal (1897) Another project of 1897 was a seventy-two-bed residence for nurses at the Montreal General Hospital. In 1819 a group of charitable anglophone women opened a house on Craig Street with twenty-four beds. 1821 saw the creation of the Montreal General and the laying of the cornerstone for a two-storey building on Dorchester Street.

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The General’s chief function was to treat the needy sick, and in 1823 the hospital’s doctors founded Canada’s first medical school – the Montreal Medical Institute – which McGill absorbed six years later as its first faculty, thus ensuring the college’s own survival. Thereafter, the Montreal General had close connections with the university, serving as a teaching wing of the medical school. Taylor’s work followed many decades of piecemeal additions to the hospital – he himself designed extensive alterations and remodelling in 1893 and a mortuary chapel in 1894.48 In 1897 the hospital governors asked him to design “more comfortable quarters for the nurses” to mark Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. According to the Montreal Gazette, subscriptions poured in, and “sketch plans were entrusted to Mr Andrew T. Taylor, head of the firm of Messrs Taylor & Gordon, the well-known firm of architects, and in no better hands could the work have been entrusted.”49 The site was on Cadieux Street near the hospital’s new surgical wings. The foundations were in place by late August, with plans for the cornerstone laying on 2 September and completion by Christmas. A perspective drawing by Taylor from June 1897 showed a large central block of four storeys and a basement, with three-storey side

5.6 Jubilee Nurses’ Home, Montreal (1897). Drawing by Taylor, 1897.

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wings.50 All had hipped roofs. The north wing contained the entrance to Cadieux Street, while the main access to the hospital was via an elevated passageway resting on pillars, extending from the back of the north wing to the nearest of the hospital’s surgical wings. The south wing featured spacious porches on two floors for the nurses. The principal building material was pressed Ormstown brick, with local limestone for the basement and buff sandstone for the dressings. The style was “a simple type of Florentine Renaissance,”51 and Taylor’s three-part design recalled Italian villas with its high, rusticated base, conspicuous Palladian window, and hipped roofs. The style echoed the austerely classical hospital, enriching and updating it, and the villa reference suited the structure’s domestic character. The basement contained rooms for trunks and stores, a tearoom, and a pantry, with extra space for future needs. The main floor had bedrooms and a large, central reception room with fireplace. The main staircase lay behind the reception room, and there was a second staircase in the north wing near the street entrance. The next two floors housed more bedrooms, with a “bright and airy” sitting room in the centre, “their beauty and cheerfulness enhanced by the erection of a large circular bay window.”52 Although the building did not have an elevator, there was space for one. Although unacknowledged, it is highly likely that the éminence grise behind this project was the redoubtable Nora Livingston (1848–1927), a pioneer in the establisment of nursing as a profession in Canada. In an era when trained nurses were a relatively new phenomenon and Ontario boasted the only school of nursing in the country, Livingston, who had trained in the United States, was appointed “Lady Superintendent” at the General in winter 1890 and promptly opened a school for nurses of which she was director. This forceful woman would bring “to the hospital modern nursing and modern conditions of order, after long years of slovenly disarray.”53 By the end of her long career, the General’s school of nursing had established an enviable reputation throughout Canada, serving as a guide for smaller hospitals in the province and elsewhere in the country. Apropos of her Jubilee celebrations, the Queen had let it be known that she preferred memorials to be permanent and “of a charitable and benevolent nature.” At the Montreal General Hospital “a quiet agitation for a suitable nurses’ home commenced,” and at their quarterly meeting

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in February 1896 the committee of management strongly endorsed this suggestion.54 Whether Nora Livingston was behind the “quiet agitation” is unknown, but the drive to reform nursing in the 1890s, to improve standards and training and elevate it from unskilled domestic labour to a respectable profession for middle-class women is embodied in the new building. That the formidable head of nursing had no role in Taylor’s design is unlikely. In its domestic style and planning, the nurses’ home resembled a residence in a women’s college, alluding to the demanding training required of Livingston’s young women and a response, perhaps, to the construction of McGill’s Royal Victoria College (Bruce Price, 1896–99). Taylor’s stylistic choice, evoking a Renaissance villa in the countryside, provided status to nurses much as the urban palazzo connected nineteenth-century banks and bankers to their Florentine predecessors. At the same time, the dignified structure, with its comfortable, cheery interior, was a means of maintaining Livingston’s authority over her nurses. “She imposed draconian rules of conduct on the students and nurses hired by the hospital, and she regulated conditions of work and training as well as rest periods, stipulating a precise bedtime, a fixed number of visits outside the hospital, the wearing of a uniform, and so on.”55 It was surely fitting that the board invited Lord Lister, founder of modern antisepsis, to lay the cornerstone, since it was thanks to Livingston’s exacting standards that the hospital’s instruments were properly sterilized.56 Ross Memorial Hospital, Lindsay, on (1901–02) Another late project of Taylor’s was the Ross Memorial Hospital (1901– 02) in Lindsay, Ontario, the gift of the Montreal millionaire James Ross, one of Canada’s great railway contractors, in memory of his parents. A civil engineer by training and the son of a Scottish shipowner, Ross was responsible for the most difficult sections of the Canadian Pacific Railway over the Rocky and Selkirk mountains between Calgary and the Pacific in the 1880s. He took full advantage of opportunities that the line created; his business expertise and accumulating wealth earned him places on the boards of the railway and the Bank of Montreal, among many other businesses. Like George Drummond, Ross was an art collector and a

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5.7 Ross Memorial Hospital, Lindsay, on (1901–02). Photograph, c. 1902.

longtime councillor and benefactor of the Art Association of Montreal as well as of McGill. Although he had commissioned the American Bruce Price, architect of the railway’s Windsor Station, to design his grand mansion (1890) in Montreal, he would have known about Taylor’s work through his business and philanthropic interests.57 Indeed he was a member of the three-man building committee while McKim, Mead & White were altering and adding to the Bank of Montreal.58 Lindsay was the seat of Victoria County and the site of Ross’s first job in Canada. In 1878 he became chief engineer and general manager of the Victoria Railway, later part of the Canadian Pacific. Although Ross and his wife moved to Montreal in 1888, she gave birth to their only child in Lindsay, and he brought his parents over from Scotland to live there. A sister, Mrs James Grace, resided in town and convinced her brother to provide a hospital.59 The board purchased an isolated, five-acre site at the west end – a hilltop location offering “a view of the town to the east, with orchards and green fields stretching off in the other direction.”60 Early photographs of the structure, which came down in 1972, show a handsome, two-storey neo-Georgian brick structure featuring a hipped roof and tall, ribbed chimneys and one-and-a-half-storey wings, also with hipped roofs, but with ventilators on top in the form of cupolas. A classically detailed porte cochère sheltered the main

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entrance, and verandahs with matching Ionic columns and balustrades fronted the wings. Facing out on the roof of the porte cochère was a large Palladian window, an arrangement that recalled Taylor’s Allan house in Cacouna, which he began in 1899. Taylor’s new hospital thus looked domestic, suggesting England’s small village, or “cottage” hospitals, which grew in popularity after 1850. G.E. Street’s model design for a village hospital in the mid-1850s, for example, resembled his vicarages of the same period. When the Ross Hospital opened on 20 November 1902, the Lindsay Weekly Post stated that it did not copy any other hospital in Canada but combined the “best features observed by Mr. Ross during a visit to the leading institutions of the kind in England.” The Lindsay facility could accommodate only twenty-three patients. The two wings – men’s and women’s public wards – contained six beds each and a cot, with private rooms upstairs for one or two patients. Unlike English cottage hospitals, the Lindsay version had up-todate equipment and structure. Its operating room and other medical fittings were remarkable for a small community. Contemporaries noted especially the extension at the centre rear of the main building, the upper floor of which was almost entirely of glass to provide light for the operating room. The operating table was of plate glass, and all the surfaces were easy to wash. The provincial inspector of hospitals reported: “I have inspected many hospitals in this and other provinces and in the United States. I never inspected or took part in the opening exercises of any other hospital so completely equipped as this one.”61 Equally up-to-date was the structure. With fire resistance a key consideration, the exterior was of red brick with sills, keystones, and belt course of pale Longford stone resting on a high foundation of the same stone. The roofs were slate. As for the internal supporting structure, there were “walls more than a foot thick hoisting aloft … giant girders like the trestle of a railway bridge – the eternal skeleton upon which is shaped this noble structure.”62 James Ross was president of the Dominion Bridge Company, a national leader in construction of bridges and steel frames for large buildings.63 The steel for the Lindsay project came from Pittsburgh; the floors were cement. The building also had an elevator shaft for later use and electric lighting throughout. The Lindsay Weekly Post summed it up: “Solidity of Construction and Perfect Equipment the Prominent Features.”64

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The most traditional aspect of Taylor’s design, its neo-Georgian style, was both practical and considerate. This fashionable style allowed not only for the attractive porte-cochère but also for the covered, polygonal porches fronting the wings, the latter for convalescents’ enjoyment when the weather was mild. Moreover, with its resemblance to a fine, neo-Georgian house, the small hospital’s comforting appearance recalled Ontario’s own colonial heritage. The local people liked the new hospital. One can stand for all: “It is ample in size, handsome in appearance, completely furnished in every detail, equipped with every medical and surgical appliance which the physician’s art could desire, thoroughly fitted to afford every human chance for the relief and restoration of the sick.”65 Although neither Taylor, as designing architect, nor Morley Hogle, the superintending architect, were present at the official opening, they were fortunate in their client. Like William Macdonald, James Ross had “a generous disregard of the cost.”66 Montreal Maternity Hospital (1903–05) Andrew Taylor exhibited his last hospital design – for the Montreal Maternity Hospital –at the Royal Academy’s exhibition in Ottawa in

5.8 Montreal Maternity Hospital, Montreal (1903–05). Photograph, 1906.

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April 1903. The city badly needed such a facility: the old building on St Urbain Street had been in use for forty years, was too small, and needed major structural work. The board found a more desirable site at St Urbain and Prince Arthur streets, and Mrs W.R. Miller, first director and later president of the institution, led the campaign for funds. Sir William Macdonald contributed $60,000. The structure was functional and looked institutional: plain, three storeys, with slightly projecting end bays, of brick on a high, limestone base. Three Palladian windows, a raised portico protecting the main door, and limestone trim were the major decorative features on the otherwise-plain building. Inside were thirty teaching beds, case rooms, a small operating theatre, and a large hall for teaching. It was here that Nora Livingston’s student nurses received their obstetrical training. There were a small number of private and semiprivate rooms and quarters for both nurses and interns. Taylor’s building served until 1926, when the Royal Victoria Hospital built a new home for it on its own grounds.

Mount Royal Crematorium (1900–02) In summer 1900, Andrew Taylor received a commission for the first crematorium in Canada,67 in the Protestant cemetery on the northeast slope of Mount Royal. Once again the client was Sir William Macdonald. Yet the project was very controversial, and Sir William reported that “the greatest difficulty he ever had in giving money away was in building and equipping the crematorium in Montreal and in presenting it as a free gift, liberally endowed, to the Mount Royal Cemetery Company.”68 The cost was probably about $250,000.69 While cremation was an ancient practice, Christian belief in the resurrection of the body gave burial a near-monopoly in the West. In the 1880s and 1890s the Roman Catholic Church issued three bans against cremation, rules it did not relax until 1963. Even among Protestants, the issue was contentious. The first European cremation in North America had taken place only in the 1870s, and Pennsylvania dedicated the first crematorium for public use in 1884. Most advocates were sanitary reformers – many were doctors – who worried about overcrowded urban cemeteries and were aware of advances in germ theory.

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5.9 Mount Royal Crematorium Hall and Conservatory, Montreal. Photograph, c. 1910.

Most early proponents were nonreligious, like Macdonald. Although the idea came from the cemetery superintendent, W. Ormiston Roy, it was only Sir William’s forceful involvement that enabled realization. Macdonald had grown up Roman Catholic – his Scottish forebears had lost their lands supporting the Stuart cause – but he had early on renounced Catholicism and declared himself free of all sectarian loyalties. No doubt this attitude and his familiarity with the latest scientific thinking through his many McGill benefactions led to his crucial support, for Roy found him as keen a supporter of cremation as he himself was. When Macdonald and Taylor became active, construction was already underway on new and much larger vaults for storing bodies during winter. Roy had designed a conservatory to protect mourners during wintertime services among the flowers, which practice he had observed in US cemeteries.70 The conservatory particularly appealed to Macdonald, and he agreed at their very first meeting to support Roy’s proposal. On 29 June 1900 Sir William offered to build and endow a crematorium, and the cemetery trustees accepted this proposal on 3 July. In the same month the Canadian Architect and Builder reported the gift, noting that “in order to have the best and latest ideas embodied in his scheme,” Macdonald and Andrew Taylor visited Boston, “where

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the most improved plant is to be seen”71 – the new crematorium (1900) at the famous Mount Auburn Cemetery (1831) in Cambridge.72 Like Mount Auburn, Mount Royal (1847) had been one of North America’s first rural, park-like cemeteries. Mount Auburn’s new crematorium, in a converted funerary chapel, helped validate cemetery cremation and would have helped legitimate this Canadian project. Despite the trustees’ approval and that of a shareholders’ general meeting in August, bitter opposition surfaced, much of it from religious people who found cremation “Heathen, Sacrilegious, and Pagan.”73 The cemetery was Protestant, and trustees and shareholders came from six denominations. Passage of necessary amendments to the cemetery company’s charter by the Quebec legislature was also problematic, since the majority of its members were Catholic. Anxious to start his project so as to link the crematorium with the new vaults and conservatory, Sir William accepted the risk of proceeding before passage of the amendments. After much difficulty, in March 1901 Quebec City authorized the crematorium, but with severe restrictions. To circumvent this problem, the trustees transferred the crematorium to a company with a dominion charter, which allowed all the rights and privileges that similar institutions in England enjoyed. Sir William paid the expenses for securing both sets of legislation.74 According to the Canadian Architect and Builder, plans for the project were underway by July 1900; Taylor met with the new crematorium committee on 2 August and suggested certain alterations and improvements to the conservatory, “which added to its beauty.” Final plans reached the trustees on 4 September, with “the building being built and covered in” by December and complete in March 1902.75 The main configuration of the complex consisted of a longitudinal axis comprising an entrance porch fronting the conservatory, with the new vaults at the end and Taylor’s crematorium extending to the left at the juncture of the two. The flowery conservatory thus served as a waiting room for both the vaults and the crematorium, the latter reachable through a small anteroom opening off the conservatory. The crematorium consisted of two parts: a waiting hall and a chamber for the incinerators, accessible through bronze doors set into a solid masonry wall. Although Taylor’s ground plan appeared in the Canadian Architect and Builder in April 1902, without Roy’s original plans we cannot know

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how Taylor improved this initial scheme. Perhaps the turreted neoGothic porch that sheltered the entrance to the conservatory was his conception, for it framed a plaque bearing the donor’s name and also set the Early English Gothic theme of the ensemble. The simplicity was perfect for the building material and the climate, while its religious connotation was equally apt. According to the superintendent’s annual report for 1900, all the stone for the vault walls came from the site, via considerable blasting, and no doubt the grey Montreal limestone for the crematorium hailed from the same source. The walls of all the components were rubblework, with ashlar for the buttresses, mouldings, parapets, and porch turrets. Above its buttressed stone walls, the high, pitched roof of the conservatory was glass, with support from ornamental iron trusses, while the floor was mosaic marble. Marble and white tiles covered the crematorium’s interior; leaded lights filled the arched windows. “The idea is to make the whole pleasing and attractive without extravagant or over ornamentation.”76 Today, only the crematorium and the vaults remain. A month after completion of the new facility, on 18 April 1902, the first cremation in Canada took place.77 The deceased, Senator A.W. Ogilvie, had been a board member and staunch advocate of cremation and instrumental in obtaining acceptance of Macdonald’s gift. Opposition from some relatives apparently delayed the procedure. During the first year of operation, cremation was free, but only three took place. Subsequently there was a nominal charge of ten dollars. Following his own death in 1917, Macdonald was cremated without religious observances. His will provided $100,000 to the crematorium company.78

Chapter six

Launching an Architects’ Association (1890–1904)

The two decades that Andrew Taylor spent in Canada were a time of dramatic change in building materials and technology and in the country’s architectural profession. Taylor had received his training in the traditional way, through pupilage and work in several architectural offices, learning to build with traditional, load-bearing materials. After his arrival in Canada in 1883, however, iron and steel came into increasing use, while buildings grew ever taller. As Taylor’s colleague the Montreal architect A.C. Hutchison observed in 1893: “There is so much steel and iron entering our buildings that an architect requires a knowledge of the quality, strength and resisting power of these materials, which thirty years ago would not have been thought of.”1 When Taylor opened his Montreal office in 1883, Canada had no schools of architecture, and one observer termed office training “somewhat of a farce.”2 Moreover, governments regulated neither the architectural nor building professions, and anyone could advertise as an architect. Another of Taylor’s Montreal colleagues noted in 1890: “All a young man has to do now-a-days to become an architect is to enter an architect’s office and then after three or four months experience he hangs up his shingle and professes to be an architect.”3 Lack of adequate training led to the kinds of problems that the Quebec City architect Charles Baillairgé encountered. He recalled in 1893 that during his career of over forty years as a land surveyor, engineer, and

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6.1 Province of Quebec Association of Architects. Photograph, 1894.

architect he had seen hundreds of arbitration cases relating to defects in construction resulting from “unpardonable ignorance … of the simplest rules of the constructive art.”4 With new materials and techniques becoming available, the possibilities for catastrophe expanded. Business leaders in Canada, as they erected new and more complex buildings, turned to US architects, who were more familiar with the latest advances. Snobbery was also at work. A US firm that had designed an impressive office building or railway station in a major American city not only inspired confidence but, for many Canadian clients, acquired a certain cachet. Andrew Taylor was in a fortunate position: he had received excellent training in traditional methods but was also exceptionally open to the latest US innovations, not only stylistic but also technical and material.

Founding the Association (1890) Taylor was well aware of the critical situation facing Canadian architects and helped found the Province of Quebec Association of Architects (pqaa) in 1890 and McGill’s Department of Architecture in 1896. He

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was a member of the Quebec Association’s nine-person organizing committee, which prepared a draft bilingual constitution and bylaws; thirty-five of the province’s leading architects amended and approved these documents at an organizational meeting on 10 October 1890. According to article II of the constitution, the “objects of the Association were to facilitate the acquirement and interchange of professional knowledge among its members; to promote the artistic, scientific and practical efficiency of the profession, and to endeavor to obtain by legislation the power to regulate future admissions to the study and practice thereof.”5 On 30 December 1890 the provincial legislature approved the body’s act of incorporation, and in September 1891 the first annual meeting took place in Montreal’s New York Life Assurance building (1888), the first US-style tall office building in Canada.6 One catalyst for formation of the Association was a competition for a Montreal Board of Trade building, open initially only to five US firms because, sponsors said, no Canadian architect had the qualifications.7 Taylor brought the matter up at the organizational meeting and reported at a general meeting the following May that the council had immediately jumped into the controversy, meeting with the building committee to call for fairer terms. The unsatisfactory outcome led the council to recommend that its members refrain from competing and sign a petition. The Ontario Association of Architects had emerged just a few months earlier, partly in response to a similar controversy, and joined its counterpart in urging its own members to boycott the Montreal competition. While a US firm, Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, won, the council of the Quebec Association prepared a guide for future competitions, and the unified response of the two associations “signalled the beginning of a new era in the history of the architectural profession in Canada. This concerted action was the first test of the fledgling associations, and it proved that they and the professional idea which they represented were concepts whose time had come.”8

Councillor (1890–1904) Taylor spoke at the organizational meeting: “I have felt, in common with all of us, that we have been too far apart. We have been like stars

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shining each in his own sphere – spheres of the first magnitude, no doubt, but still apart. We have been brought together now, and I hope we shall be able to shine in a glorious constellation, making such an illumination as will make Canada the brighter and better for our work.”9 To this end, Taylor remained active in the Association throughout his career in Canada, serving as a member of the council from the beginning, as second and first vice-president in 1894 and 1895, respectively, and as president in 1896. Over the years he presented papers on various art and architectural topics, including a firsthand description of the 1893 Chicago world’s fair, donated books to the library, served on a committee that worked on a revision of Montreal’s building bylaws, and advocated an Art Standing Committee to advise city council about beautification and preservation. Although the last endeavor came to nothing, by 1898 the Association had achieved a major goal – provincial registration, i.e., the right to prohibit unauthorized and unqualified persons in Quebec from calling themselves architects. Prior to this, members might distinguish themselves as “registered” architects, but anyone could still practice. With the new amendment, as Kelly Crossman noted, “the Quebec architects became the first in the English-speaking world to achieve full statutory registration.”10 Ontario followed suit – in 1931. While the Association had set up its constitution and bylaws to raise the competence and status of the profession by demanding high standards for future entrants, the major issue facing the new council was education. Section VIII of the bylaws provided for a board of three examiners who would meet annually in Montreal and Quebec. Taylor joined this board, which immediately set about preparing examination papers. In September 1891, concurrent with the first annual meeting, the examination program appeared in the Canadian Architect and Builder. Unfortunately, candidates were, as one wag put it, like “the Children of Israel who were told to make bricks, but no straw was given them to make them out of.”11 Accordingly, the Association sponsored three months of lectures in 1892 and formed a drawing class. Attendance was disappointing, and this, together with scarcity of instructors, led the council to abandon the program in the 1893–94 season. A student self-help association formed in 1895–96 but also came to nothing. Student education resumed after 1900 with formation of the pqaa Sketching Club.

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Nevertheless, members were gradually assembling a library in the meeting rooms for members and students, and Taylor and his colleagues intended the papers that they presented at meetings to be educational. The proceedings of the Association’s annual meetings, including the papers, appeared in full in the Canadian Architect and Builder. This publication (January 1888–April 1908) helped spread a wide range of information to architects and the construction trades. The Toronto journalist C.H. Mortimer stated that he established the magazine because of “the rapid improvement of methods and materials of construction, in decorative art, and in sanitary appliances, which has marked the history of the last ten years in Canada.”12 In addition to publishing many of his lectures, the journal would, as we saw above, describe and illustrate a number of Taylor’s buildings.

Organizing Exhibitions To call attention to members’ works, Taylor was active in organizing exhibitions and tours at the time of the annual meetings, which alternated between Montreal and Quebec City. For example, at the annual meeting of 1892, in the Association’s rooms on St James Street, “an interesting collection of architectural drawings adorned the walls.”13 Among works representing sixteen exhibitors were Taylor’s design for the Glasgow Municipal Buildings, his Engineering and Physics buildings at McGill, and his West End Branch of the Bank of Montreal. Taylor served on the hanging committee.14 During the second day of the meeting, members visited several old Montreal landmarks and some that were recent or still under construction, including Taylor’s new Engineering Building and the incomplete Physics Building and Redpath Library. Two other structures that must have been of particular interest were Saxon Snell’s monumental Royal Victoria Hospital, which was nearing completion, and A.C. Hutchison’s new Montreal High School, the latter also figuring in the show of architectural drawings. In 1894, in conjunction with the annual meeting in Montreal, the Canadian Architect and Builder reported “a delightful conversazione” in the evening in the Art Association galleries to inaugurate the pqaa’s exhibition of architectural drawings. “Gruenwald’s Band discoursed sweet music,” and there were refreshments for “a large and fashionable assemblage of people.” This was the first exhibition of its kind in

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Montreal and was “a marked success.” Participants included Taylor, of course, who exhibited drawings of his designs and “some fine water color sketches of picturesque views and scenes in Italy.” The architect’s uncle was also a lender: “On each side of the two doors are beautiful examples of old Chinese wrought iron work, lent by the Hon. Geo. A. Drummond. They are all four floral studies of chrysanthemums and lilies, most interesting and perfect in their design and finish.” The reviewer hoped that the enterprise would encourage the Association to hold similar shows “at regular intervals in the future, which would do so much for the education of the public and the profession.”15 In 1896 a second, more ambitious exhibition took place in the same venue, now larger thanks to Taylor’s addition. Taylor and the council worked very hard and solicited a guarantee fund to help defray costs. The wider selection of drawings included many by Taylor: watercolour perspectives of his Diocesan College and his addition to the Art Association, a drawing of his Bank of Montreal Seigneurs Street branch, and “five or six” watercolours of Italian towers. The reviewer noted that the Diocesan College “undoubtedly ranks among the best of the very interesting buildings erected by this talented architect.”16 A new feature was an Arts and Crafts section “to bring to light many an ignored artist in the line of decorative sculpture, painting, iron work, and other allied arts closely connected to architecture.”17 In this section Taylor exhibited spandrels for the Art Association addition (presumably drawings) and an “Old English Cabinet.”18 The undertaking went well. The correspondent for the Canadian Architect and Builder reported: “Briefly the success and high degree of excellence which the present exhibition has attained is a guarantee that regular and periodical exhibitions of this character will be held in the future, which institution would do a good deal for the advancement of architecture, and a more intelligent appreciation of that useful art by the masses.”19 Such an endeavour brought architects from all over Canada to the attention of the city’s major clients, most of them members of the Art Association. However, this exhibition included drawings from several US architects as well, and even Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge exhibited a drawing of its Montreal Board of Trade Building.20 The effort in organizing the 1896 exhibition perhaps led to the decision in 1898 to take an easier route: members toured Taylor’s new Chemistry and Mining Building and saw George Drummond’s

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art collection. More important, they also visited the new architecture department at McGill, which took up the entire top floor of Taylor’s Engineering Building. This department, which the university created in 1896, had been on the Association’s agenda as early as 1890, when Taylor remarked that he had tried for some time to have something done to train young members. “I have brought the subject to the notice of the governors of McGill College, and tried to get a chair of architecture established there. I hope the influence of this Association will be sufficiently powerful to bring that to a successful issue, and that we shall be in a position to train our young men here without having to send them abroad for an education.”21

Founding McGill’s Department of Architecture When members visited his new Engineering Building during the 1892 annual meeting, someone asked Professor Bovey if the science building between the Engineering and Physics buildings would offer architectural education. He replied that “even at present accommodation exists in the Technological [Engineering] building for this purpose, and the hope was expressed that the architects might be able to induce some of their wealthy clients to make the endowment necessary for the equipment of a Department of Architecture.”22 Clearly Taylor had such a development in mind when designing the Engineering Building, for the top floor, “enclosed in glass,” which initially served as a museum for a superb collection of mechanical models, was excellent “both as regards space and light” for instruction in drawing. As well, there were lecture rooms on the floor below. By 1898 the facility boasted two thousand photographs and lantern slides of famous buildings and architectural casts and statuary, and there was a room in the Redpath Library for architecture books.23 Taylor must also have helped convince William Macdonald to fund the Macdonald Chair of Architecture. Macdonald provided for the initial expenses of equipment as well as an endowment. At the Association’s 1897 annual meeting in Quebec City, Taylor, the retiring president, observed: “The benefactors of the profession have not been numerous, but have distinguished themselves by their generosity. Chief amongst them must be mentioned the name of Mr W.C.

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McDonald, not that his donations directly or immediately benefitted the Association, but we recognize that the creation and endowment of a Chair of Architecture at McGill University is amongst the most potent helps given to architectural education in this country.”24 This was the first university department of architecture in Canada. The first in Britain had emerged at the University of Liverpool only two years previously, while the United States had ten. The first Macdonald Professor of Architecture, Stewart Henbest Capper, soon joined the Association, delivering the major address at the 1897 annual meeting on New York’s tall buildings. He became first vice-president in 1898 and president the following year. Like Taylor, Capper was an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and during his presidency the two associates formed a Canadian Board of Examiners so that Canadians could sit for the exams that the prestigious British institute set. Capper, Taylor, and Montreal architect Alphonse Raza, a former pqaa president, as well as two members of the Ontario Association served as examiners.25 Taylor was also honorary secretary for Canada for the Royal Institute. Prior to the opening of McGill’s department of architecture in autumn 1896, Taylor did some occasional teaching. The Annual Report of the Governors, Principal and Fellows of McGill for 1887 reported an increase in students in the Faculty of Applied Science and noted that the faculty had secured “the services of Mr A.T. Taylor … for the classes in Freehand Drawing.”26 The McGill Calendar listed Taylor as an instructor in freehand and model drawing in 1888–89, 1889–90, and 1892–93 and as a “demonstrator” in 1894–95. He also taught ecclesiastical architecture at Presbyterian College, which the Redpath family had long supported and which had affiliated with McGill in 1867.27 The college calendar listed him as a lecturer in 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, and 1902.28

Other Interests Not all of Taylor’s comitttee work dealt with the pressing needs of the pqaa and its members. He called attention to deficiencies in the City of Montreal. At the 1895 annual meeting the Association’s secretary reported that the group’s most valuable work that year had been its

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revision of Montreal’s building bylaws; Taylor had served on the committee, which met over sixty times. If city council passed these measures, it would “be of immense improvement on previous ones and of great benefit to everyone concerned, and to the city.”29 Montreal finally adopted most of the proposals in 1901. At the 1895 annual meeting Taylor also urged creation of an Art Standing Committee, a scheme like Boston’s,30 to advise city council “on sites for projected monuments of public character” and “new streets and boulevards, or things of similar character.” He cited urgent need as well in “the old city of Champlain [Quebec City, location of the 1895 meeting] where action is necessary to preserve the few souvenirs of its glorious past we have left.”31 Unlike the building bylaw, these worthy proposals went nowhere. By 1899 the Association had expanded from 35 to 139 active members and acquired “a more suitable and agreeable locality” at 112 Mansfield Street, in Taylor’s West End Branch, close to McGill and the emerging downtown core. The new rooms were “furnished with a view to their being more generally available to and by all the members of the Association.”32 At the 1900 annual meeting the architects were displaying their drawings, photographs, and sketches there, although the Canadian Architect and Builder termed the exhibition “hardly a representative one,” since few members submitted works. “This it was hoped was on account of the architects being too busy, but it is seen that the two busiest architects in town are the best represented, so that the cause must be looked for elsewhere.”33 The two firms were Hutchison & Wood and Taylor & Gordon. Taylor, instrumental in the pioneer exhibitions, was busy on major projects in 1900. Despite its initial struggles the Quebec association – the second in Canada – has able inheritors today in L’Ordre des architectes du Québec. Association members had displayed their high hopes at their annual conclave in 1894. “The most pleasing part of the morning session … was the presentation of a large photographic group of the Montreal members of the Association to their confreres in Quebec.” The photo, in an antique frame, was a response to an earlier presentation by the Quebec City members. Charles Baillairgé, the new president, observed that, “although the idea of the Quebec and Montreal sections of the Association presenting photographic groups to each other had perhaps

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originated with the former, the latter had improved upon it in many ways.” Indeed the photo depicted the forty-three Montreal members “assembled in a handsome room, the background being a reproduction of a view of the Senate Chamber in the Palace of the Doges in Venice.”34 Taylor and outgoing president James Nelson had engaged the Montreal studio of William Notman & Son to take the impressive image, which duly appeared in the January 1895 issue of the Canadian Architect and Builder.

7.1 Sir Andrew Thomas Taylor. Photograph by Bassano, 1926.

Chapter seven

Public Life in London (1904–1937)

In February 1904 the Canadian Architect and Builder reported: Mr A.T. Taylor, friba, has decided to remove from Montreal and take up his residence in England. The announcement will be received with regret by Canadian architects, among whom Mr Taylor was one of the recognized leaders. A thoroughly trained architect himself, he cherished high ideals, and constantly strove for their realization by seeking to provide improved educational facilities for students and advocating measures calculated to elevate the status of the profession. He did much valuable work in connection with the Province of Quebec Association of Architects, of which he is an ex-President. His ability as an architect is attested by the many public buildings of an educational and financial character erected from his designs and under his supervision in Montreal, Winnipeg and other Canadian cities.1 Not only did Taylor return to England, but at the age of fifty-four and after a highly successful career as an architect, he ceased active practice and embarked on a second career in public life. We can only speculate about Taylor’s reasons for returning to London and retiring from architecture at a relatively young age. His income, including his half-share of the commission on the Bank of Montreal expansion, must have allowed him to pursue other interests. Having

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worked so closely with McKim, Mead & White, he must have sensed the tide of North American architecture turning in favour of BeauxArts training and design and felt less comfortable in this new milieu. The Taylors had no children, and his wife, an Englishwoman, appears to have wished to return to her homeland. Taylor wrote in January 1904 to William Rutherford Mead: “Mrs Taylor although not at all well, is going to try to worry through this winter.”2 In mid-July he informed Mead that he “had hoped to have the Bank completed ere this, and to have Mrs Taylor over about this time, but I do not want to go until the Bank is in the main completed, so fear London will not see me in September, but I trust however October may.”3 Taylor had met twenty-two-year-old Mary Elliott, daughter of Assistant Commissary-General Joseph Elliott of His Majesty’s Ordnance, in 1890, while she was visiting her sister in Montreal; he was forty. They wed the following year in England.4 Her sister Florence’s marriage (1883) to William Bell Dawson, son of McGill’s principal, reinforced Taylor’s ties to the university.5 Nevertheless, by 1904 he must have thought the time ripe to follow worthwhile pursuits for which his busy Canadian practice had not allowed. Whatever his reasons, the second half of Taylor’s life – he lived to be eighty-seven – was as active and productive as the first. As a long-time colleague later remarked: “His greatest happiness was work.”6 The Taylors settled in the London suburb of Hampstead, where he purchased the long lease of a house at 21 Lyndhurst Road.7 A legendary artistic and intellectual community, Hampstead was the home of many artists, musicians, politicians, writers, and other notables. Indeed, Richard Norman Shaw, one of Taylor’s idols, still lived in the house he had designed for himself at 6 Ellerdale Road.

“Clubland” Taylor soon began to interest himself in local affairs. By 1908 he was an elder of his Presbyterian church, on the council of the Christian Social Service Union, and on the executive committees of the Homes for Epileptic Children and Lingfield Farm Colony. The last was an attempt to house and rehabilitate the poor as an alternative to workhouses. He joined the Hampstead Conservative Association and the new Royal

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Societies Club (1894) on St James Street, which an early member described as “a sort of scholarly social club.”8 In 1923 Taylor attained “clubland’s academic summit” – the Athenaeum (1824),9 which had, as a modern historian writes, “a formidable reputation for intellectuality, gravity, deep respectability and episcopacy.”10 The waiting period was long, except for a select few who could join immediately, including “the Speaker of the House of Commons, cabinet ministers, bishops and archbishops, high court judges, ambassadors, high commissioners and governors-general, and the president of the Royal Society, the Royal [sic] Society of Antiquaries, the Royal Academy and the British Academy.”11 The Athenaeum was not a club for “high play or heavy drinking” but rather a place where intelligent men could frequent the company of their equals.12 He also obtained membership in another venerable institution. In 1917 he became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Britain’s most prestigious society for archaeologists and historians. George II granted it a royal charter in 1751. Its suite of rooms, which includes a magnificent library, faces the courtyard of Burlington House on Piccadilly, home of the Royal Academy.13

London County Council (1908–26) In 1908 the death of the incumbent vacated one of Hampstead’s two seats on the London County Council. The Hampstead Conservative Association chose Taylor as the Municipal Reform candidate, opposing Mary E. Balkwill, a Progressive and the first woman to run for a seat on the council since passage the previous year of the Qualification of Women Act, which made women eligible to serve as members. Granddaughter of the Quaker prison reformer and philanthropist Elizabeth Fry, Mary Balkwill had the support of the Socialist reformers Henrietta (later Dame Henrietta) Barnett and Canon Samuel, who were instrumental in creation of the settlement movement in London’s slums; Barnett also founded Hampstead Garden Suburb (1907) and helped prevent development in much of Hampstead Heath. Taylor promised to oppose “the sinking of the ratepayers’ [taxpayers] money in rash municipal trading and speculative schemes to the detriment of private enterprise.”

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Yet Taylor did not approve of unrestricted private enterprise. In his address to the electors, he stated: I will heartily support all wise measures for Public Health, such as the elimination of slums and disease-breeding centres; securing healthy homes for the labouring classes; giving relief to congested traffic; the prevention of food adulteration; ensuring pure water supply; securing by strictest supervision the purity of the milk supply; infant life protection; smoke consumption and abatement of fog; and the proper arrangement and conduct of asylums, inebriate reformatories, &c. I will support the continuation of the enlightened policy of the present Council in providing more open spaces, public gardens, and children’s playgrounds. I am strongly in favour of carefully thought-out and planned City improvements on a wise and comprehensive plan, not only in the heart of London, but in the outlying parts – in co-operation with Borough Councils, so that in the natural growth of London, expensive and ruinous pulling down and widening of thoroughfares may be avoided. I am in favour of the extension of judicious and cheap facilities on the Tramway service for the benefit of the public.14 These were no empty campaign promises, as his almost two decades on the London County Council and other bodies would bear out. Indeed, when Hampstead residents chose him mayor unanimously in 1922, an unsuccessful opponent for his council seat (which Taylor won that same year) remarked that he had “found with what enormous respect and affection that gentleman [Taylor] was held throughout Hampstead. He could think of no one more worthy or fitted [for mayor].”15 Mary Balkwill commented on losing in 1908 that “she had suffered from the strong feeling which had been aroused against her candidature by the action of the ‘militant suffragists.’”16 Despite growing support for enfranchisement of women, the Hampstead byelection coincided with increasing militancy within the women’s suffrage movement. Taylor played on this circumstance, speaking “in deprecatory terms of the tactics of the Suffragettes, and expressing the opinion that they

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indicated ‘what might be expected if we were governed by women.’” Nevertheless, he urged a “clean and straightforward” election, “free from personalities, more especially as his opponent was a lady, who, whatever her opinions, deserved to be treated with chivalry.”17 Balkwill’s sex was less worrisome to the electorate, however, than her purported socialist views and ratepayers’ fears for their pocketbooks. The Times noted that the contest had excited relatively little excitement – “the unwanted spectacle of motor-cars adorned with election placards passing to and fro appeared to attract scarcely any attention.”18 The twenty-year-old London County Council was an excellent arena for Andrew Taylor’s varied skills and interests. In 1888 it had replaced the old, complex system of governance, supplanting the former vestries, the local boards, and the Metropolitan Board of Works. The new body was a much more comprehensive authority. It had its own architects’ department, which set about building desperately needed working-class housing and such critical services as fire stations, as well as organizing the last great piece of city planning in London, the construction of Aldwych and Kingsway, which spared Gibbs’s St Mary-le-Strand and Wren’s St Clement-Danes. At the time of his death, a colleague, Sir Philip Pilditch, wrote to the Times to expand on Taylor’s contributions to the council: “His aesthetic perception and sense of tradition were of great importance to the committees where such elements needed attention, and I as chairman for some years of the Local Government Committee, which was their natural guardian, found his help of great value in keeping them alive, in the face of a predominantly material outlook which was necessarily more actively in evidence on an administrative body of that kind.” 19 Taylor represented Hampstead on the council from 1908 to 1926, serving on a number of important committees and as vice-chairman in 1919–20. At election time in 1919 the Hampstead and Highgate Express recorded that Taylor was on eight main committees: Appeal, Asylums, Building Acts (chairman), Establishment, General Purposes, Housing, Improvements, and Local Government. He also served on ten subcommittees. He was chairman of the Historical Records and Museums Sub-committee and chairman of Bexley Asylum, one of four major asylums that the council opened.

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Boards of Schools There were many authorities on which the London County Council had ex officio representation as well. Foremost among these for Taylor was London’s University College. The council had given its first grant to the college in 1894 and annual grants thereafter in support of various areas, including technical education. In 1903 the Education (London) Act made the council London’s Education Authority.20 When Taylor ran for re-election in 1919, the Hampstead and Highgate Express listed a few of his ex officio positions: member of the Governing Body of University College and its Managing Sub-committee; the college’s representative on the university’s Senate; and a governor of the Haberdashers’ Company’s four schools. By then he was also a member of the Hampstead Bench and a justice of the peace for London.21 When he first ran for county council in 1908, Taylor stated that he would “heartily support the efforts being made to secure for all the children of London a good practical education that will fit them for their work in life as good and useful citizens.”22 The Haberdashers’ Company Schools introduced Taylor to one of England’s historic trade guilds, or livery companies. While the Haberdashers’ had originated in medieval times to oversee the trade in the City of London, it had evolved into a significant supporter of schools and education in both England and Wales. In 1936, Taylor became an honorary freeman and liveryman of the Haberdashers’ Company and a freeman of the City of London, the City’s highest honour. One of Taylor’s boards was that of Roedean School (1885) in Brighton, a pioneer in women’s education in England. Three educator sisters, Penelope, Dorothy, and Millicent Lawrence, established the school to prepare young women for entrance to the new Girton and Newnham colleges at Cambridge. In contrast, suburban Dulwich College, one of the leading public schools for boys, began in 1619 as an almshouse and school for the poor. After its reconstitution in 1857, newer buildings (1870) were the work of Charles Barry, son of the architect of the Houses of Parliament (Palace of Westminster), while Sir John Soane had designed the school’s famous Dulwich Art Gallery (1811) to house a bequest of paintings. Taylor was still a governor at Dulwich, the Haberdashers’ schools, and Roedean when he died in 1937.

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Taylor also represented University College ex officio on the governing bodies of several other schools and educational foundations. He represented the college on the Council of Almoners of Christ’s Hospital [school] and the boards of the Emanuel Hospital Foundation, the United Westminster Schools Foundation, and the City Parochial Foundation.23 The first, Christ’s Hospital, was founded by Edward VI in 1552 in the City of London to educate poor boys and girls. Its graduates included the essayist Charles Lamb and the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.24 In Taylor’s day, the school was in Horsham, Sussex, but in earlier times the children used Wren’s Christ Church, Newgate Street, as their chapel; its steeple appears in Taylor’s book on the subject. Emanuel School was nearly as old, dating back to 1594 when Anne Sackville left money to house “twentie poor folkes, and twentie other poor children.” Emanuel School remained in Westminster until 1883, when it moved to Wandsworth Common in southeast London.25 It was one of three schools administered by the United Westminster Schools Foundation, an educational charity.26 The City Parochial Foundation, under an act of 1883, administered charitable funds in many City parishes for ecclesiastical purposes and to “promote the welfare of the poor of the Metropolis by way of education, free libraries, open spaces or otherwise.” Between 1891 and 1935 it donated nearly £2 million to institutions within its care.27 He also represented the university on the British Institution Scholarship Fund, which provided scholarships for artists.28

University College At University College London, Taylor served on the College Committee and its Managing Sub-committee (appointed chairman 1915), and on other committees: Architectural Education (chairman), Finance, Pension and Superannuation, School of Librarianship and Archives, and Slade (chairman). He remained on all but Librarianship and Archives until 1937, the year of his death. Elected to the university Senate in 1918, Taylor resigned in 1934 after sixteen years of service.29 University College had opened in 1828 to provide a contemporary education to men not eligible for Oxford and Cambridge, which excluded everyone but affluent members of the Church of England

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– nonconformists, Catholics, Jews, and poorer Anglicans.30 The new institution served as the model for the Victorian “red-brick” colleges that became universities by 1900 and inspired Oxford and Cambridge to broaden their own curricula. In 1878 University College became the first institution of higher learning in Britain to admit women on equal terms with men. The main building, in Bloomsbury, went up in 1828 to the plan of William Wilkins, who later designed the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square in a similarly severe Greek Revival style. While the secular university admitted Catholics, its design pointedly omitted a chapel. The zealously Catholic Pugin regarded its non-Gothic architecture as pagan, adding that it was (quite rightly) “in character with the intentions and principles of the institution.”31 Many referred to it as “the godless institution of Gower Street,” but it survived, and its chair of architecture (1841) was the first in an English university. Taylor’s service on the Architectural Education Committee began in 1912–13, just as the departments of architecture at University and King’s colleges merged to form the Bartlett School, thanks to a gift from the engineer and building contractor Sir Herbert Bartlett. Albert Richardson (1880–1964), a leading figure in English architecture, occupied the chair between the world wars and appears to have been a close friend of Taylor’s. During the 1920s and early 30s, Richardson produced a series of large drawings – fantasies or capriccios – inspired in part by Piranesi and the US architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. Several were brought out in print and given to special friends, including Andrew Taylor, who wrote: “Very many thanks for your charming – ‘Road to Norwich.’ In years to come it should rank with a Gilray. It is a very happy composition, beautifully drawn & rendered. I am glad to have it.”32 Taylor made a number of gifts to the Bartlett over the years: two prizes of £5 each for the best students in the second and third years and a £100 bequest establishing the annual Sir Andrew Taylor Prize in Architecture (£15) for the best set of drawings, combining construction and design, by a fourth year student. He also gave books – all three volumes of Stuart and Revett’s magnificent Antiquities of Athens (1762, 1787, and 1794), seminal publications for the Greek Revival.33 Other gifts included a watercolour and a tinted drawing for the school’s exhibition room and the bequest of “such of his books on Art and Architecture and of his framed original designs as Professor Richardson may select.”34

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The fate of these framed designs and of Taylor’s office drawings is uncertain.35 His will also provided £100 to fund an annual award (£15) in his name to be given by the Slade School to present for a drawing or painting from the antique. The university still awards the Sir Andrew Taylor Prizes in Architecture and in Fine Art in each year. The architect’s experience at McGill must have helped him as chairman of the college’s building committees for such structures as new premises for anatomy and chemical engineering and the great hall and observatory. The Anatomy Building (1923) was “the last word in modern medical architecture,” echoing the kind of praise that Taylor’s Macdonald science buildings earned in the 1890s.36 The great hall involved remodelling the derelict All Saints’ Church (1846) by T.L. Donaldson, the college’s first professor of architecture. Richardson carried out the task, and the hall (1927) became a memorial to people who had died in the First World War; the Second completely destroyed it.37 In 1928, in recognition of his long and faithful service, University College made Taylor an honorary fellow; following his death in 1937, the College Committee adopted a resolution: Wise in counsel, courteous in manner, untiring in his devotion to the College, he presided for some twenty-two years over one of its most important committees. To that task he brought a wide range of experience in public affairs and a sympathetic understanding of the problems involved in the maintenance and upkeep of the buildings of a great College in all their varied aspects. As Chairman of the Building Committees for Anatomy, Chemical Engineering, the Great Hall and the Observatory, he used his wide architectural experience in seeing that the best and most serviceable use was made of the moneys at the disposal of the College for such work. He won the esteem and indeed the affection of all those who were privileged to work with him. So full and varied were his activities, so upright and alert his familiar figure, that few of his colleagues realized until his last illness that he had reached the ripe age of 87.38

Other Public Service These were not the only activities occupying Taylor during his years of public service. During the First World War he served on Hampstead’s

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Appeal Tribunal for National Service throughout its existence and chaired the Hampstead War Hospital Supply Depot, which did “such splendid work for hundreds of hospitals for wounded soldiers and sailors at home and abroad.”39 The war added to Taylor’s work at the London County Council as well: “With so many younger members away on war service, and the greatly depleted staff, it has been difficult to carry on the work of the government of London during the war, but the older members have been all the more assiduous in the work, and Mr Taylor thinks it will be granted that London has not suffered more than has been unavoidable.”40 Taylor expressed his lifelong interest in the arts, history, and the preservation of historic buildings by service on several other boards and committees. Among these were the National Art Collections Fund (1903), to which he became in 1935 representative of the College Committee of University College. This fund works with museums and galleries to buy paintings, sculptures, and other works of art and is today the United Kingdom’s largest art charity. It made possible acquisition of many fine works in the National Gallery, the first painting being Velasquez’s famous “Rokeby Venus,” which it acquired in 1906. Another of Taylor’s interests was Dickens House, where he served as a trustee. The building, at 48 Doughty Street, came under threat of demolition in 1923, but the Dickens Fellowship renovated the old house and opened it as a museum in 1925, initiating creation of the foremost repository of Dickens material in the world. It was there that Dickens published and completed some of his most famous novels, including Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, and The Pickwick Papers.41 Taylor also served as a trustee of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, which Canon Samuel Barnett founded in 1881. The Oxford-trained Barnett and his wife, Henrietta, had forsaken an easy life among the affluent to work in “the worst parish” in the East End of London, St Jude’s in Whitechapel.42 Like Taylor they hoped to alleviate some of the misery of London’s working-class poor, and they founded Toynbee Hall, the earliest of the university settlements and the inspiration for Nobel laureate Jane Addams’s Hull House in Chicago. They also established the nearby Whitechapel Art Gallery to provide access to the arts, and from 1901 on it occupied one of the masterpieces of Arts and Crafts architecture, by Charles Harrison Townsend. The gallery offered an ever-changing feast of art for the poor – work from China, India, and

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Japan; Jewish art (the East End had a large Jewish population); the Pre-Raphaelites; and modern British art. There were also exhibitions of work by local artists and students, including schoolchildren.43 Another of Taylor’s interests was the Hampstead Antiquarian and Historical Society (1898). It elected him a vice-president in 1919, and he was president at the time of his death. The Hampstead and Highgate Express noted in Taylor’s obituary that he had done much to reinvigorate the society. For example, in 1922, when he was president, he organized a visit to the Haberdashers’ Hall in Gresham Street by Christopher Wren. In 1926 members and friends visited the museum of the Public Records Office, which held two volumes of the Domesday Book – part of William the Conqueror’s survey of England in 1086. As a member of the Hampstead Bench, Taylor served on the Plans Committee, and thanks to him “many unique architectural and picturesque features in some old Hampstead buildings had been preserved for posterity.”44 At the time of his death Taylor was a vice-president of the British and Foreign Bible Society, whose purpose was to make venacular translations of the Bible available worldwide. He left his largest bequest – £500 – to this charity, although a longtime county council colleague wrote in Taylor’s obituary that Sir Andrew “never intruded his religious opinions on other people, neither was he in any respect a selfopinionated man. Rather was he amiable, kindly, and accommodating, living in a calm philosophic atmosphere.”45

Letters to the Times During his years in Hampstead, Taylor wrote a number of letters to the Times that reflected the broad range of his concerns and interests. They included a defense of the London County Council’s enforcement of the 1905 London Building Acts Amendment Act, which required certain buildings to provide means of escape in case of fire. In 1912 a fire at Barker’s department store in Kensington had destroyed the building and killed five female employees who lived there. Taylor, then chair of the council’s Building Acts Committee, explained that the committee gave priority to dangerous cases as it became aware of them and dealt with remaining buildings gradually. To apply the act instantly over the whole of London would involve “a structural disturbance the magnitude of which can only with difficulty be realized.”46

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In 1913 Taylor was defending new council regulations on reinforced concrete against criticism that the council had not drawn up a complete and authoritative code. He noted that the council had examined the current codes of the United States, the requirements of Austria, France, Germany, and Italy, the British Joint Report from the Royal Institute of British Architects and other technical societies, and the report of the American Joint Committee of Technical Societies. As for the “elasticity” of the regulations, Taylor replied that as reinforced concrete was a relatively new, evolving mode of construction, “the final word cannot be said now,” and that there was provision in the legislation “to make such regulations as might be called for in the future.”47 Clearly, Taylor’s architectural expertise was in good use at the London County Council. Other letters to the Times dealt with historical preservation. In 1923, when Taylor was chairman of the council’s Local Government Committee, he responded to concern that the Church of England was proposing to demolish a number of London churches. He commented that some three years previously, when it took powers to demolish nineteen churches, the council had passed a resolution stating that it opposed such destruction, and he thought that it would react similarly in this case.48 In the same year, 1923, Taylor called for preservation of the Old Court House in Barking, in northeast London, a building dating from 1567. In 1937 he urged re-erection of Wren’s Temple Bar, the historic gateway into the City of London, which had been moved to Hertfordshire in 1878, as an entrance to one of the Thames Embankment gardens.49 Nothing came of his proposal. Taylor also concerned himself with London’s green spaces. As the city continued to grow and housing needs became ever more acute, there was worry about the rapid disappearance of open land. In a letter to the Times of 23 April 1937, the chairman of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association stated that two-thirds of the private garden ground existing twenty years previously – “the lungs of inner London” – had disappeared. On 21 April, the practical Taylor had urged better, extended use of existing gardens in London’s squares, many of which were almost empty and suffering neglect. As surrounding households owned these gardens and railings protected them, Taylor suggested supervised public access during the day, pointing to Lincoln’s Inn

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Fields as an example.50 Not surprising, he was a member of the London Society, which, since its founding in 1912, has reviewed and commented on planning and development and promoted conservation.51 Taylor occasionally communicated with the Times about prominent people he had known. When his uncle George Drummond died in 1910, he wrote to add to its recent obituary: “When we are seeking to draw closer the fraternal bonds of Empire, the men who have built up Greater Britain beyond the seas are worthy of more than a passing notice. He was one of Canada’s greatest men – trusted and consulted on high affairs of State by his Gracious Majesty’s representative and by leaders of both parties.” Taylor added that Drummond had been “the best type of Empire-builder – a man of absolute integrity, of sound, swift judgment, of great energy, with a noble courage: he believed in the great future of Canada when many doubted, and was the pioneer of numerous enterprises that have since been of great benefit in its development.” Though never referring to himself as architect of Drummond’s home, he commented extensively on his uncle’s art collection and his qualities as a collector.52 Later, in a 1927 letter, he noted the “remarkable prices” at Christie’s for pictures belonging to James Ross, another prominent Montreal collector, comparing them to the record sale in 1919 of twenty-nine of Drummond’s paintings, also at Christie’s. These, he wrote, demonstrated “the sound art judgment of these Montreal men who many years ago were courageous enough to get together such a wealth of great pictures as the above [sale prices] testifies to.”53 Taylor also sought to acquaint Times readers with another prominent Canadian, Alexander Dougall Blackader, professor of pharmacology, therapeutics, and paediatrics at McGill, who died in 1932. Blackader, he wrote, “loved his profession and was a great worker, and set before himself a high ideal, both in his practice and in his educational work, and was intensely conscientious in all he undertook.” Blackader “endeared himself to his many friends by his kindliness and courtesy. His epitaph might well be – the beloved physician.”54 Another friend, born in Scotland, but with connections to Canada, was Robert Nivison, Lord Glendyne, who also merited a letter to the Times when he died in 1930. Nivison, son of a colliery manager in Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, had risen from humble beginnings to become principal partner of R. Nivison and Company, a leading firm

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of London stockbrokers and the most prominent in issuing loans to Canada, Australia, and South Africa. He became Sir Robert in 1914 and 1st Baron Glendyne of Sanquhar in 1922. Taylor wrote movingly of his old friend, noting that unlike “some men who have risen to fortune [and] are anxious to forget everything that would remind them of their less fortunate days, Lord Glendyne was a splendid exception.” Lately, wrote Taylor, Glendyne had sought out old friends and acquaintances from his early struggling years, providing them with pleasure and help by means of substantial cheques. Taylor praised him as “a most generous giver to the Presbyterian Church of England” but added that “his benefactions embraced all good objects. His generosity was only equalled by the unostentatiousness of his mode of giving. He also enriched his native town of Sanquhar by a fine public park and other gifts. But after all is said, his great kindness of heart and practical expression of it are only known to those, and they are many, who will ever hold his memory dear.”55

Late Honours Taylor’s own good works ultimately earned him a knighthood in 1926 “for public and political services,” but in 1919 he received the Medal of the City of Paris. This award, which Taylor listed on an information form that he sent to the National Gallery of Canada in 1920, probably related to work during the First World War. Taylor became an honorary fellow in 1928 of University College and in 1931 of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, which had so honoured only Lord Willingdon. His final accolade was the freedom of the City of London in 1936. Taylor’s wife, Mary, did not live to be Lady Taylor. She died in 1925 at the age of fifty-six. The couple had been staying at a hotel in the seaside resort of Torquay, where they had gone because of her ill health. According to Taylor, “on the day of her disappearance (her birthday anniversary) she was more than usually depressed.” She had left the hotel after tea, and “nothing more was seen of her until her body, fully clothed except for her shoes, was found washed up by the tide at the ladies’ bathing beach the following morning. Shoes and a walking stick belonging to Mrs Taylor were subsequently found at a pier nearby.”

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The coroner, returning a verdict of “found drowned, said that, at first sight, it might seem that Mrs Taylor threw herself into the water, but he did not feel justified in jumping to conclusions.” Her funeral took place at Marlborough Place Presbyterian Church, with burial at West Norwood Cemetery.56 On 5 December 1937, “after lying seriously ill for several weeks,” Andrew Taylor died at eighty-seven.57 He joined such notables as George Eliot, Karl Marx, Christina Rossetti, and Herbert Spencer at Highgate Cemetery in London. Individuals from the many organizations he had served during his later life attended the funeral at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. They included the mayor of Hampstead, along with aldermen and councillors and members of the Hampstead Bench, the chair of the Hampstead Conservative Association, the provost of University College, and representatives from the many schools and organizations Taylor had served. Walter Reynolds, JP, for many years a colleague of Taylor’s on the London County Council, ended his appreciation in the Hampstead and Highgate Express with these words – forgetting perhaps that Taylor was a Scot: “By his deeds, his altruism, and his work for others, Andrew Taylor will be long remembered. His life set a fine example. He was a hard worker, a good citizen, and a gentleman, and so long as our country can produce such men, Old England will still remain the best of all places for a decent man to live in.”58

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List of Andrew Thomas Taylor’s Works Since Taylor’s office records have not survived, dates are based primarily on published records and indicate start of construction. Where “plans for” is given, start of construction is unknown. For projects by city and references, see Robert Hill, ed. and comp., Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada 1800–1950 Online, the principal source for this list. “tgb” indicates instances where the firm is cited in references as Taylor, Gordon & Bousfield. Otherwise the firm was known as Taylor & Gordon from 1883 to 1904. An asterisk denotes a major work.

1880

Alterations to warehouse, Commercial Road, London, demolished. Decoration of Parish Church, Highbury, North London, current status unknown. * Memorial Hall and Schools, Dover, Kent, demolished 1914. Several villas and buildings, St John’s Wood, London.

1881

* Almshouses, High Street, Chislehurst, Kent, extant with minor alterations. * Competition Design for Glasgow Municipal Buildings. (Second Premiated Design). Henry Hall and Andrew T. Taylor, Joint Architects.

1882

Addition to residence, Chislehurst Common, Kent, England. Two cottages, Chislehurst, Kent, England.

1883

Alterations to house, Bournemouth, Dorset, England.

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* Semidetached houses for Francis Robert Redpath (Inglenook) and Henry Taylor Bovey (Sunnandene), Ontario Avenue, Montreal, extant. Redpath house partly demolished 1986; Bovey house with major alterations 1914. * Semidetached houses for Henry Castle Scott and Henry George Gordon Strathy, Upper Drummond Street, Montreal, demolished. Semidetached houses, Prince Arthur Street, Montreal, status unknown. * Terrace of five houses for George Alexander Drummond, Mansfield Street, Montreal, demolished.

1884

Additions and alterations to house of George Alexander Drummond, Sherbrooke Street, Montreal, demolished. Additions to house of Henry Taylor, Perth, on, status unknown. * Bank of Montreal, Gore Street, Perth, on, extant with alterations. * House for William H. Davis, Theodore Street [Laurier Avenue] and Salisbury Avenue [Range Road], Ottawa, demolished. (tgb)

1885

Addition to Medical Building, McGill University, Montreal, demolished. * Alterations and additions to Bank of Montreal, St James Street, Montreal. (tgb) Design for house for unknown client, Perth, on, built? Two residences for unknown clients, Montreal.

1886

Additions to house for unknown client, Upper St Urbain Street, Montreal. (tgb) Alterations and new porches to house of T.C. Meredith, Wellington Street, London, on, status unknown. (tgb) Boys’ Home, Mountain Street, Montreal, demolished. (tgb) House for future tenant, Mackay Street, Montreal. (tgb) House for Henry Taylor Bovey (Sassaquiminel), Little Métis, qc, extant with alterations. (tgb) Office block, Montreal. (tgb)

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Plans for school and schoolhouse, St Urbain Street, Montreal, built? (tgb) Plans for several houses for unknown clients, Sherbrooke Street, Montreal, built? (tgb) Plans for terrace of houses for unknown client, Côte St Antoine Road, Montreal, built? (tgb) Plans for terrace of houses for unknown client, Ottawa, built? (tgb)

1887

Two houses for unknown clients, Montreal.

1888

* Bank of Montreal, Stephen Avenue [Eighth Avenue South] and Scarth Street [First Street West], Calgary, nwt, demolished. Competition design for office block, St James Street, Montreal (won by A.F. Dunlop). * House for Charles J. Fleet, Ontario Avenue, Montreal, demolished 1974. * Mansion for George Alexander Drummond, Sherbrooke and Mansfield streets, Montreal, demolished 1930. * House for Robert Wilson Reford, Little Métis, qc, destroyed by fire. Two houses for unknown clients, Montreal.

1889

* Bank of Montreal West End Branch, St Catherine and Mansfield streets, Montreal, extant with interior alterations. Conversion of coach house as gymnasium for Trafalgar Institute, Simpson Street, Montreal, demolished. Designs for altar cloth, memorial window in left transept, and brass chandeliers for Christ Church Cathedral, St Catherine Street and Union Avenue, Montreal, current status unknown. Extension to east wing of Ravenscrag for Hugh Montagu Allan, Pine Avenue West, Montreal, extant with alterations and additions.

1890

East wing for Trafalgar Institute, Simpson Street, Montreal, demolished.

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* Macdonald Engineering Building and Workman Workshops, McGill University, Montreal, Engineering Building destroyed by fire 1907, (rebuilt to designs by Percy Nobbs).

1891

* Bishop’s College Grammar School, Lennoxville, qc, extant but altered for use by Bishop’s University. * Macdonald Physics Building, McGill University, Montreal, extant with major alterations and additions.

1892

* Addition to Art Association of Montreal, Montreal, demolished. Addition to Boys’ Home, Mountain Street, Montreal, demolished. * Bank of Montreal, Granville and Dunsmuir streets, Vancouver, demolished. * Redpath Library, McGill University, Montreal, extant with interior alterations. Restoration of Chapel for Bishop’s College, Lennoxville, qc, extant.

1893

Addition to Home for Incurables (St Margaret’s Home), Sherbrooke Street, Montreal, extant. Alterations and remodelling for Montreal General Hospital, Montreal, demolished. * Bank of Toronto Montreal Branch, St James and McGill streets, Montreal, demolished. Pathology wing for Medical School, McGill University, Montreal, demolished.

1894

* Bank of Montreal, Seigneurs Street Branch, Seigneurs and Nôtre Dame streets, Montreal, extant with interior alterations. Extensions to Workman Building, McGill University, Montreal. Molson addition to Medical Building, McGill University, Montreal, demolished. Mortuary chapel for Montreal General Hospital, Montreal, demolished.

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1895

Alterations for Château de Ramezay Museum, Nôtre Dame Street East, Montreal, status unknown. * Diocesan College, University Street, Montreal, extant.

1896

* Macdonald Chemistry Building, McGill University, Montreal, extant with major alterations and additions. West wing for Protestant Hospital for the Insane, Verdun, qc, demolished.

1897

* Bank of Montreal, Scarth Street and Eleventh Avenue, Regina, nwt, demolished. Chapel for St Stephen’s Church, Dorchester Street and Atwater Avenue, Montreal, demolished. Headmaster’s House and Gymnasium for Bishop’s College, Lennoxville, qc, headmaster’s house demolished, gymnasium extant with alterations. * Jubilee Nurses Home, Dorchester Street and Cadieux streets, Montreal, demolished. Renovations to Pathological Museum and Bone Room, Medical Building, McGill University, Montreal, demolished. Sailors’ Institute, Place Royale and Commissioners Street, Montreal, demolished. * Ten Houses for Herbert Brown Ames, William Street (between Ann and Shannon streets), Montreal, demolished c. 1967.

1898

* Apartment House for Artisans, Guy and St Antoine streets, Montreal, demolished. Enlargement of Ravenscrag stables for Hugh Montagu Allan, Pine Avenue West, Montreal, extant. * House for Alfred Whitman, Young Street, Halifax, ns, extant. House for Herbert Brown Ames, Ontario Avenue, Montreal, demolished.

190

Andrew Thomas Taylor’s Works

* Molsons Bank, Hastings and Seymour streets, Vancouver, bc, demolished 1973.

1899

Competition design for addition to Merchants Bank of Canada, St James Street, Montreal (won by Edward Maxwell). * House for Hugh Montagu Allan (Montrose) Cacouna, qc, extant with major alterations and additions. * Marlborough Apartment House, Milton Street, Montreal, extant. Molsons Bank, Victoriaville, qc, status unknown.

1900

* Addition to Bank of Montreal, Wellington Street, Ottawa, on, demolished c. 1929. * Bank of Montreal, Sydney, Cape Breton, ns, extant with alterations. * Merchants Bank of Canada, Main and Lombard streets, Winnipeg, mb, demolished 1966. * Mount Royal Crematorium, Mount Royal Cemetery, Montreal, extant with major alterations and additions.

1901

* Addition and interior remodelling for Bank of Montreal Head Office, St James Street, Montreal (McKim, Mead & White, Andrew T. Taylor, Associated Architects), extant. Addition to Redpath Library stack, McGill University, Montreal, extant. Alterations and additions to Bank of Montreal, Lindsay, on, demolished. Bank of Montreal Point St Charles Branch, Wellington and Magdalen streets, Montreal, extant with interior alterations. * Cross-axis addition to Medical Building, McGill University, Montreal, demolished. Design for welcome arch celebrating visit of Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (later King George V and Queen Mary) to McGill University, Montreal, demolished. * Ross Memorial Hospital, Lindsay, on, demolished.

Andrew Thomas Taylor’s Works

191

1902

* House for George Alexander Drummond (Huntlywood), Beaconsfield, qc, demolished. School House for Trafalgar Institute, Simpson Street, Montreal, extant with alterations (original doorway moved to north facade).

1903

* Bank of British North America, Main Street, Winnipeg, extant. Competition design for Soldiers and Strathcona Monument, Dominion Square, Montreal (second place – won by George W. Hill). Montreal Maternity Hospital, St Urbain Street and Prince Arthur streets, Montreal, demolished. Reconstruction of Laundry as Isolation Pavilion for Royal Victoria Hospital, Pine Avenue, Montreal, demolished. Remodelling for Imperial Bank, Victoria Square, Montreal.

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Notes Introduction

1 Westley, Remembrance of Grandeur, 17. 2 My interpretation of Montreal and Canada in the 1880s and 1890s draws on essays by Fournier and Rodriguez, Gournay, Hanna, Linteau, Sutcliffe, and Vanlaethem in Gournay and Vanlaethem, Montreal Metropolis; Jenkins, Montreal, Island City; and Simmons, Ontario Association.

Chapter One





1 It is not clear where Taylor received his pre-professional education in Edinburgh. He did not attend the Royal High School as his uncle George Drummond did, nor the Edinburgh Academy, on Henderson Row. 2 Crook, “Introduction,” in Eastlake, A History of the Gothic Revival, 27–57. 3 Hitchcock, “Early Victorian Architecture,” 985. 4 Quoted in Clark, Gothic Revival, 127. Chris Miele notes that Scott’s conversion to Gothic was in part a case of professional opportunism in Brand, ed., Study of the Past, 106–7. 5 Goodhart-Rendel, “Rogue Architects,” 251–9. 6 Quoted in Crook, William Burges, 125. 7 For more on ecclesiologically correct Gothic, see M.J. Lewis, Gothic Revival, 91–3 and Muthesius, High Victorian Movement, 7. 8 Stamp, “Victorian Kirk,” in Brooks and Saint, Victorian Church, 108. 9 P.F.L. Batchelor, Roxburghe Estates Office, Kelso, Roxburghshire, letter to author, 28 November 1983.

194

Notes to pages  9–13

10 Quoted in Clark, Gothic Revival, 57. 11 Floors’s pre-Adam building sequence remains unclear, as does the extent of Adam’s work (although his published elevation and plans appeared in Vitruvius Scoticus [1812]). See MacKechnie, “Design Approaches,” in Gow and Rowan, Scottish Country Houses, 25. 12 Shepherd, Exploring Scotland’s Heritage, 27–9. 13 Glendenning et al., A History of Scottish Architecture, 596. The hospital is now the Institute of Technology School of Navigation. 14 Clarke’s office was at 13 Stratford Place, off Oxford Street in central London. 15 Crook, Dilemma of Style, 63. 16 Reynolds, “An Appreciation,” 6. 17 Curl, Victorian Architecture, 41. 18 Cherry, “Patronage,” in Brooks and Saint, Victorian Church, 174. 19 Miele, “’Their interest and habit,’” in ibid., 167. 20 Ibid., 165. 21 Quoted in ibid. 22 Ibid., 166. 23 Cornforth, “House of St Barnabas,” 20. 24 Clarke, letter to Eastlake, 4 February 1878, riba Associateship Application, 1878. 25 Builder 42 (25 February 1882): 239. The following year Taylor’s contemporary, Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo (1851–1942), published his far-better-known Wren’s City Churches with its now famous proto–Art Nouveau title page. 26 Pevsner, “Shaw,” in Ferriday, Victorian Architecture, 237. 27 Taylor, Towers and Steeples, 44, 46. 28 Ibid., 7–8. 29 Summerson, Architectural Association, 36; Crook, William Burges, 76; and Eastlake, A History of the Gothic Revival, 299–300. The collections finally went to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1916. 30 Graves, Royal Academy, 334. Andrew Saint kindly advised on Taylor’s London addresses, pointing out the Finsbury street and numbering change. 31 riba Fellowship Application, 1889. Taylor did not list Wales, but the sketch of a lych gate in Carmarthen suggested he also travelled there. A drawing of the Duomo in Florence was published in Architect 22 (1 November 1879).

Notes to pages  13–19

195

32 Mays, “Sketching Tours,” 1. 33 Ibid., 3. 34 See Saint, Image of Architect, 57–8, 67. 35 Macleod, Style and Society, 14–15. 36 Smart, Muscular Churches, 76–7. 37 Macleod, Style and Society, 18. 38 Ibid., 19. 39 Brooks and Saint, eds, Victorian Church, 108. 40 Clarke and Betjeman, English Churches, 49. See also Wakeling, “Nonconformist Traditions,” in Brooks and Saint, Victorian Church, 82–97. 41 Builder 40 (14 May 1881): 622 and Building News 39 (8 October 1880): 412. 42 Discussed in Hersey, High Victorian Architecture, 99. 43 See ibid., 95. 44 Builder 40 (14 May 1881): 622. W. Bromley, a Dover builder, executed the work for about £1,950, which came mainly from a congregation member, Mrs Hyde. The Salvation Army bought the structure in 1886 and renamed it the Dover Tabernacle. The General Post Office purchased it about 1913 and demolished it (Mark Frost, Dover Museum, Dover, Kent, letter to author, 20 July 2000). 45 cab 11 (December 1898): supp. In March 1889 it appeared at the Royal Canadian Academy exhibition at the National Gallery in Ottawa. 46 The almshouses still functioned as such in 1994 when the author visited them. The 1987 Blue Guide to Victorian Architecture in Britain cited as architect not Taylor but Manning & Anderson, probably the builders. 47 Pevsner, ed., The Buildings of England. 48 See Aslin, Aesthetic Movement, 13, 36–51. Taylor’s wooden balconies, sundial, and sunflower ornaments have disappeared. 49 See Scully, Shingle Style, 1971. 50 Both appeared in Taylor’s riba application. Architectural records for Chislehurst go back only to 1900, making it impossible to verify whether Redpath was the client. C.J. Davis, chief architect/ planner, London Borough of Bromley (letter to author, 18 November 1983). 51 Dawson, In Memoriam Peter Redpath, 8.

196

Notes to pages  19–26

52 “Glasgow Municipal Buildings,” Canadian Magazine of Science and the Industrial Arts (June 1883): 176–8, 181; Cunningham, Victorian and Edwardian Town Halls, 100, 227n3. 53 Taylor, “The Late Henry Hall,” 122. 54 Quoted in Cunningham, Victorian and Edwardian Town Halls, 39. 55 Gomme and Walker, Architecture of Glasgow, 192. 56 Taylor, “The Late Henry Hall,” 122. 57 Cunningham, Victorian and Edwardian Town Halls, xiii. 58 Barry and Pugin had used Gothic for the Houses of Parliament (1837– 67), but this represented a classically planned complex with Gothic detail, quite different from Gothic Revival principles of design. 59 Cited in Dixon and Muthesius, Victorian Architecture, 168. 60 Canadian Magazine of Science and the Industrial Arts (June 1883): 177. 61 Ibid., 178. 62 Gomme and Walker, Architecture of Glasgow, 193. 63 Ibid. 64 riba Fellowship Application, 1889. The proposer’s statement did not identify other competitions. 65 “Mr George Hamilton-Gordon to Crown Agents,” London, 21 January 1904. I owe this information to architects Leon Roodt, Durban, and Brian Kearney, Blomfontein, South Africa, and to Gavin Stamp, who directed me to them. 66 For Bousfield, Cooke, and Hogle see Robert G. Hill, ed. and comp., bdac Online. Hill provided background on Davis. 67 For Dunlop, Hutchison, and Hopkins see bdac Online and Gournay and Vanlaethem, Montreal Metropolis, 206. For Browne see dcb Online and bdac Online. For Thomas see bdac Online and CE Online. For the Maxwells see bdac Online and Kalman and Wagg, eds, The Architecture of Edward and W.S. Maxwell, 1991. 68 Leacock, Montreal, 229. 69 Stikeman, Mount Royal Club, 205. 70 In 1904 McKim, Mead & White designed the present building after fire destroyed the old clubhouse. 71 Prior to the opening of the department of architecture in autumn 1896, the Annual Report of the Governors, Principal and Fellows of McGill University for 1887 reported that the Faculty of Applied Science had secured Taylor’s services to teach Freehand Drawing (Dawson Papers, McGill University Archives, 3–4; Who Was Who, 1929–1940, 1328.

Notes to pages  27–32

Chapter Two 1 Feltoe, Redpath, 23. 2 He then moved to 19 Essex Avenue, the former home of architect Alexander Denton Steele (1841–1890), who had been in partnership with Alexander Cooper Hutchison (1838–1922) from 1876 to 1890. 3 riba Fellowship Application, 1889. The Gazette stated that all the houses “have been designed by and being carried out under the superintendence of Mr Andrew T. Taylor, of the firm of Taylor & Gordon, Montreal and London, England.” 4 riba The Transactions: Session 1882–83 (September 1883): 55. Gale travelled on a Godwin Bursary, which the Association set up in 1881 to encourage young architects to study aspects of construction, sanitation, and ventilation in Europe or North America. See Lewis and Morgan, eds, American Victorian Architecture, 2. 5 riba The Transactions, 55. 6 Forman and Stimson, Vanderbilts, 311–12; Freylinghuysen, “Vanderbilt Residence,” in Howe et al., Herter Brothers, 200–11. 7 See King, Vanderbilt Homes, 20. 8 Taylor, riba The Transactions, 55. 9 “The Bank of Montreal: Sketch of the Recent Improvements to the Building,” Gazette (Montreal), 24 July 1886, 7. 10 Taylor, riba The Transactions, 55. 11 Ibid., 55. 12 John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) had long since retired to his home in Amesbury, Massachusetts. 13 Gazette (Montreal), 29 April 1884, 8. 14 Ibid. A list of tradesmen who helped build the houses appeared in an account book belonging to George A. Drummond (31 December 1884, 69) in the archives of the Redpath Sugar Museum in Toronto, along with information about the purchase of lots on Mansfield, Metcalfe, and Sherbrooke streets. 15 A perspective and description appeared in Architect 34 (11 December 1885): 359 and illus. I am grateful to Robert Hill for bringing this to my attention.

197

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Notes to pages  32–9

16 Gazette (Montreal), 29 April 1884, 8; Architect 34 (11 December 1885): 359. 17 Gazette (Montreal), 12 January 1885, 2. 18 Montreal Herald and Daily Commercial Gazette, 6 May 1880, 4. 19 I am grateful to historian Robert Lemire for supplying the names of the two houses. 20 Fleet was a principal of the law firm Robertson, Fleet & Falconer. Henry Hall mentioned the Fleet house on Taylor’s riba fellowship application of 1889. Taylor’s Candidate’s Separate Statement listed two residences in Montreal for unnamed clients in 1888. Research by Robert Lemire generated a construction date of 1888 (based on Lovell’s Montreal Directory) and a demolition date of 1974. For Lemire, see Andrew Taylor file, jbcac. 21 Gazette (Montreal), 29 April 1884, 8. 22 Kornwolf, “American Architecture,” in Burke et al., In Pursuit of Beauty, 341–2. 23 Ibid. 24 Only after the arrival in 1903 of Percy Nobbs, Taylor’s successor as architect to McGill, did the Arts and Crafts movement begin to affect Canadian architecture. See Wagg, Percy Erskine Nobbs, 1982. 25 “A Day in Montreal,” aabn 22 (1 October 1887): 162. 26 Taylor, “Diffusion of Art,” Gazette (Montreal), 31 January 1888, 2. 27 Taylor, “Colour in Art,” Gazette (Montreal), 28 February 1888, 7. 28 Gazette (Montreal), 12 January 1885, 2. 29 The Boveys’ house underwent remodelling in 1914, while the exterior of the Redpaths’ remained intact until 1986. 30 Gazette (Montreal), 29 April 1884, 8. 31 Building News 50 (5 February 1886): 217, 237. I am grateful to Robert Hill for directing me to these sketches. The photos in the npa were taken after electrification of the home. 32 See Cooper, Victorian and Edwardian Decor, 97. 33 I am grateful to Peter Cormack, former curator of the William Morris Gallery (London), and Michael Whiteway, principal of Haslam and Whiteway (London), for their comments on Taylor’s interior sketches. 34 Aslin, Aesthetic Movement, 65. See also Orr, “The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde in Context,” in Orr and Calloway, Cult of Beauty, 31.

Notes to pages  39-46

35 Taylor, “Ornament in Art,” Gazette (Montreal), 13 March 1888, 5. 36 Lynn, “Decorating Surfaces,” in Burke et al., In Pursuit of Beauty, 54. 37 Taylor, “The Diffusion of Art,” Gazette (Montreal), 31 January 1888, 2. 38 “The House Beautiful: Lecture by Mr A.T. Taylor before the ywcta,” Gazette (Montreal), 11 January 1889, 2. 39 Quoted in Banham et al., Victorian Interior Style, 97. 40 Gazette (Montreal), 29 April 1884, 8. 41 Ibid. 42 Builder 48 (28 February 1885): 300 and illus. 43 The McIntyre-Angus houses were semidetached. The Montreal mansion of 1889 for Duncan McIntyre Sr by Montreal architect William T. Thomas (1828–1892) did incorporate some French Renaissance features. 44 For example, 1–5 Upper Berkeley Street, London, by T.H. Wyatt, 1873 (Girouard, Sweetness and Light, 54). 45 Ibid., 57. 46 Builder 48 (28 February 1885): 300. 47 Gazette (Montreal), 29 April 1884, 8. 48 Builder 48 (28 February 1885): 300. J. & W. Guthrie was a leading Glasgow decorating firm in the later Victorian period. Peter Cormack provided this information. 49 Robert Hill shared Davis’s occupation and the location of his house from his own research. See also Gazette (Montreal), 12 January 1885, 2. 50 Grant, ed., Picturesque Canada 2: 169. 51 Architect 37 (4 February 1887): 65. 52 aabn 19 (15 May 1886): illus. The signature on the sketches was “A.T. Taylor,” and both aabn and Architect listed Taylor, Gordon & Bousfield as architects. 53 Ibid., 235. 54 Peter Cormack and Michael Whiteway also commented on these interiors. 55 Builder 51 (6 November 1886): 662 and illus. 56 In 1879 John Redpath and Son, which had shut down in 1876 because of economic depression and loss of protective tariffs,

199

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Notes to pages  46–54

re-emerged as the Canada Sugar Refining Company. In 1880 George Drummond became president. 57 dcb Online, s.v. “Drummond, Sir George Alexander,” by Michèle Brassard and Jean Hamelin. 58 Feltoe, Redpath, 145. 59 Montreal Star, 22 January 1977, sec. G, 3. 60 cab 2 (January 1889): 9. The Smith house was constructed in the 1870s but enlarged by Hutchison and Steele in the mid 1880s (Rémillard and Merrett, Demeures Bourgeoises, 55). 61 Elevations and plans from January 1888 are in the jbcac. Tenders are dated 16 March 1888. Photos are in the npa. 62 An advertisement in cab 8 (January 1895): xi by T.A. Morrison & Co., suppliers of building stone, gave the material for the Drummond house as “Credit Valley Brownstone.” Edgar Andrew Collard misidentified the material as red Scottish sandstone (“Of Many Things … Sir George Drummond’s Sandstone Mansion,” Gazette (Montreal), 2 September 1972, 6). 63 cab 2 (January 1889): 9. 64 Ibid., 10 (October 1897): 192 65 Ibid., 3 (April 1890): 44. Taylor complained to cab that it had omitted Beaumont’s name in illustrating some of the sculpture in its previous month’s issue. He noted, however, that the architects prepared the designs and full-size drawings. 66 Photos of sculpture in cab 3 (March 1890): plate 2. The surviving drawing of the Mansfield Street elevation depicts a variety of carved ornament, including a sunflower plaque to the left of the front door and a sundial higher up on the chimney. The two mythological beasts survived demolition of the house and are at the McCord Museum. 67 “The Late Sir George Drummond,” letter to the Times (London), 15 February 1910, 11d. 68 Brooke, Discerning Tastes, 13. 69 Burke, “Painters and Sculptors,” in Burke et al., In Pursuit of Beauty, 322; Craven, Gilded Mansions, 9, 41. 70 Quoted in Collard, Call Back Yesterday, 201–2. 71 Feltoe, Redpath, 143. The Angus mansion (1882), designed by J.W. & E.C. Hopkins, was set in spacious grounds on Upper Drummond

Notes to pages  54–63

201

Street. The Abbott house (1884) on Sherbrooke Street, designed by Hutchison & Steele, later became the first home of the Mount Royal Club. 72 Saywell, ed., Canadian Journal, 91. 73 For Raza, see dcb Online and bdac Online. 74 For Reford, see Roberts and Tunnell, eds, Canadian Who Was Who, 1875–1937, 373–5. 75 Scully, Shingle Style. 76 cab 10 (October 1897): 192. 77 A seigneury was originally crown land during the French regime. 78 Grant, ed., Picturesque Canada 2: 701. 79 Gazette (Montreal) 13 January 1887, 2, described the structure as “a summer residence at Little Métis, qc, a house of two storeys, containing some thirteen rooms; it is of wood and roofed with shingles, with verandahs on three sides and balconies to the upper floor.” The home survives, with many alterations. I am grateful to the late Audrey Amsden, daughter of H.T. Bovey, for information on her family’s summer houses in Métis. About early residences in Little Métis, including the Redpaths’, see Fournier, Baie-des-Sables. 80 Letter from Taylor to Reford (6 September 1888). The late Alexis Reford provided photocopies of sketch plans and correspondence relating to the house, which was destroyed by fire in the twentieth century. 81 For more on the development of the Shingle Style, see Kornforth, “American Architecture,” in Burke et al., In Pursuit of Beauty, 341–83. 82 cab 10 (October 1897): 192. 83 Postcard in the npa. 84 CE Online, s.v. “Allan, Sir Hugh Andrew Montagu,” by D.M.L. Farr. 85 Répertoire d’architecture traditionelle, 21. 86 Ibid. 87 Wood, ed., Storied Province of Quebec 1: 299. 88 Grant, ed., Picturesque Canada, 2: 701. 89 Ibid. 90 R.G. Wilson, Colonial Revival House, 78. 91 For such a house in Sault au Récollet, near Montreal, see Traquair, Old Architecture of Quebec, 62.

202

Notes to pages  64–73

92 Taylor also designed a handsome Colonial Revival house for

Alfred Whitman on Young Avenue in Halifax, ns, in 1898. Drawings signed Taylor & Gordon are in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia. I owe this information to Robert Hill. 93 Feltoe, Redpath, 169, 179, 181; Collard, “Of Many Things,” Gazette (Montreal), 2 September 1972, 6. 94 Royal Montreal Golf Club, 33. 95 Ibid. 96 Feltoe, Redpath, 192. 97 Drummond derived the name from his initials: G.A.D. 98 cab 15 (December 1902): 146. 99 Taylor referred to some of the state buildings he saw, including the Massachusetts Building, in a paper to the Province of Quebec Association of Architects in September 1893; cab 6 (October 1893): 105. 100 “Sir George and Family: Bygone Days in Beaconsfield,” News and Chronicle (Pointe Claire), 24 December 1969, 8. 101 Ibid.; Stikeman, Mount Royal Club, 21–2. 102 Kalman and Wagg, eds, The Architecture of Edward and W.S. Maxwell, 149–51. 103 dcb Online, s.v. “Gault, Andrew Frederick,” by Michael Hinton. 104 Sutcliffe, “Montreal Metropolis,” in Gournay and Vanlaethem, Montreal Metropolis, 22. 105 Saint, Richard Norman Shaw, 195. 106 Summerson, Architecture of Victorian London, 85. 107 cab 13 (January 1900): 4. 108 Quoted in Stern et al., New York 1900, 283. 109 cab 13 (January 1900): 4. 110 Ibid. 111 Gazette (Montreal), 7 March 1898, 6. Robert Hill provided this reference. 112 For John James Browne and Rokeby, see bdac Online. 113 Bradbury, Working Families, 74. 114 Ames, The City below the Hill, 4. 115 Cited in “The City of Wealth and Death: Living Conditions in Montreal’s Industrial Neighbourhoods,” Industrial Architecture of Montreal, /digital.library.mcgill.ca/industrial/livingconditions. html. (accessed 30 November 2011).

Notes to pages  73–9

116 Ibid. 117 Houses on William Street by Taylor and Findlay and Taylor’s on Ontario Avenue are referenced in bdac Online.

Chapter Three 1 Taylor’s riba application gave 1884 as the date this project began. Plans were ready and received approval from the bank’s board of directors on 14 April 1885, parties signed contracts later the same month, and work started immediately. The Gazette (Montreal), 24 July 1886, 7, noted that the work was about complete. 2 Michelle Nolin-Raynauld, “L’architecture de la Banque de Montréal à la place d’Armes” (ma thesis, Université de Montréal, 1983), 179. 3 Denison, Canada’s First Bank, 1: 108. 4 “Montreal: Her Past, Present and Future, Three Hundred Years of Gradual Progress,” Montreal Daily Star (18 May 1888). 5 “Plan of the Bank of Montreal, Montreal, Can.,” aabn 21 (9 April 1887): 175. 6 “The Bank of Montreal: Sketch of the Recent Improvements to the Building,” Gazette (Montreal), 24 July 1886, 7. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. The panels were Champlain at Chaudière Falls; Death of Wolfe; Landing of Jacques Cartier; Lasalle Leaving Lachine on His Journey of Discovery to the Northwest; Meeting of General Brock and Tecumsah; Old Church of Notre Dame; and Simcoe Founding Toronto. 9 Gazette (Montreal), 24 July 1886, 7. 10 “Prominent Contractors of Montreal,” cab 10 (January 1897): 22. 11 “Buildings, 1901.” Album 11. Corporate Archives, bmofg, Montreal. 12 aabn 21 (9 April 1887): 175. 13 Ibid. 14 cab 2 (July 1889): 76 15 Howe et al., eds, Herter Brothers, 87. 16 Booker, Temples of Mammon, 214. 17 They also worked on the Bank of Montreal branch in Toronto in 1885–86.

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Notes to pages  79–88

18 Gazette (Montreal), 24 July 1886, 7. 19 Andrew Taylor, letter to the editor, jriba 34 (20 November 1926): 64. 20 Andrew Taylor, letter to William Rutherford Mead, 22 January 1903, McKim, Mead & White Archive, New-York Historical Society. This letter finds Taylor on a trip west as far as Edmonton, Alberta, “to inspect a number of buildings we have in progress, at several points en route.” The severely classical bank on the corner of St Catherine and Papineau in Montreal, which opened in July 1904, has none of the individuality that marks even Taylor’s late branches in Sydney and Point St Charles and was likely the work of the younger men, Morley W. Hogle and Huntley Ward Davis, who carried on the firm’s work. 21 “Building in Canada,” cab 8 (January 1895): 11. 22 For Darling’s banks, see bdac Online. 23 Branch History Records, Corporate Archives, bmofg, Montreal. Taylor’s riba fellowship application (1889) cited this 1885 branch. Later remodelling created a symmetrical facade with a central entrance porch. The “Buildings, 1901” album contains photos and brief descriptions of all the bank’s branches prior to McKim, Meade & White’s remodelling of the head office. Other early views of the Perth branch are in the corporate archives. 24 “Buildings, 1901.” bmofg. 25 Reproduced in Booker, Temples of Mammon, 176. 26 Ibid., 168. 27 Saint, Richard Norman Shaw, 236. 28 Ibid., 237. 29 MacBurnie, “Bank of Montreal.” jbcac. 30 “The Bank of Montreal Annual Meeting of the Shareholders Yesterday Afternoon,” Montreal Daily Witness, 3 June 1890, 4. 31 “Buildings, 1901” recorded that only the basement and ground floor were for banking, with the attic reserved for the messenger. 32 “The Harmony and Functions of Colour in Art,” cab 7 (May 1894): 69. 33 “Bank of Montreal Annual Meeting of Shareholders Yesterday Afternoon. The Report for the Year,” Montreal Herald and Daily Commercial Gazette, 4 June 1889.

Notes to pages  88–97

34 “CornerStones: Bank of Montreal,” www.calgarypubliclibrary.com/ library/historic_tours/corner/bmont1.htm (accessed 15 January 2011). 35 According to the Branch History Records, the bank extended the original building about 1906 and connected its structure with the Bank of North America’s on the east side in 1919 to make one large office. An early photo in the corporate archives shows these changes. 36 aabn 24 (20 October 1888): 185. 37 Denison, Canada’s First Bank, 2: 234. 38 “Buildings, 1901.” bmofg. 39 Vancouver Daily World, 29 July 1893, 1. Robert Hill provided this reference. 40 Branch History Records. bmofg. 41 The city grew quickly after becoming the provincial capital and in 1913 hired the noted English landscape architect Thomas Mawson (1861–1933) to prepare a plan. Although he completed the plan in 1921, the city never implemented it but did embark on a series of urban improvements, including shaded parks and an artificial lake. 42 “Buildings, 1901.” bmofg. 43 aabn 49 (13 July 1895): 19. 44 Ibid. 45 Kalman and Wagg, eds, The Architecture of Edward and W.S. Maxwell, 72–3 and cab 9 (January 1896): 3. 46 Ibid: 14 and illus. Curry was Frank Darling’s former partner. 47 Taylor’s comments on the World’s Columbian Exposition appeared in “Province of Quebec Association of Architects: Proceedings of the Annual Convention,” cab 6 (October 1893): 104–5. 48 In fact women would have to wait until the Second World War to study architecture at McGill. 49 “Buildings, 1901.” bmofg. 50 The branch is currently a registered municipal heritage property but has undergone changes, most notably removal of the corner entrance to Main Street in the mid-twentieth century. The balustrades have also disappeared. I am grateful to Spyro Trifos, principal architect, Trifos Design Consultants, for current photos

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Notes to pages  97–104

of the bank and information on changes, including his 1993 renovation of the interior. 51 cab 17 (March 1904): 42 and supp. The design was on exhibit in March 1901 at the annual exhibition of the Art Association of Montreal and the following month at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts exhibition at the gallery of the Ontario Society of Artists in Toronto (McMann, Royal Canadian Academy, 397). 52 Branch History Records. bmofg. 53 I am grateful to Robert Hill for calling my attention to this bank. Known locally as “The Point,” the area is now Pointe-SaintCharles. 54 I am grateful to Pieter Sijpkes, professor post-retirement at the McGill School of Architecture, for information about about his building. 55 Branch History Records. bmofg. 56 “The High Cost of Love: Maintaining a Beautiful Old Building Is Expensive, Architect Discovers,” Gazette (Montreal), 16 July 1999, D1. 57 “Buildings, 1901” and Branch History Records. bmofg. Hopkins exhibited his design for the Ottawa branch at the Royal Canadian Academy exhibition in 1880. 58 I am grateful to Sheila Gilbert, daughter of Grace Parker Wallis, for sharing her mother’s unpublished memoir (“Fallen from Grace,” by Grace Wallis) with me. 59 For more on this project, see Wagg, “Bank of Montreal Addition,”69–71. 60 jriba 34 (20 November 1926): 64. 61 Ibid. 62 Taylor, “The Late Charles Follen McKim,” 87–8. 63 cab 15 (February 1902): xi. 64 Letter from Taylor to Mead, 19 October 1903, McKim, Mead & White Archives, New-York Historical Society. 65 Letter from Taylor to Mead, 7 March 1904, McKim, Mead & White Archives, New-York Historical Society. 66 In 1899 Taylor’s firm was one of four invited to submit designs for a four-storey addition to the Merchants Bank’s head office at St James and St Peter streets in Montreal. Edward Maxwell was

Notes to pages  104–8

the winner. In December 1904 cab reported (p. 201) that Taylor had remodelled the Imperial Bank’s building on Victoria Square in Montreal after a fire “a couple of years ago.” Whether Taylor did other work for this bank is unknown. 67 “Building in Canada in 1894,” cab 8 (January 1895): 8. 68 Montreal Daily Star, 25 March 1893, 3. 69 cab 7 (May 1894): 66. 70 “The Union Assurance Society, of London, England,” 90. 71 cab 9 (January 1896): 3. 72 cab noted that “this important work was entrusted to Mr Andrew Taylor … who has designed many bank buildings throughout the Dominion.” The local architect in charge of supervision was Frank Peters of Winnipeg: cab 15 (November 1902): 175. The journal described the structure as eight storeys high, although photos indicate seven (which agrees with Historic Winnipeg’s marker). 73 Spector, “Monuments to Finance,” 6. 74 cab 13 (July 1900): 130. 75 cab 15 (November 1902): 175. 76 Manitoba Culture, Heritage, and Tourism, “Manitoba’s Oldest Surviving Steel Frame Building,” in “Make History. Preserve Manitoba’s Past,” n.d., n.p. Emailed to author by Neil Einarson, manager, Heritage Building Conservation Services, Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Culture, Heritage, and Tourism, 5 June 2012. 77 cab 8 (January 1895): 11; aabn 66 (14 October 1899): 15. 78 Manitoba Culture, “Manitoba’s Early Experience with Metal Construction.” n.d., n.p. Emailed to author by Neil Einarson, 5 June 2012. 79 Bank of British North America (Newmac Building), Vignettes/ The Exchange District/Main; www.virtual.heritagewinnipeg.com/ vignettes/vignettes_066.htm. (accessed 3 December 2006). 80 For example, Barott, Blackader & Webster’s new Montreal headquarters for the Bank of British North America of 1912–14 was similarly neo-Palladian, continuing the classical tradition of the nineteenth-century Bank of British North America building that it replaced.

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Notes to pages  110–21

208

Chapter Four 1 See Turner, Campus, 3–4. In contrast to the American pattern, McGill was nonresidential. 2 dcb Online, s.v. “Macdonald, Sir William Christopher,” by Stanley Brice Frost and Robert H. Michel. Until 1898 Macdonald spelled his family name McDonald. 3 Ibid. 4 “Formal Opening,” 6. 5 Ibid., 40. 6 Ibid., 68. 7 Tillemont-Thomason, “Physics Building,” 425. 8 “Formal Opening,” 40. 9 Bunting, Harvard, 103–4. 10 “Centennial Celebration,” 3. 11 cab 20 (April 1907): 50. 12 “Formal Opening,” 49. 13 Annual Calendar 1893–1894, 92, McGill University Archives. 14 Montreal Daily Witness, 5 April 1907, and Montreal Daily Star, 9 April 1907, McGill University Scrapbook, vol. 2 (1 March 1902–29 October 1910), 211, McGill University Archives. It seems the Reuleaux models perished at this time. 15 Tillemont-Thomason, “Physics Building,” 426. 16 Ibid. 17 During the Second World War, the university converted the attic into teaching space and introduced dormers into the roof. 18 “Physics and Engineering at the McGill University, Montreal,” Nature 50 (4 October 1894): 558. 19 The advertisement (p. 457) in Lovell’s Montreal Directory, 1895–96, listing Beaumont’s principal works, included both the Engineering and Physics buildings and the Redpath Library at McGill. 20 Bland, “Andrew Taylor and the Macdonald Physics Building,” 4. 21 “Formal Opening,” 42. 22 Wilson, Rutherford, 75. 23 Ibid. 24 Macdonald’s name appears on the Chemistry Building as “McDonald,” the spelling he used until 1898.

Notes to pages  122–7

25 “Old McGill,” 27 October 1896, McGill University Scrapbook, vol. 1 (9 August 1851–5 April 1894), 256, McGill University Archives. 26 Anderson, “Steel Frame.” 27 Gazette (Montreal), 1 October 1898, 10. 28 Montreal Daily Star, 11 November 1896, 7. 29 John Bland, Macdonald professor of Architecture (1953–72), suggested this to the author. 30 Gazette (Montreal), 1 October 1898, 10. 31 Ibid. 32 Eve, “Some Scientific Centres,” 273. 33 Warrington and Newbold, Chemical Canada, 33. 34 Montreal Herald and Daily Commercial Gazette, 8 April 1890. 35 Opening of the New Library McGill University, 9. 36 The university called for tenders in March 1892 (Contract Record 3 [12 March 1892]: 1). 37 See McNally, “Dignified and Picturesque,” 71. 38 Only in 1882 did the Ontario legislature establish free libraries, with the other provinces eventually following suit. The last jurisdictions to legislate tax support for public libraries were Quebec and the Northwest Territories in 1959 and 1966, respectively; CE Online, s.v. “Libraries,” by Margaret Beckman, Moshie Dahms, and Lorne Bruce. 39 Opening, 11. 40 Blackburn, Evolution of Heart, 87–8. 41 cab 7 (October 1894): 130. 42 Jordy, American Buildings 3: 327. 43 Ibid., 321. 44 Reynolds, “University Library,” 152. 45 James O’Gorman suggested that Furness may have based his plan on Richardson’s Billings Library, although it had no stack area (The Architecture of Frank Furness, 63). 46 Taylor, “Description of the New Library Building” in Opening, 25. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid., 26. 49 Ibid. 50 “New Library Building, McGill University, Montreal – A.T. Taylor, friba, Architect,” cab 3 (August 1895): 96.

209

210

Notes to pages  128–36

51 In 1953, this room ceased to be the library’s principal reading room and became Redpath Hall, a concert hall and space for ceremonies and receptions. 52 Montreal Daily Witness, 3 October 1893, McGill University Scrapbook, vol. 1 (1 September 1853–19 March 1902), 193, McGill University Archives. 53 Ibid. 54 Taylor, “Description” in Opening, 28. 55 O’Gorman, H.H. Richardson, 47. 56 Opening, 19. 57 Frost, McGill, 2: 11. 58 Gazette (Montreal), 17 March 1897, 2. 59 A comparison of photographs (nos. View-2731 and View-3154) in the npa shows that construction of the new portico took place between completion of the Molson wing in 1895 and the additions of 1901.

Chapter Five 1 Westley, Remembrance, 208–9. 2 Gillett, Traf, 2–27, 221–3. Smith donated a further $5,000 to help with purchase of the house. 3 Ibid., 40. 4 Expropriation of some school property in the 1950s led the institution to relocate Taylor’s doorway to the north side of an addition to the School House. 5 The London Board Schools were products of the Elementary Education Act of 1870, intended to provide modern, high-quality schools for the city’s poorest children. 6 Girouard, Sweetness and Light, 66–71. 7 On the architecture of Newnham and Girton, see Vickery, Building for Bluestockings. 8 Gazette (Montreal), 31 January 1888, 2; 7 February 1888, 2; 14 February 1888, 2; 21 February 1888, 7; 28 February 1888, 7; 6 March 1888, 5; 13 March 1888, 5; and cab 7 (April and May 1894): 56 and 68–9. 9 Gazette (Montreal), 11 January 1889, 2, and 21 April 1897, 6.

Notes to pages  136–41

211

“A Brief History,” bcs Magazine (midsummer 1937), 60. Grant, ed., Picturesque Canada 2: 694. “A Big Fire at Lennoxville,” Gazette (Montreal), 6 February 1891, 1. “A Collegiate Phoenix,” Montreal Daily Star, 18 April 1891, 8. The Star noted that the tenders would all be in by the following week and that the contract called for completion of the building by September. 14 Ibid. 15 Contract Record 8 (3 June 1897): 3; Mitre (Bishop’s College) 5 (February 1898): 63–5. 16 In 1912 the college added an oak reredos and altar by Jones & Willis of London; Mitre 19 (March 1912): 23. 17 Contract Record 8 (15 July 1897): 2; cab 11 (February 1898): 27. 18 In 1902 a new, larger church by John Rawson Gardiner (1866–1956), who had worked in Taylor’s offices in London and Montreal, went up to the north. The Taylor building, which then became the church hall, was torn down in 2002; information on Gardiner courtesy of Robert Hill and on St Stephen’s from www.ststephens.qc.ca/aboutus. htm (accessed 31 May 2006). 19 cab 7 (July 1894): 89, and “The Church of St John the Evangelist: The Church, Its Memorials and Ornaments,” photocopy of extracts from the centennial brochure courtesy of Robert Lemire. 20 Interview with John Simons, principal, Diocesan Theological College, 17 January 1994. Additionally, Bishop’s College was in Lennoxville, Quebec, in the Eastern Townships, some distance from Montreal. 21 Telephone interview with Richard Vier, diocesan archivist, 18 January 1994, and Oswald Howard, The Montreal Diocesan Theological College: A History from 1873 to 1963 (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1963), 5–27. 22 Gault presented it in memory of his two brothers (Howard, Montreal Diocesan, 86). 23 Percy Nobbs’s preliminary design of 1904 for the McGill Union, for example, had a limestone base with red brick on top interspersed with bands of limestone, a colourful scheme that Sir William Macdonald vetoed; he preferred a greystone version. See Wagg, Percy Erskine Nobbs, 14. 24 cab 10 (Oct. 1897): 191.



10 11 12 13

212

Notes to pages  141–8

25 In later years Butterfield retired to a less strident manner. See Hersey, High Victorian Architecture, 124. 26 cab 10 (Oct. 1897): 191. The account misspells Burges as Burgis. 27 Muthesius, High Victorian Movement, 95. 28 Montreal Diocesan College Magazine 5 (November1896): 11. Taylor’s plans and early photographs of the interiors are in jbcac and npa, respectively. There have been some interior changes over the years. 29 Arthur W. Wallace to James H. Acland, Hamilton, Ontario, 22 December 1967, Taylor, Sir Andrew Thomas 1850–1937 file, jbcac. 30 Montreal Diocesan College Magazine 5 (November 1896): 11. 31 Lewis et al., Opulent Interiors, 23. See also Steffensen-Bruce, Marble Palaces, 18, 23, and 55–6. 32 Pepall, Building a Beaux-Arts Museum, 20. See p. 161 for final plans (1879) signed by Hopkins. 33 “The Museum,” www.mbam.qc.ca/en/musee/historique.html (accessed 20 December 2011). 34 The Montreal Daily Star for 8 April 1889 noted that the Art Association had purchased two adjoining houses for $20,000. 35 Advertisement in Lovell’s Montreal Directory for 1895–96, 457. 36 cab 6 (Dec. 1893): 124. 37 Ibid. 14 (March 1901): 65. 38 Morgan, Canadian Men and Women, 999. 39 Gazette (Montreal), 13 January 1887, 2. 40 Montreal Daily Star, 25 March 1893, 3. The house was originally for the judge William Collis Meredith, but the well-known Montreal photographer William Notman later occupied it. 41 Ibid., 28 January 1888, 6. 42 Contract Record 7 (14 May 1896): 1. 43 Lewis, Royal Victoria Hospital, 129; Terry, The Royal Vic, 22. 44 dcb Online, s.v. “Allan, Andrew,” by Gordon Burr. 45 Darcy Ingram, “Saving the Union’s Jack,” in Bradbury and Myers, Negotiating Identities, 58 and 74, n. 22. 46 Ibid., 57 and 61. 47 Gazette (Montreal), 2 December 1897, 2. 48 Contract Record 4 (24 August 1893): 2; Montreal Daily Star, 3 November 1894, 8. 49 Gazette (Montreal), 26 August 1897, 5.

Notes to pages  149–56

213

50 The perspective accompanied the Gazette article and also appeared in cab 8 (July 1900): supp. 51 Gazette (Montreal), 26 August 1897, 5. 52 Ibid. 53 Edgar Andrew Collard, “All Our Yesterdays,” Gazette (Montreal), 15 May 1965, 6. 54 Gazette (Montreal), 26 August 1897, 5. 55 dcb Online, s.v. “Livingston, Gertrude Elizabeth (Nora),” by Yolande Cohen. 56 Howell, F.J. Shepherd, 122. 57 dcb Online, s.v. “Ross, James,” by Theodore D. Regehr. 58 Denison, Canada’s First Bank 2: 286. 59 “100th Anniversary of Ross Memorial Hospital 1902–2002,” advertising supplement of the Lindsay Daily Post, 20 November 2002, 4. I am grateful to Jane Robertson for providing newspaper accounts of the hospital. 60 Ibid. 61 Weekly Post (Lindsay), 28 November 1902. 62 Watchman-Warder (Lindsay), 27 November 1902, 1. 63 dcb Online, “Ross.” 64 Weekly Post (Lindsay), 28 November 1902. 65 Ibid. 66 Watchman-Warder (Lindsay), 27 Nov. 1902 and Weekly Post (Lindsay), 28 November 1902. 67 cab 15 (April 1902): 64; Roy, “Pioneers of Cremation,” 1–2. 68 Morgan-Powell, “First Cremation in Canada,” 1. 69 Roy, “Pioneers,” 1. 70 In his report to the trustees of the Mount Royal Cemetery, 2 October 1900, Roy noted that on a trip to the fourteenth convention of the Association of American Cemetery Superintendents in Cleveland he had visited cemeteries in Toronto, Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Buffalo. In the cities where there were crematories, he inspected those also. 71 cab 13 (July 1900): 132. 72 Prothero, Purified by Fire, 116. 73 Roy, “Pioneers,” 1. 74 “Mount Royal Cemetery Company Montreal [1901] Annual Report,” 7, Mount Royal Cemetery Archives.

Notes to pages  156–63

214

75 cab 13 (July 1900): 132; Committee Meeting, 2 August 1900, Mount Royal Cemetery Company Minute Book; and Richard White, letter to the president and members of the Mount Royal Cemetery Company, 5 June 1902, Mount Royal Cemetery Archives. 76 cab 15 (April 1902): 64. 77 Morgan-Powell, “First Cremation,” 2. 78 dcb Online,”Macdonald.”

Chapter Six

1 “Province of Quebec Association of Architects. Proceedings of the Annual Convention,” cab 6 (October 1893): 110. 2 “Province of Quebec Association of Architects. [Proceedings of the first annual meeting],” cab 4 (September 1891): 90. 3 “Organization of the Province of Quebec Association of Architects,” cab 3 (October 1890): 115. 4 cab 3 (October 1893): 106. 5 Ibid., 112. The constitution appeared on pp. 112–14. 6 Crossman, Architecture in Transition, 78; Gournay and Vanlaethem, Montreal Metropolis, 126. 7 cab 3 (October 1890): 114. For Board of Trade controversy, see also Crossman, 22–7. 8 Crossman, 26. 9 cab 3 (Oct. 1890): 116. 10 Crossman, 47. 11 aabn 26 (27 July 1889): 37. 12 Quoted in Crossman, 32. 13 cab 5 (October 1892): 96. 14 Ibid., 97. 15 “Annual Meeting of the Province of Quebec Association of Architects,” cab 7 (October 1894): 131. 16 “Province of Quebec Association of Architects,” cab 9 (October 1896): 160. 17 Ibid., 159. 18 A.T. Taylor file, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. 19 cab 9 (October 1896): 160.

Notes to pages  163–70

215

20 Ibid., 159–60. 21 Ibid., 9 (October 1890): 116. 22 Ibid., 5 (October 1892): 100. 23 Ibid., 11 (November 1898): 193. 24 Ibid., 10 (October1897): 191. 25 Ibid., 13 (September 1900): 175. 26 Annual Report of the Governors, Principal and Fellows of McGill University, Montreal, For the Year 1887, pp. 3–4, Dawson Papers, McGill University Archives. 27 Macleod, “Historical Sketch,” 18–19. 28 The Calendar of the Presbyterian College, Montreal (1892–95, 1902), United Church of Canada Archives, McGill University Archives. 29 cab 8 (October 1895): 118. 30 Ibid., 7 (October 1894): 130. 31 Ibid., 8 (October 1895): 118 32 Ibid., 12 (October 1899): 196. 33 Ibid., 13 (September 1900): 173. 34 Ibid., 7 (October 1894): 128.

Chapter Seven 1 cab 17 (February 1904): xi. 2 Letter from Taylor to William Rutherford Mead, 13 January 1904, McKim, Mead & White Archives, New-York Historical Society. 3 Letter from Taylor to William Rutherford Mead, 19 July 1904, McKim, Mead & White Archives, New-York Historical Society. 4 Taylor married on 5 December 1891 at Holy Trinity Church in Lambeth (Government Record Office, Register of Marriages, Lambeth, 5 December 1891). 5 Morgan, Canadian Men and Women, 253. 6 Hampstead and Highgate Express, 11 December 1937, 6. 7 Ibid., 17 October 1908, 6. The newspaper apparently misstated Taylor’s address as 21 Thurlow Road at the beginning of this article on his candidacy for London County Council, although later in the same article Taylor gave his address as 21 Lyndhurst Road, where he lived until his death. Occasionally Taylor also referred to this house as “Drummond Lodge.”

Notes to pages  171–5

216



8 “Royal Societies Club,” freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry. com/~mossvalley/mv1/rsc/rsc-a.html (accessed 31 December 2012); The Linnean: Newsletter of the Linnean Society 17, no.2 (April 2001), 16, www.linnean.org/Our-Publications/the_linnean (accessed 31 December 2012). 9 Crook, William Burges, 79. Date kindly supplied by the Archivist from membership records of the Athenaeum. 10 Lejeune, Gentlemen’s Clubs, 39. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 44. 13 “Society of Antiquaries of London History,” www.sal.org.uk/history (accessed 9 June 2003); Saunders, Art and Architecture of London, 152. 14 Hampstead and Highgate Express, 17 October 1908, 6. 15 Ibid., 18 November 1922, 6. 16 Times (London), 26 October 1908, 8d. 17 Hampstead and Highgate Express, 24 October 1908, 5. 18 Times (London), 26 October 1908, 8d. 19 Untitled newspaper clipping, presumably from the Times, Taylor file, jbcac. 20 “City University: External Bodies,” www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ search2?coll id=3315&inst id=43 (accessed 6 June 2003). 21 Hampstead and Highgate Express, 1 February 1919, 5. 22 Ibid., 17 October 1908, 6. 23 University of London, University College, Minutes of College Committee, 6 November 1928 to 10 July 1929,10, min. 149 and 13, min. 251, University College Archives. 24 “History of Christ’s Hospital School,” www.christs-hospital.org. uk/24-school-history-php (accessed 6 April 2007). 25 “History of Emanuel,” www.emanuel.org.uk/history (accessed 6 June 2003). 26 The two others were Westminster City School and Sutton Valence School. 27 “City University: External Bodies,” www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ search2?coll id=3315&inst id=43 (accessed 6 June 2003). 28 University College, Minutes, 2 October 1925 to 6 July 1926, 72–3, min. 228 C.

Notes to pages  175-8

217

29 The University of London Senate co-opted Taylor to represent University College after Lord Reay resigned (Times, 22 November 1918). 30 University College received a royal charter from William IV in 1836 and changed its name from University of London to University College. At the same time the monarch granted a charter to a new examining body, the University of London, which would grant degrees in arts, laws, and medicine at both secular University College and the Anglican King’s College (chartered 1829) and at such other institutions as might gain approval later. Harte and North, The World of University College, 56. 31 Ibid., 25, 31. 32 I am grateful to Simon Houfe, Richardson’s grandson, for a photocopy of this letter. The drawings are discussed in Houfe’s Sir Albert Richardson, 61–2. 33 University College, Minutes, 7 October 1920 to 28 June 1921, 97, and Minutes, 6 October 1931 to 5 July 1932, 2, min. 155. 34 Ibid., 2 November 1937 to 13 July 1938, 4, min. 81. The catalogue of the college collection lists only a watercolour by Taylor of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, donated in 1922, and an oil portrait of Taylor (1930) by T. Martine Ronaldson (“Catalogue of the University College Collection,” proof copy 2, p. 297, University College Archives). 35 Letters from Elvina Foster, Records Officer, University College London, to author, 16 February 1984 and 21 September 1984. E.A. Houfe, Richardson’s son-in-law and former partner gave the Richardson partnership drawings to the Bedford County Record Office. Houfe’s son Simon thinks any Taylor material left to his grandfather may have disappeared during the Second World War, when the college sustained German bombing and relocated material, possibly misplacing Taylor’s bequest (letter from Simon Houfe to author, 1 August 1994). 36 Harte and North, The World of University College, 146. 37 Ibid., 160–1. 38 College Committee resolution, photocopy, University College Archives. 39 Hampstead and Highgate Express, 1 February 1919, 5.

218

Notes to pages  178–83

40 Ibid. 41 www.dickensmuseum.com (accessed 7 July 2003); “The Dickens House,” brochure of the Dickens Fellowship. 42 www.toynbeehall.org.uk/history.htm (accessed 9 July 2003). 43 “The Whitechapel Art Gallery,” information sheet courtesy of the gallery. I am very grateful to Clare Moore for press clipings and other references to Taylor from the gallery’s archives. 44 Hampstead and Highgate Express, 11 December 1937, 6. 45 Ibid. 46 Times (London), 27 November 1912, 19c. 47 Times Engineering Supplement (London), 23 July 1913, 25e. 48 Times (London), 12 December 1923, 14c. 49 Ibid., 22 May 1937, 8c. 50 Ibid., 21 April 1937, 15e. 51 www.LondonSociety.org.uk/intro.htm#Introduction (accessed 26 August 2003). 52 Times (London), 15 February 1910, 10a. 53 Ibid., 16 July 1927, 13e. 54 Ibid., 29 March 1932, 13c. 55 Ibid., 20 June 1930, 18c. 56 Hampstead and Highgate Express, 17 January 1925, 5. 57 Ibid., 11 December 1937, 6. 58 Ibid.

Selected Bibliography Note: Accounts of the organizational meeting and annual conventions of the Province of Quebec Association of Architects throughout the 1890s are found in the online Canadian Architect and Builder and are individually cited in the endnotes. Encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries are not included in the bibliography with the exception of Robert Hill’s Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada 1800–1950, a recent, indispensable, online source for Canadian architectural history.

Books, Journals, and Unpublished Sources Ames, Herbert Brown. The City below the Hill. Montreal: Bishop Engraving and Printing Company, 1897. Anderson, F.D. “The Steel Frame Building. An Early Example in Montreal. The Chemistry Building of McGill University.” History of Architecture in Canada student paper no. 37, 1951. jbcac. Aslin, Elizabeth. The Aesthetic Movement. New York: Excalibur Books, 1969. Banham, Joanna, Sally Macdonald, and Julia Porter. Victorian Interior Style. 2nd ed. London: Studio Editions, 1995. Blackburn, Robert H. Evolution of the Heart: A History of the University of Toronto Library up to 1981. Toronto: University of Toronto Library, 1989. Bland, John. “Andrew Taylor and the Macdonald Physics Building.” Typescript, 1981. jbcac. Booker, John. Temples of Mammon: The Architecture of Banking. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990. Bradbury, Bettina. Working Families: Age, Gender, and Daily Survival in Industrializing Montreal. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1993.

220

Selected Bibliography

Brand, Vanessa, ed. The Study of the Past in the Victorian Age. Oxford: Oxbow Books for the British Archaeological Association and the Royal Archaeological Institute, 1998. Brooke, Janet. Discerning Tastes: Montreal Collectors 1880–1920. Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1989. Brooks, Chris, and Andrew Saint, eds. The Victorian Church: Architecture and Society. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995. Bunting, Bainbridge. Harvard: An Architectural History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1985. Burke, Doreen Bolger, Jonathan Freedman, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, David A. Hanks, Marilyn Johnson, James D. Kornwolf, Catherine Lynn, Roger B. Stein, Jennifer Toher, and Catherine Hoover Voorsanger. In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Rizzoli, 1986. “Centennial Celebration, May 4 1984, Harvard University, The Jefferson Physical Laboratory, A Note on its Early Days.” Pamphlet prepared for the Departmental Committee on the Jefferson Laboratory Centennial Celebration. Chatot, Jule J. “Bank of Montreal West End Branch.” History of Architecture in Canada student paper no. 497, 1974. jbcac. Clark, Kenneth. The Gothic Revival. 1928: rev. ed. 1962: rpt Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1964. Clarke, Basil, and John Betjeman. English Churches. New York: London House & Maxwell, 1964. Collard, Edgar Andrew. Call Back Yesterday. Don Mills, on: Longmans Canada, 1965. Cooper, Jeremy. Victorian and Edwardian Decor: From the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau. New York: Abbeville Press, 1987. Cornforth, John. “The House of St Barnabas in Soho.” Country Life (6 July 1961): 20. Craven, Wayne. Gilded Mansions: Grand Architecture and High Society. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. Crook, J. Mordaunt. The Dilemma of Style. London: John Murray, 1987. – William Burges and the High Victorian Dream. London: John Murray, 1981. Crossman, Kelly. Architecture in Transition: From Art to Practice, 1885– 1906. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987. Cunningham, Colin. Victorian and Edwardian Town Halls. London:

Selected Bibliography

221

Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981. – and Prudence Waterhouse. Alfred Waterhouse 1830–1905: Biography of a Practice. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Curl, James Stevens. Victorian Architecture. Newton Abbot, uk: David & Charles, 1990. Dawson, J. William. In Memoriam Peter Redpath, Governor and Benefactor of McGill University. . . . Montreal: “Witness” Printing House for the University, 1894. Denison, Merrill. Canada’s First Bank. 2 vols. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1966. Dixon, Roger, and Stefan Muthesius. Victorian Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Eastlake, Charles L. A History of the Gothic Revival. 1872. Rpt with introduction by J. Mordaunt Crook. New York: Humanities Press, 1970. Eve, A.S. “Some Scientific Centres. VIII – The Macdonald Physics Building, McGill University, Montreal.” Nature 74 (19 July 1906): 273. Feltoe, Richard. Redpath: The History of a Sugar House. Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History, 1991. Ferriday, Peter, ed. Victorian Architecture. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1964. “Formal Opening of the Engineering Building and Physics Building. McGill University, Montreal. February 24th, 1893.” McGill University Archives. Acc. no. 409 ref. 35/3/1A. Forman, John, and Robbe Pierce Stimson. The Vanderbilts and the Gilded Age: Architectural Aspirations 1879–1901. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1991. Fournier, Robert. Baie-des-Sables 1869-1969: histoire de la paroisse de l’Assomption-de-Nôtre-Dame. Publication du Comité du Centenaire Rimouski, 1969. Frost, Stanley Brice. McGill University: For the Advancement of Learning, Vol. 2: 1895–1971. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1984. Gillett, Margaret. Traf: A History of Trafalgar School for Girls. Montreal: Trafalgar School, 2000. Girouard, Mark. Sweetness and Light: The “Queen Anne” Movement 1860– 1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. Glendinning, Miles, Ranald MacInnes, and Aonghus MacKechnie. A History of Scottish Architecture from the Renaissance to the Present Day. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996.

222

Selected Bibliography

Gomme, Andor, and David Walker. Architecture of Glasgow. 1968; rev. ed. London: Lund Humphries in association with John Smith & Son, 1987. Goodhart-Rendel, H.S. “English Gothic Architecture of the Nineteenth Century.” jriba 31 (5 April 1924): 321–39. – “Rogue Architects of the Victorian Era.” jriba 56 (April 1949): 251–9. Gournay, Isabelle, and France Vanlaethem, eds. Montreal Metropolis 1880–1930. Toronto: Stoddart Publishing in association with the Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1998. Gow, Ian, and Alistair Rowan, eds. Scottish Country Houses 1600–1914. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995. Grant, George Monro, ed. Picturesque Canada. Vol. 2. Toronto: 1892. Rpt. Secaucus, nj: Wellfleet Press, 1988. Graves, Algernon. The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and Their Work from Its Foundation in 1769 to 1904. Vol. 7, Sacco to Tofano. London: Henry Graves & Co. and George Bell & Sons, 1906. Harte, Negley, and John North. The World of University College, London 1828–1978. London: University College, 1978. Hersey, George L. High Victorian Architecture: A Study in Associationism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972. Hill, Robert G., ed. and comp. Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada 1800–1950. (online at www.dictionaryofcanadianarchitects.org). Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. “Early Victorian Architecture 1837–51.” jriba 44 (11 September 1937): 981–93. – “Late Victorian Architecture 1851–1900.” jriba 44 (16 October 1937): 1029–39. Houfe, Simon. Sir Albert Richardson: The Professor. Luton, England: White Crescent Press, 1980. Howard, Oswald. The Montreal Diocesan Theological College: A History from 1873 to 1963. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1963. Howe, Katherine S., Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Catherine Hoover Voorsanger, Simon Jervis, Hans Ottomeyer, Marc Bascou, Ann Claggett Wood, and Sophia Riefstahl. Herter Brothers: Furniture and Interiors for a Gilded Age. New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1994. Howell, William Boyman. F.J. Shepherd – Surgeon: His Life and Times. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1935.

Selected Bibliography

223

Ingram, Darcy. “Saving the Union’s Jack,” in Negotiating Identities in 19th and 20th Century Montreal, 58 and 74, n. 22. Edited by Bettina Bradbury and Tamara Myers. ubc Press, 2005. Jenkins, Kathleen. Montreal, Island City of the St Lawrence. Garden City, ny: Doubleday & Co., 1966. Jordy, William H. American Buildings and Their Architects. Vol. 3, Progressive and Academic Ideals at the Turn of the Century. Garden City, ny: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1976. Kalman, Harold. A History of Canadian Architecture. Vol. 2. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1994. – Exploring Vancouver 2: Ten Tours of the City and Its Buildings. Rev. ed. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1978. – and Susan Wagg, eds. The Architecture of Edward and W.S. Maxwell. Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1991. King, Robert B. The Vanderbilt Homes. New York: Rizzoli, 1989. Leacock, Stephen. Montreal, Seaport and City. Garden City, ny: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1942. Lejeune, Anthony. The Gentlemen’s Clubs of London. London: Mayflower Books, 1979. Lewis, Arnold, James Turner, and Steven McQuillin. The Opulent Interiors of the Gilded Age: All 203 Photographs from “Artistic Houses” with New Text. New York: Dover Publications, 1987. Lewis, Arnold, and Keith Morgan. American Victorian Architecture: A Survey of the 70’s and 80’s in Contemporary Photographs with New Introduction and Notes. New York: Dover, 1975. Lewis, D. Sclater. Royal Victoria Hospital 1887–1947. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1969. Lewis, Michael J. The Gothic Revival. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. MacBurnie, Ian. “Bank of Montreal Mansfield and St Catherine Street Branch: An Historical Study.” History of Architecture in Canada student paper no. 558, 1985. jbcac. Macleod, N.A. “Historical Sketch of the College.” The Presbyterian College Record Jubilee Number 1867–1917. Montreal, March 1918. United Church of Canada Archives in McGill University Archives. Macleod, Robert. Style and Society: Architectural Ideology in Britain 1835– 1914. London: riba Publications, 1971. Mays, Deborah. “Sketching Tours.” In Scotland and Europe: Architecture and

224

Selected Bibliography

Design 1850–1940. Proceedings of a Symposium Held at the University, St Andrews May 19th 1990. St Andrews: Department of Art History, 1991. McMann, Evelyn de R. Royal Canadian Academy of Arts: Exhibitions and Members 1880–1979. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981. McNally, Peter F. “Dignified and Picturesque: Redpath Library in 1893.” In Fontanus: From the collections of McGill University 6 (1993). Montreal: McGill University Library. Morgan, Henry James, ed. The Canadian Men and Women of the Time: A Handbook of Canadian Biography. Toronto: William Briggs, 1898. Morgan-Powell, S. “The First Cremation in Canada.” Typescript, 15 August 1957. Mount Royal Cemetery Archives. Muthesius, Stefan. The High Victorian Movement in Architecture 1850–1870. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972. Nolin-Raynauld, Michelle. L’Architecture de la Banque de Montréal å la Place d’Armes. Master’s thesis, Université de Montréal, 1983. O’Gorman, James F. H.H. Richardson: Architectural Forms for an American Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. – The Architecture of Frank Furness. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1973. Opening of the New Library McGill University, Montreal Containing the Addresses Delivered on the Occasion with a Description of the Building; Some Points in the History of the University; In Memorium. October 31st 1893. Montreal, 1893. Orr, Lynn Federle, and Stephen Calloway, eds. The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde 1860–1900. London: V&A Publishing, 2011. Pepall, Rosalind M. Building a Beaux-Arts Museum. Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1986. Pevsner, Nikolaus, ed. The Buildings of England: North-East and East Kent by John Newman, and West Kent and the Weald by John Newman. London: Penguin, 1969. Prothero, Stephen. Purified by Fire: A History of Cremation in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Pugin A.W.N. Contrasts, or a Parallel between the Architecture of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries and Similar Buildings of the Present Day. 1836. Rpt with introduction by Henry-Russell Hitchcock. New York: Humanities Press, 1969. Rémillard, François, and Brian Merrett. Demeures bourgeoises de Montréal: le mille carré doré, 1850-1930. Montreal: editions du Meridien, 1986.

Selected Bibliography

225

Répertoire d’architecture traditionelle sur le territoire de la Communauté urbaine de Montréal: Architecture domestique I: Les résidences. Montreal: Communauté Urbaine de Montréal, 1987. Reynolds, Helen Margaret. “University Library Buildings in the United States 1890–1930.” College and Research Libraries 14 (April 1953): 149–57, 166. Reynolds, Walter. “An Appreciation.” In “Obituary: Sir Andrew Taylor.” Hampstead and Highgate Express, 11 December 1937, 6. Roberts, C.G.D., and A.L. Tunnell, eds. Canadian Who Was Who 1875–1937. Vol. 2. Toronto: Trans-Canada Press, 1938. Roy, W. Ormiston. “Pioneers of Cremation in Canada.” Typewritten notes prepared for Mr Fred D. Clark, 14 June 1956. Mount Royal Cemetery Archives. The Royal Montreal Golf Club 1873–1973: The Centennial of Golf in North America. Montreal: Royal Montreal Golf Club, 1973. Saint, Andrew. Richard Norman Shaw. 1976; rpt, New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 1983. – The Image of the Architect. New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 1983. Saunders, Ann. The Art and Architecture of London: An Illustrated Guide. Oxford: Phaidon, 1984. Saywell, John T., ed. The Canadian Journal of Lady Aberdeen 1893–1898. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1960. Schoenaur, Norbert. “McGill’s School of Architecture: A Retrospection.” McGill Schools of Architecture and Urban Planning: Prospectus. Montreal: McGill Schools of Architecture and Urban Planning, 1987. Scully, Vincent J., Jr. The Shingle Style and the Stick Style: Architectural Theory and Design from Downing to the Origins of Wright. Rev. ed., New Haven, ct: Yale and London University Press, 1971. Shepherd, Ian A.G. Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Grampion. Edinburgh: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 1986. Simmons, Geoffrey. Ontario Association of Architects: A Centennial History 1889–1989. Toronto: Ontario Association of Architects, 1989. Smart, C.M., Jr. Muscular Churches: Ecclesiastical Architecture of the High Victorian Period. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1989. Spector, David. “Monuments to Finance.” In Early Bank Architecture in Winnipeg. Report of the City of Winnipeg Historical Buildings Committee. Vol. 2, August 1982.

226

Selected Bibliography

Steffensen-Bruce, Ingrid A. Marble Palaces, Temples of Art: Art Museums, Architecture, and American Culture, 1890–1930. Lewisburg, pa: Bucknell University Press, 1998. Stern, Robert A., Gregory Gilmartin, and John Massengale. New York 1900: Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism 1890–1915.New York: Rizzoli, 1983. Stikeman, H. Heward. The Mount Royal Club 1899–1999. Montreal: PricePatterson Ltd. For the Mount Royal Club, 1999. Summerson, John. The Architectural Association 1847–1947. London: Published for the Architectural Association by Pleiades Books, 1947. – The Architecture of Victorian London. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1971. Taylor, Andrew T. “The Architecture of London in the Sixteenth Century.” Silver Medal essay, riba, 1874. – “Canada, Architecture of.” In Russell Sturgis, Dictionary of Architecture and Building: Biographical, Historical, and Descriptive. Vol. 1, 434–5. New York: Macmillan, 1901). – Dominion Drawing Books [McLeod, C.H. (Clement Henry), Geometrical Drawing for the Use of Schools and Colleges, Montreal: Foster, Brown & Co., 1896]. – Introduction and text to Ancient Towers and Doorways . . . Relating to Celtic and Norman Ecclesiology in Scotland from the Pen Drawings by the late Alexander Galletly. London: David Nutt, 1896. – “The Late Charles Follen McKim,” jriba 17 (20 November 1909): 87–8. – “The Late Henry Hall,” jriba 17 (4 December 1909): 122–3. – Lectures delivered at Trafalgar Institute. “The Diffusion of Art.” (30 January 1888). Gazette (Montreal), 31 January 1888. “Truth in Art.” (6 February 1888). Gazette (Montreal), 7 February 1888. “Form in Art.” (13 February 1888). Gazette (Montreal), 14 February 1888. “The Harmony and Functions of Colour in Art.” (Part 1, 20 February 1888) Gazette (Montreal), 21 February 1888. “The Harmony and Functions of Colour in Art.” (Part 2, 27 February 1888) Gazette (Montreal), 28 February 1888. “The Origin and Development of Symbolism in Art.” (5 March 1888). Gazette (Montreal), 6 March 1888. “Ornament in Art.” (12 March 1888). Gazette (Montreal), 13 March 1888. – riba Associate Application, 1878, and riba Fellowship Application, 1889.

Selected Bibliography

227

British Architectural Library, London. – The Towers and Steeples Designed by Sir Christopher Wren. London: B.T. Batsford, 1881. Terry, Neville. The Royal Vic: The Story of Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital 1894–1994. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994. Tillemont-Thomason, F. “The Physics Building at McGill University.” Canadian Magazine 7 (September 1896): 430. Traquair, Ramsay. The Old Architecture of Quebec. Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada, 1947. Turner, Paul Venable. Campus: An American Planning Tradition. New York: Architectural History Foundation, and Cambridge: mit Press, 1984. “The Union Assurance Society of London, England.” Montreal, The Metropolis of Canada Illustrated. Montreal: Consolidated Illustrating, 1894. Vickery, Margaret Birney. Building for Bluestockings: The Architecture and Social History of Women’s Colleges in Late Victorian England. Newark, nj: University of Delaware Press, 1999. Wagg, Susan. “Bank of Montreal Addition.” In Money Matters: A Critical Look at Bank Architecture. New York: McGraw-Hill in association with Parnassus Foundation and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1990. – Percy Erskine Nobbs: Architect, Artist, Craft man. Montreal: McGillQueens University Press, 1982. Warrington, C.J., and B.T. Newbold. Chemical Canada. Ottawa: Chemical Institute of Canada, 1970. Westley, Margaret W. Remembrance of Grandeur: The Anglo-Protestant Elite of Montreal, 1900–1950. Montreal: Libre Expression, 1990. Who Was Who, 1929–1940. London: A & C Black, 1941. Wilson, David. Rutherford: Simple Genius. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1983. Wilson, Richard Guy. The Colonial Revival House. New York: Henry N. Abrams, 2004. Wood, William, ed. The Storied Province of Quebec Past and Present. Toronto: Dominion Publishing Company, 1931. Young, Brian J., and Geoffrey James. Respectable Burial: Montreal’s Mount Royal Cemetery. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2003.

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Index Numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Abbott, John, 54, 201n71 Aberdeen, Scotland: classicism, 10; earl of, 22, 130, 145 Adam, Robert, 8 Adam, William, 9, 194n11 Adamesque motifs, 61, 62–3 Adler & Sullivan, 96 Aestheticism/Aesthetic movement, 34–5, 36, 38, 42, 44, 76 Albert, Prince, 10 Albert Hall Mansions, London, 70, 71 Allan, Andrew, 147 Allan, Hugh, 25, 60 Allan, Hugh Montagu: Allancroft, 67; Allan House (Montrose) in Cacouna, 60, 60–4, 62, 63, 65, 66, 190; patronage, 25, 137, 147; Ravenscrag residence, 25, 60–1, 187, 189 Allan, John (contractor), 66 All Saints, Margaret Street, London, 139, 140–1, 177 almshouses, Chislehurst, 17–19, 18, 32, 185, 195n46 American Architect and Building News: on Bank of Montreal,

Seigneurs Street branch, 93; on Davis House, 44; on Redpath Library, McGill, 130; on Shingle style, 59; on steel in construction, 107; on Vancouver, 89–90; on Vanderbilt mansion, 30 Ames, Herbert Brown, 25, 73, 189 Ames house (residence), Montreal, 73, 189 Ames housing complex, Diamond Court, Griffintown, 73, 189 Anatomy Building, University College, London, 177 Anderdon, Anne and Maria Eleanor, 17 Anderson, Rowand, 13 Angus, Elizabeth H., 40 Angus, Richard Bladworth, 54, 67–8, 200n71 Angus Estate, Senneville, 67, 67–8 apartment houses: Albert Hall Mansions, 70, 71; Apartment House for Artisans, 72, 189; Dakota Apartments, 70–1; Marlborough Apartment House, 68, 69–72, 190

230

Index

Architect, The: on Davis House, 43, 44 Architectural Museum, London, 12–13 architecture: Aestheticism, 34–5, 36, 38, 42, 44, 76; apprenticeships, training, and education, 6, 8–13, 24, 158–9, 161, 164–5; architectural associations, 6, 12, 13–14, 22, 26, 135–6, 146, 159–67, 219; Arts and Crafts movement, 34, 40, 163, 178, 198n24; Château style, 40, 67, 67–8; classicism, 7, 8, 10, 21, 95–7; Colonial Revival style, 61–4, 65–6; competitions, 19–22, 20, 71, 79, 160, 162, 185, 187, 190, 191, 206–7n66; Elizabethan style, 70; François I style, 31, 40–1, 42; Gothic Revival, 7–9, 10–13, 14–18, 34–5, 128–9, 135, 141, 157; Old English style, 18–19, 29, 34–5; patronage, 3, 4, 11, 25; professional qualifications, 158–9, 161; Queen Anne style, 29, 34–5, 36, 38, 41–2, 43, 49, 70, 81, 83–4, 91, 93, 135; Renaissance style, 21, 34, 41, 49, 59, 81, 91, 93–4, 97, 100, 114, 122, 144–5, 149–50, 199n43; Romanesque style, 17, 31, 34, 49, 64, 81, 85, 88, 93, 104, 117, 120, 125, 129; Shingle style, 18, 56–9; Taylor’s (see Taylor, Andrew Thomas, works of) Art Association of Montreal, 25, 51, 95, 143–6, 144, 162–3, 188 Art Standing Committee, 166 Arts and Crafts movement, 34, 40, 163, 178, 198n24 Athenaeum, London, 171

Atwood, Charles B., 96 Austin Hall, Harvard, 117 Babb, Cook & Willard, 24 Baillairgé, Charles, 158–9, 166 Balkwill, Mary E., 171, 172–3 Balmoral Castle, 10 Bank of British North America: Montreal office, 207n80; Winnipeg office, 80, 107–8, 108, 191 Bank of Commerce, Winnipeg, 108 Bank of Montreal: branch offices, 74, 79–101; Calgary branch, 80, 87, 88, 187; Edmonton branch, 80; Gault role, 69; Lindsay, Ontario, branch, 80, 190; McKim, Mead & White, 24, 103, 108, 151, 190; Ottawa branch, 80, 99, 99–101, 190; Perth, Ontario, branch, 80, 81–4, 82, 186, 204n23; Place d’Armes head office, 24, 28, 30, 74–9, 75, 76, 77, 78, 101, 101, 103, 190, 203n1; Point St Charles, Montreal, branch, 80, 97–9, 98, 190; Redpath and Drummond relationship with, 27– 8, 46, 74; Regina branch, 80, 90, 91, 189; Ross role, 150; St James Street, Montreal, branch, 186; Seigneurs Street, Montreal, branch, 80, 92, 93–4, 105, 163, 188; Sydney, Nova Scotia, branch, 80, 95, 95–7, 190, 205n50; Taylor architecture, 3, 24, 28, 30, 74–103, 105, 162, 163, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 203n1, 203n17, 204n23, 205n50; Toronto branch, 79, 203n17; Vancouver branch, 80, 89, 89–91, 188;

Index

West End, Montreal, branch, 80, 83, 84–7, 85, 162, 187; Winnipeg branch, 108 Bank of Toronto: Montreal branch, 80, 102, 104–5, 188 Barclay Memorial Free Church, Edinburgh, 8 Barnett, Henrietta and Canon Samuel, 171, 178 Barry, Charles, 174 Barry, Charles Edward, 20 Bartlett School of Architecture, London, 176 Beaumont, Henry, 49, 85, 119, 130, 145, 200n65, 208n19 Bedford Park, London, 34 Billings, R.W., Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland, 8 Billings Library, University of Vermont, 125, 126, 209n45 Bishop’s College, Lennoxville, QC, 136, 136–7, 188, 189 Blackader, Alexander Dougall, 181 Bodley, G.F., 41 Boston Public Library, 125 Bournemouth, Dorset, house alterations, 185 Bousfield, Robert William Gambier, 23, 74 Bovey, Emily Jane Bonar (Redpath), 28, 33, 56, 58, 112 Bovey, Henry Taylor: Canadian Society of Civil Engineers’ role, 86; home (Sunnandene), 33, 186; marriage, 28, 33; McGill role, 112, 117, 119, 122, 164; summer home

231

(Sassaquiminel), 58, 186 Bovey house (Sunnandene), Montreal, 33, 33–40, 186, 198n29 Bovey summer house (Sassaquiminel), Little Métis, QC, 58, 186, 201n79 Boys’ Home, Montreal, 25, 146, 186, 188 British and Foreign Bible Society, 179 British Institution Scholarship Fund, 175 Bromley, W. (builder), 195n44 Brooke, Janet, 51 Brown University library, 126 Browne, John James, 23–4, 54, 56, 69, 72 Builder, The: on bank designs, 83–4; on Drummond House, 46, 48; on Gothic vs classical design, 21; on Memorial Hall and Schools, 14, 16, 17; on Scott and Strathy houses, 40, 42 building codes/bylaws, 158, 166, 179–80 Building News, 22, 38 Burges, William, 141 Butterfield, William, 139, 140–1 Calgary, Alberta: Bank of Montreal, 80, 87, 88, 187 Calton Hill, Edinburgh, 8 Canadian Architect and Builder: on almshouses, Chislehurst, 17; on Bank of Montreal, Place d’Armes head office, 78, 103; on Bank of Montreal, Seigneurs Street branch, 93, 105;

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on Bank of Montreal, Sydney, Nova Scotia, branch, 97; on Bank of Montreal, Vancouver branch, 80; on Bank of Toronto, Montreal branch, 104, 105; on Drummond House, Beaconsfield, 65–6; on Drummond House, Montreal, 46, 49; on Marlborough Apartment House, Montreal, 71–2; on Mount Royal Crematorium, 155–6; on Province of Quebec Association of Architects, 161, 162, 163, 166, 167, 219; on steel in construction, 107; Taylor lectures published in, 136; on Taylor’s return to England, 169 Canadian Bank of Commerce, 80, 97 Canadian Magazine of Science and the Industrial Arts, 22 Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR): Bank of Montreal financing, 75; Château style for CPR hotels and stations, 68; development after completion, 3, 4, 88, 89–90, 91; Perth, Ontario presence, 81; wealth and status of CPR developers, 25, 51, 54, 67–8, 143, 150–1; Windsor Station headquarters, 49, 85 Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, 86 Capper, Stewart Henbest, 165 Chalderton Lodge, Trafalgar Institute, Montreal, 134, 135–6 Champneys, Basil, 135 Château de Ramezay Museum,

Montreal, 189 Château Frontenac, 68 Château style, 40, 67, 67–8 Chicago School, 31, 34 Chislehurst, Kent: almshouses, 17–19, 18, 32, 185, 195n46; cottage designs, 185; residence addition, 185 Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, 11, 138, 187 Christian, Ewan, 13 Christian Social Service Union, 170 Christ’s Hospital, Council of Almoners of (school), 175 churches: Catholic Church francophone leadership, 4, 133; cremation stances, 154, 156; Ecclesiological Society, 11, 12; Gothic Revival architecture, 7, 10–13, 14–17, 141; historical preservation, 180 The City below the Hill (study) (Ames), 25, 73 Clarke, Joseph, 10–13, 17, 137–8, 194n14 classicism, 7, 8, 10, 21, 95–7 Clouston, Edward S., 40 Codman, Ogden, 63 Colonial Revival style, 61–4, 65–6 Commercial Road warehouse alterations, 14, 185 competitions: for Glasgow Municipal Buildings, 19–22, 20, 71, 162, 185; for Merchants Bank of Canada, St James Street branch, 190, 206–7n66; for Montreal Board of Trade building, 160;

Index

for Ontario Legislative Building, 79; for St James Street, Montreal, office block, 187; for Soldiers and Strathcona Monument, 191 Cooke, Arthur J., 23 Cornwall, Duke and Duchess of, 190 Cox, John, 112, 113, 117, 118, 119, 120 CPR. See Canadian Pacific Railway Crane, Walter, 38 Curry, Samuel George, 79, 94, 205n46 Curry & Baker, 94, 205n46 Cutter, C.A., 126 Dakota Apartments, New York, 70–1 Darling, Frank, 79, 80, 107, 108, 205n46 Darling & Pearson, 107, 108 Davis, Huntley Ward, 23, 24, 204n20 Davis, William H., 42, 186 Davis House, Ottawa, 42–4, 43, 45, 186 Dawson, Florence (Elliott), 170 Dawson, John William, 56, 109–11, 134 Dawson, William Bell, 170 The Decoration of Houses (Wharton & Codman), 63 Dennistoun, Alexander, 65 Dewey, Melvil, 124, 126 Diamond Court, Griffintown, 73, 189 Dick, D.B., 124 Dickens House, London, 178 Diocesan College, Montreal, 69, 70, 137–43, 138, 142, 163, 189 Dominion Bank, Winnipeg, 108

233

Dominion Bridge Company, 107, 122, 152 Dominion Cotton Company, 72 Dominion Express Building, Montreal, 107 Donaldson, T.L., 10, 177 Dover, Kent: Memorial Hall and Schools, 13–17, 15, 138, 185, 195n44 Drummond, George Alexander: as art collector, 51–2, 143, 163, 181; Bank of Montreal role, 27, 46, 74; building career, 6, 27; death, 51, 181; Drummond House, Montreal, 46–56, 47, 50, 52, 85, 200n62, 200n65; Drummond House (Huntlywood), Beaconsfield, 64, 64–8, 191; as golf enthusiast, 64–5; Mansfield Terrace, 31–2, 32, 186; Montreal mansion, 187; Montreal position, 28; Mount Royal Club role, 25, 67; Notman house/Home for Incurables supported by, 146; social position, 46; sugar refinery role, 46, 200n56; Taylor letter to Times on, 181 Drummond, Grace Julia (Parker), 46, 101 Drummond, Helen (Redpath), 28 Drummond, Jane, 19, 27–8, 56 Dubuc, Arthur/Dubuc house, Montreal, 54, 55, 56 Dulwich College, 174 Dunlop, A.F., 24, 187 Eastlake, Charles, 9, 12 Ecclesiological Society, 11, 12 Ecclesiologist, 11, 14, 16

234

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Edinburgh, Scotland: architectural associations, 6; Barclay Memorial Free Church, 8; Calton Hill, 8; National Gallery, 8; New Town, 6, 7–8; Old Town, 7; Royal Scottish Academy, 8; Taylor family, 6 Edmonton, Alberta: Bank of Montreal, 80 Edward VI, King, 175 electricity/electric lighting, 71, 78–9, 112, 128, 132, 152 elevators, 30, 71, 106, 149, 152 Elizabethan style, 70 Elliott, Florence, 170 Elliott, Joseph, 170 Elliott, Mary, 170, 182–3 Emanuel School, London, 175 Emerson, William Ralph, 59 England. See Great Britain English Renaissance style, 34, 81, 91, 97 Findlay, Robert, 73 First Alliance Assurance Office, London, 84, 85–6, 91 Fleet, Augusta, Eleanor (Redpath), 28, 33 Fleet, Charles J., 28, 33, 187, 198n20 Fleet House, Montreal, 33, 187, 198n20 Flemish Renaissance style, 93–4 Floors Castle, 9–10, 194n11 François I style, 31, 40–1, 42 French Renaissance style, 21, 41, 122, 199n43 Fry, Elizabeth, 171 Furness, Frank, 56, 124, 209n45

Gale, Arthur J., 29 Gardiner, John Rawson, 211n18 Gault, Andrew Frederick, 25, 69, 72, 139 Gault Brothers and Company, 69 Gazette (Montreal): on apartment house for artisans, 72; on Bank of Montreal Place d’Armes head office, 77, 79; on Jubilee Nurses’ Home, 148; on Macdonald science buildings, 122, 123; on Mansfield Terrace, 31; on Redpath and Bovey houses, 33, 34, 35, 36; on Scott and Strathy houses, 40, 42; on Taylor home designs, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 40, 42, 72; on Taylor lectures, 135 George V, King, 190 Gibb, Beniah, 144 Gillow’s, 38, 44 Glasgow, Scotland: architectural associations, 6; Guthrie and Company, 32, 42, 78, 199n48; Municipal Buildings, 19–22, 20, 71, 162, 185 Godwin, E.W., 34, 35, 38–9 Goodhue, Bertram Grosvenor, 176 Gore Hall, Harvard, 125 Gothic/Gothic Revival style: architectural styles’ relationship to, 18, 21, 34–5; ecclesiastical buildings, 7, 10–13, 14–17, 141; emergence, 7–8; institutional buildings, 135, 141, 157; Taylor training, 8–9, 35; university buildings, 128–9 Grace, Mrs James, 151

Index

Great Britain: classicism, 7, 8, 10, 21; Gothic Revival, 7–9, 10–13, 14–18; Old English style, 18–19, 34; Taylor apprenticeship and training, 6, 8–13, 158; Taylor architectural work, 13–22, 32, 71, 138, 162, 185, 195n46. Griffintown, 73, 189 Guthrie and Company, 32, 42, 78, 199n48 Haberdashers’ Company Schools, 174 Hahn, Otto, 121 Hall, Henry, 19–22, 185 Hamilton-Gordon, George William, 22–3 Hampstead, England: Hampstead Antiquarian and Historical Society, 179; Hampstead Appeal Tribunal for National Service, 178; Hampstead Conservative Association, 170, 171; Hampstead War Hospital Supply Depot, 178; Taylor as county council representative, 171–4, 178, 179–80; Taylor as mayor of, 172; Taylor home, 170, 215n7 Hampstead and Highgate Express: on Taylor’s public life, 173, 174, 179, 183 Hardenbergh, Henry J., 70 Harrington, Professor, 122 Hayden, Sophia B., 96 heating systems/considerations, 17, 32, 39, 42, 43, 71, 122 Henry Birks & Sons, 87, 94

235

Herter Brothers, 24, 30, 35, 76, 78, 79, 103 Higginson, F.L., 31 Higginson-Whittier houses, Boston, 31, 48, 48 Highbury parish church decoration, 14, 138, 185 Hill, George W., 191 Hogle, Morley W., 23, 153, 204n20 Holbrook & Mollington (sculptors), 79, 93, 104 Home for Incurables addition, Montreal, 146, 188, 212n40 Homes for Epileptic Children, 170 Hopkins, J.W. & E.C., 68, 146, 200n71 Hopkins, John W., 23, 68, 100, 130, 144, 146, 200n71 Hopkins & Wily, 130, 144 Howard, Robert Palmer, 132 Hunt, Richard Morris, 31, 40, 96 Huntlywood (Drummond House, Beaconsfield), 64, 65–8, 191 Hutchison, A.C., 23, 46, 158, 162, 197n2, 201n71 Imperial Bank, Montreal, 191, 207n66 Inglenook (Redpath house), 33, 33–40, 37, 186, 198n29 interior design: Allan House, Cacouna, 62, 62–3; Bank of Montreal, Place d’Armes head office, 76–8, 77, 78, 103; Bank of Montreal, Sydney, Nova Scotia, branch, 97; Bank of Toronto, Montreal, 104; Bishop’s College

236

Index

chapel, 137; Davis House, 44, 45; Diocesan College, 141–3, 142; Japanism influence, 34, 35, 38, 39, 44, 78; Macdonald Physics Building, McGill, 119, 119; Mansfield Terrace, 32; Redpath and Bovey houses, 36–40, 37; Redpath Library, McGill, 126, 127, 127, 128; Scott and Strathy houses, 42; Taylor-designed homes, 32, 36–40, 37, 42, 44, 45, 62, 62–3; US mansions, 30 Italian Renaissance style, 59, 81, 100, 114, 122, 144–5, 19–50 J. & W. Guthrie. See Guthrie and Company Japanism, 34, 35, 38, 39, 44, 78 Jeckyll, Thomas, 44 Jefferson Physical Laboratory, Harvard, 113–14, 120 Jeffrey and Company, 38 Jeffrey Hale Hospital, Quebec City, 146 Jenney, William Le Baron, 31, 96, 106 Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 103 Jubilee Nurses’ Home, Montreal, 147–50, 148, 189 knighthood: Taylor’s, 182 Lachine Canal, 27, 97 Leggatt, Peter F. (contractor), 56, 58 Lindsay, on: Bank of Montreal, 80, 190; Ross Memorial Hospital, 150–3, 151, 190 Lingfield Farm Colony, 170

Little, Arthur, 59 Livingston, Nora, 149–50, 154 London, England: All Saints, Margaret Street, church, 139, 140– 1, 177; Bedford Park suburb, 34; building codes/bylaws, 179–80; Commercial Road warehouse alterations, 14, 185; electricity/ electric lighting, 79; First Alliance Assurance Office, 84, 85–6, 91; Hampstead suburb (see Hampstead); Highbury parish church decoration, 14, 138, 185; London County Council, 171–4, 178, 179–80; National Gallery, 176, 178; Taylor architectural training, 10–13; Taylor architectural work, 13–14, 138, 185; Taylor club involvement, 170–1; Taylor as freeman of, 174, 182; Taylor office, 13; Taylor public life, 169–83; University College, 174–7, 178, 182, 217nn29–30; Whitechapel Art Gallery, 178–9 Long, George, 137 Lovell’s Directory, 22, 23, 24, 25, 80, 208n19 Lyall, Peter/Lyall house, Montreal, 54, 55, 56 Macdonald, John A., 46 Macdonald, William Christopher: family name, 208n2, 208n24; McGill Chair of Architecture contributions, 164–5; McGill Macdonald science building contributions, 111, 112, 113, 117, 119, 122, 123; Montreal Maternity

Index

Hospital contributions, 154; Mount Royal Crematorium contributions, 154–7; Taylor patronage, 25 Macdonald Chemistry Building, McGill, 110, 121, 121–3, 189 Macdonald Engineering Building, McGill, 95, 110, 111–12, 113, 113–17, 115, 116, 123, 162, 164, 188 Macdonald Physics Building, McGill, 110, 112, 116, 117–21, 119, 162, 188 Mackay Street, Montreal house, 186 Mackmurdo, Arthur Heygate, 194n25 Macleod, Robert, 14 Mansfield Terrace, Montreal, 31–2, 32, 186 Marlborough Apartment House, Montreal, 68, 69–72, 190 Maxwell, Edward: Angus Estate, Senneville, 67, 67–8; Château style, 40, 67, 67–8; Dominion Express Building, Montreal, 107; Henry Birks & Sons commercial building, 87, 94; Merchants Bank of Canada, St James Street branch, 190, 206–7n66; Merchants Bank of Halifax, Montreal, 93–4, 94, 105; Montreal Board of Trade work, 25, 94; patronage, 25; training, 24; US influences, 24, 94 Maxwell, James Clerk, 113, 120 Maxwell, William, 24, 67, 67–8, 107, 146 McGill, James, 110, 130, 133 McGill University: architecture

237

school, 3, 117, 159, 164–5; Arts Building, 110; Diocesan College affiliation, 138, 139; Macdonald Chemistry Building, 110, 121, 121– 3, 189; Macdonald Engineering Building, 95, 110, 111–12, 113, 113–17, 115, 116, 123, 162, 164, 188; Macdonald Physics Building, 110, 112, 116, 117–21, 119, 162, 188; Medical School, 110, 130–2, 131, 148, 186, 188, 189, 190; Nobbs architecture, 5, 109, 117, 188, 198n24, 211n23; Peter Redpath Museum of Natural History, 110; Presbyterian College affiliation, 165; Redpath family relationship with, 27, 28, 109–11, 123; Redpath Library, 27, 111, 123–30, 124, 127, 129, 162, 188, 190, 210n51; Royal Victoria College, 150; Taylor architecture, 3, 5, 27, 95, 109–32, 148, 162, 164, 186, 188, 189, 190; Taylor teaching, 26, 165, 196n71; Trafalgar Institute affiliation, 134; welcome arch for Duke and Duchess of Cornwall visit, 190; Workman Workshops, 112, 113, 115, 115, 117, 188 McIntyre, Duncan, Jr, 40 McIntyre, Duncan, Sr, 199n43 McKim, Mead & White: Bank of Montreal work, 24, 103, 108, 151, 190; Boston Public Library, 125; Colonial Revival style, 61–2, 65; Mount Royal Club building, 196n70; Shingle style, 56, 59; Taylor home designs influenced by, 29, 31, 48, 48, 56, 59, 61–2,

238

Index

65; Taylor university building designs influenced by, 125; Whittier house, 31, 48, 48; World’s Columbian Exposition, 96 McLean, John (contractor), 77 McPhee, Janet, 28 Mead, William Rutherford, 103, 170. See also McKim, Mead & White Medal of the City of Paris, 182 Medical School, McGill, 110, 130–2, 131, 148, 186, 188, 189, 190 Memorial Hall and Schools, Dover, 13–17, 15, 138, 185, 195n44 Merchants Bank of Canada: Allan role, 25, 60; competition for St James Street, Montreal branch, 190, 206–7n66; Winnipeg office, 24, 80, 105, 106–7, 190, 207n72 Merchants Bank of Halifax, Montreal, 93–4, 94, 105 Meredith, T.C./Meredith house, London, ON, 186 Micklethwaite, J.T., 8 Molson, J.H.R., 132 Molsons Bank: Vancouver branch, 80, 190; Victoriaville branch, 190 Montreal: Anglo-Scottish population, 3–4, 133; Art Association of Montreal, 25, 51, 95, 143–6, 144, 162–3, 188; Bank of British North America, 207n80; Bank of Montreal offices, 24, 28, 30, 74–9, 75, 76, 77, 78, 80, 83, 84–7, 85, 92, 93–4, 97–9, 98, 101, 101, 103, 105, 162, 163, 186, 187, 188, 190, 203n1; Bank of Toronto offices, 80, 102, 104–5, 188; Boys’ Home, 25, 146, 186,

188; building codes/bylaws, 158, 166; Christ Church, 11, 138, 187; Diocesan College, 69, 70, 137–43, 138, 142, 163, 189; Francophone population, 4; growth, 3–5; Home for Incurables, 146, 188, 212n40; Imperial Bank, 191, 207n66; Jubilee Nurses’ Home, 147–50, 148, 189; McGill University (see McGill University); Merchants bank of Halifax branch, 93–4, 94, 105; Montreal Board of Trade, 25, 26, 46, 94, 160, 163; Montreal General Hospital, 25, 28, 130, 146, 147–50, 188; Montreal High School, 162; Montreal Maternity Hospital, 153, 153–4, 191; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 144 (see also Art Association of Montreal); Mount Royal Club, 25, 67, 196n70, 201n71; Mount Royal Crematorium, 154–7, 155, 190; New York Life Assurance building, 77, 160; population growth, 5, 69; Protestant Hospital for the Insane, 25, 146, 189; Royal Montreal (golf club), 64–5; Royal Victoria Hospital, 133, 146, 154, 162, 191; Sailors’ Institute, 146–7, 189; St John the Evangelist, 139; St Stephen’s Church, 139, 189, 211n18; Square Mile, 4, 25, 33, 40, 54, 68, 69, 73, 135; sugar refinery, 28, 46, 98, 199–200n56; Taylor home designs, 28–9, 31–42, 46–73; Taylor’s office, 3, 4, 22–6, 27, 28; Trafalgar Institute, 134, 134–6, 187, 191; Windsor Station, 49, 85

Index

Montreal Star: on Bank of Montreal, 74; on McGill fire, 117 Montrose (Allan House, Cacouna), 60, 60–4, 62, 63, 65, 66, 190 Morgan, Henry, 86 Morgan, J. Pierpont, 79 Morris, William, 35, 38, 40, 44, 128 Morrison (contractor), 104 Mortimer, C.H., 162 Mount Royal Club, 25, 67, 196n70, 201n71 Mount Royal Crematorium, 154–7, 155, 190 National Art Collections Fund, 178 National Gallery (Edinburgh), 8 National Gallery (London), 176, 178 National Gallery of Canada, 51, 145–6, 182 Nelson, James, 167 New York Life Insurance building, 77, 160 Nivison, Robert, 181–2 Nobbs, Percy, 5, 109, 117, 188, 198n24, 211n23 Notman house/Home for Incurables addition, Montreal, 146, 188, 212n40 Ogilvie, A.W., 157 Old Court House, Barking, 180 Old English style, 18–19, 29, 34–5 Ontario Association of Architects, 160, 165 Ontario Legislative Building, 49, 79 Ontario Society of Artists, 145 Ostell, John, 110 Ottawa: Bank of Montreal, 80, 99,

239

99–101, 190; Davis House, 42–4, 43, 45, 186; National Gallery of Canada, 146 Oxenden, Ashton, 139 Parker, Grace, 100–1 Parker, Grace Julia, 46, 101 Peabody & Stearns, 59, 96 Pearson, John L., 141 Perth, ON: Bank of Montreal, 80, 81–4, 82, 186, 204n23; Taylor (Henry) house additions, 186 Peters, Frank, 207n72 Pevsner, Nikolaus, 17 Pilkington, Frederick, 8–9, 14 Pilkington & Bell, 6, 8–9, 120 Piranesi, Giovanni, 176 Place d’Armes: Bank of Montreal head office renovation, 24, 28, 30, 74–9, 75, 76, 77, 78, 101, 101, 103, 190, 203n1 Playfair, William Henry, 8, 9 Post, George B., 31, 96 Powell, W.H., 70 Presbyterian College, Montreal, 26, 28, 111, 165 Price, Bruce, 24, 40, 49, 59, 85, 150, 151 Prince Arthur Street, Montreal: semidetached house, 186 Princeton University library, 126 Protestant Hospital for the Insane, Montreal, 25, 146, 189 Province of Quebec Association of Architects, 26, 135–6, 146, 159–67, 219 Pugin, A.W.N., 7, 14, 176

240

Index

Quebec Association of Architects. See Province of Quebec Association of Architects Queen Anne style: bank designs, 81, 83–4, 91, 93; home designs, 29, 34–5, 36, 38, 41–2, 43, 49, 70; institutional building designs, 135 railroads, 3, 4, 25, 30, 66, 81, 89–90, 91, 98, 106. See also Canadian Pacific Railway Ravenscrag, Montreal, 25, 60–1, 187, 189 Raza, Alphonse, 56, 165 Redpath, Augusta Eleanor, 28, 33 Redpath, Emily Jane Bonar, 28, 33, 56, 58, 112 Redpath, Francis Robert, 28, 33, 186 Redpath, Helen, 28 Redpath, Jane (Drummond), 19, 27–8, 56 Redpath, Janet (McPhee), 28 Redpath, John, 19, 27–8, 109, 110–11 Redpath, Mrs Peter, 128 Redpath, Peter: Bank of Montreal role, 28, 74; Chislehurst home, 19, 27; McGill role/affiliation, 27, 28, 109, 110–11, 123, 130; Montreal General Hospital role, 28 Redpath family, 19, 25, 27–9, 56, 98, 100, 109–11 Redpath house (Inglenook), Montreal, 33, 33–40, 37, 186, 198n29 Redpath Library, McGill, 27, 111, 123–30, 124, 127, 129, 162, 188, 190, 210n51

Redpath Museum of Natural History, McGill, 110 Redpath sugar refinery, 28, 46, 98, 199–200n56 Redpath summer house (Staquan Lodge), Little Métis, 56 Reford, Robert Wilson, 56, 58, 187 Reford House, Little Métis, 56–9, 57, 187 Regina, NWT: Bank of Montreal, 80, 90, 91, 189; growth and urban planning, 205n41 Reynolds, Water, 183 RIBA. See Royal Institute of British Architects Richardson, Albert, 176, 177 Richardson, Henry Hobson: libraries, 125, 129, 209n45; Richardsonian Romanesque style, 31, 34, 49, 64, 85, 93, 117, 125; Shingle style, 56, 59; successors, 24; Taylor bank designs influenced by, 85, 93; Taylor home designs influenced by, 29, 31, 49, 56, 59, 64; Taylor university building designs influenced by, 117, 120, 125, 129; Trinity Church, 125 Rideau Canal, 27, 81 Roedean School, Brighton, 174 Roentgen, Wilhelm, 120 Rokeby (Gault house), Montreal, 69 Romanesque style: bank designs, 81, 85, 88, 93, 104; house designs, 17, 31, 34, 49, 64; university building designs, 117, 120, 125, 129 Ross, Donald, 134–5

Index

Ross, James, 25, 40, 150–1, 152, 153, 181 Ross Memorial Hospital, Lindsay, on, 150–3, 151, 190 Roy, W. Ormiston, 155, 156, 213n70 Royal Academy Schools, 13 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, 182 Royal Bank of Canada, 93, 97 Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, 26, 93, 145–6 Royal Canadian Golf Association, 65 Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), 12, 13–14, 22, 26, 29, 103, 165 Royal Montreal (golf club), 64–5 Royal Scottish Academy, 8 Royal Societies Club, 170–1 Royal Victoria College, Montreal, 150 Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, 133, 146, 154, 162, 191 Ruskin, John, 12, 35, 39–40, 49, 128 Rutherford, Ernest, 120–1 Sailors’ Institute, Montreal, 146–7, 189 St John the Evangelist, Montreal, 139 St John’s, Edenside, Scotland, church, 9 St John’s Wood, London, villa and building design, 14, 185 St Stephen’s Church, Montreal, 139, 189, 211n18 Sassaquiminel (Bovey summer

241

house), 58, 186, 201n79 Scott, George Gilbert, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 141 Scott, Henry Castle, 31, 40, 186 Scott and Strathy houses, Montreal, 31, 40–2, 41, 186 Scottish Renaissance style, 49 Scully, Vincent, 59 Shaw, Richard Norman: Albert Hall Mansions, 70, 71; First Alliance Assurance offices, 84, 85–6, 91; Hampstead home, 170; Old English style, 18, 34; Taylor bank designs influenced by, 84, 85–6, 91; Taylor home designs influenced by, 18, 34, 36, 70, 71 Shaw & Hunnewell, 113 Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, 24, 25, 94, 160, 163 Shingle style, 18, 56–9 Sijpkes, Pieter, 98–9 Simpson, Archibald, 10 Smith, Donald A., 46, 122, 123, 132, 134, 210n2 Smith, John, 10 Smith, William, 10 Snell, Saxon, 146, 162 Snook, John B., 30 Society of Antiquaries, London, 171 Soddy, Frederick, 121 Soldiers and Strathcona Monument, Montreal, 191 Speirs, Richard Phené, 13 Square Mile, Montreal: Ames’s sociological study, 73; Chalderton Lodge, Trafalgar Institute, 135; Drummond House, 54; location, 4;

242

Index

Marlborough Apartment House, 69; Maxwell-designed houses, 68; Mount Royal Club, 25; Redpath and Bovey houses, 33; Scott and Strathy houses, 40 Stamp, Gavin, 8, 14 Stanley of Preston, Baron, 112 Staquan Lodge (Redpath summer house), 56 Steele, A.D., 46, 197n2, 201n71 Strathy, Henry George Gordon, 31, 40, 186 Street, George Edmund, 11, 14, 16, 18, 141, 152 Sullivan, Louis, 96, 106 sunflower motif, 17, 32, 34, 36, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 195n48 Sunnandene (Bovey house), 33, 33–40, 186, 198n29 Sydney, NS: Bank of Montreal, 80, 95, 95–7, 190, 205n50 Talbert, Bruce J., 38, 44 Taylor, Agnes (Drummond), 6 Taylor, Andrew Thomas: apprenticeship, training, and education, 6, 8–13, 158, 159, 193n1; awards and gifts donated by, 176– 7, 179; awards and honours given to, 12, 174, 177, 182–3; birth, 3, 6; board positions, 25, 146, 174–5, 178–9; as City of London freeman, 174, 182; club involvement, 170–1; competitions, 19–22, 20, 71, 162, 185, 187, 190, 191, 206–7n66; death, 177, 183; family connections and patronage, 3, 4, 25–6, 27–9, 133,

137; family history, 6; Hampstead home, 170, 215n7; images of, ii, 168; knighthood, 182; London County Council, 171–4, 178, 179– 80; London public life, 169–83; mayoral role, 172; Montreal office, 3, 4, 22–6, 27, 28; partnerships, 22–3, 74; Province of Quebec Association of Architects, 26, 135– 6, 146, 159–67; retirement from architecture, 23, 169–70; Royal Institute of British Architects, 12, 13–14, 22, 26, 29, 103, 165; Sir Andrew Taylor Prizes, 176–7; sketches and drawings, 13, 15, 18, 32, 37, 38, 41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 50, 52, 57, 131, 145–6, 148, 162–3, 194n31; social position, 25–6; teaching positions, 26, 135–6, 165, 196n71; travel, 13, 24, 29–31, 122, 123–4, 194n31; University College, 174–7, 178, 182, 217n29; wife and marriage, 170, 182–3, 215n4; works of (see Taylor, Andrew Thomas, works of); World War I-era work, 178, 182; writings, 12, 51, 175, 179–82 Taylor, Andrew Thomas, works of, 185–91; Allan House (Montrose), Cacouna, 60, 60–4, 62, 63, 65, 66, 190; almshouses, Chislehurst, 17–19, 18, 32, 185, 195n46; Ames house, 73, 189; Apartment House for Artisans, 72, 189; Art Association of Montreal addition, 143–6, 144, 163, 188; Bank of British North America, Winnipeg

Index

office, 80, 107–8, 108, 191; Bank of Montreal architecture, 3, 24, 28, 30, 74–103, 105, 162, 163, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 203n1, 203n17, 204n23, 205n50; Bank of Toronto, Montreal, 80, 102, 104–5, 188; Bishop’s College, 136, 136–7, 188, 189; Bournemouth, Dorset, house alterations, 185; Bovey house (Sunnandene), 33, 33–40, 186, 198n29; Bovey summer house (Sassaquiminel), 58, 186, 201n79; Boys’ Home building, 146, 186, 188; Calgary branch, Bank of Montreal, 80, 87, 88, 187; Château de Ramezay Museum, Montreal, alterations, 189; Chislehurst, Kent, almhouses, 17–19, 18, 32, 185, 195n46; Chislehurst, Kent, cottage designs, 185; Chislehurst, Kent, residence addition, 185; Christ Church, Montreal, alterations, 187; Commercial Road warehouse alterations, 14, 185; Davis House, Ottawa, 42–4, 43, 45, 186; Diamond Court, Griffintown, 73, 189; Diocesan College, 69, 70, 137–43, 138, 142, 163, 189; Drummond House, Montreal, 46–56, 47, 50, 52, 85, 200n62, 200n65; Drummond House (Huntlywood), Beaconsfield, 64, 64–8, 191; Drummond (George Alexander) mansion, 187; Edmonton branch, Bank of Montreal, 80; Fleet house, 33, 187, 198n20; Glasgow Municipal Buildings, 19–22, 20,

243

71, 162, 185; Highbury parish church decoration, 14, 138, 185; Imperial Bank, Montreal, 191, 207n66; institutional designs, 133–57; Jeffrey Hale Hospital additions, 146; Jubilee Nurses’ Home, Montreal, 147–50, 148, 189; Lindsay, Ontario branch, Bank of Montreal, 80, 190; Macdonald Chemistry Building, McGill, 110, 121, 121–3, 189; Macdonald Engineering Building, McGill, 95, 110, 111–12, 113, 113–17, 115, 116, 123, 162, 164, 188; Macdonald Physics Building, McGill, 110, 112, 116, 117–21, 119, 162, 188; Mackay Street, Montreal house, 186; Mansfield Terrace, 31–2, 32, 186; Marlborough Apartment House, Montreal, 68, 69–72, 190; McGill University architecture, 3, 5, 27, 95, 109–32, 148, 162, 164, 186, 188, 189, 190; Medical School, McGill, 110, 130–2, 131, 148, 186, 188, 189, 190; Memorial Hall and Schools, Dover, 13–17, 15, 138, 185, 195n44; Merchants Bank of Canada, Winnipeg office, 24, 80, 105, 106– 7, 190, 207n72; Meredith house alterations, 186; Molsons Bank, Vancouver, 80, 190; Molsons Bank, Victoriaville, 190; Montreal General Hospital additions, 148, 188; Montreal homes, 28–9, 31–42, 46–73; Montreal Maternity Hospital, 153, 153–4, 191; Mount Royal Crematorium,

244

Index

154–7, 155, 190; Notman house/ Home for Incurables addition, 146, 188, 212n40; Ottawa branch addition, Bank of Montreal, 80, 99, 99–101, 190; Perth, Ontario branch, Bank of Montreal, 80, 81–4, 82, 186, 204n23; Place d’Armes renovation, Bank of Montreal, 24, 28, 30, 74–9, 75, 76, 77, 78, 101, 101, 103, 190, 203n1; Point St Charles, Montreal branch, Bank of Montreal, 80, 97–9, 98, 190; Prince Arthur Street, Montreal, semidetached house, 186; Protestant Hospital for the Insane additions, 146, 189; Ravenscrag renovations, 25, 60–1, 187, 189; Redpath house (Inglenook), 33, 33–40, 37, 186, 198n29; Redpath Library, McGill, 27, 111, 123–30, 124, 127, 129, 162, 188, 190; Reford House, 56–9, 57, 187; Regina branch, Bank of Montreal, 80, 90, 91, 189; Ross Memorial Hospital, 150–3, 151, 190; Royal Victoria Hospital alterations, 146, 191; Sailors’ Institute, Montreal, 146–7, 189; St James Street, Montreal branch, Bank of Montreal, 186; St James Street, Montreal office block, 187; St John’s Wood, London, villa and building design,14, 185; St Stephen’s Church, Montreal, 139, 189, 211n18; Scott and Strathy houses, 31, 40–2, 41, 186; Seigneurs Street, Montreal

branch, Bank of Montreal, 80, 92, 93–4, 105, 163, 188; Soldiers and Strathcona Monument design, 191; Sydney, Nova Scotia branch, Bank of Montreal, 80, 95, 95–7, 190, 205n50; Taylor (Henry) house additions, Perth, 186; Toronto branch, Bank of Montreal, 79, 203n17; Trafalgar Institute, Montreal, 134, 134–6, 187, 191; Upper St Urbain Street, Montreal, house additions, 186; Vancouver branch, Bank of Montreal, 80, 89, 89–91, 188; Welcome arch, McGill, 190; West End, Montreal branch, Bank of Montreal, 80, 83, 84–7, 85, 162, 187; Whitman house, Halifax, 189, 202n92; Workman Workshops, McGill, 112, 113, 115, 115, 117, 188 Taylor, H.A.C., house, Newport, RI, 61 Taylor, Henry, house, Perth, ON, 186 Taylor, James, 6 Taylor, Mary (Elliott), 170, 182–3 Tempest, J.W., 145 Terrace Bank, Montreal, 28, 29, 33, 100 Terrace Houses, Montreal, 31–2, 32, 186 Thomas, William Tutin, 24, 199n43 Thomson, “Greek,” 22 Times (London): Taylor’s letters to, 51, 179–82; on Taylor’s London County Council role, 173 Toronto: Bank of Montreal branch, 79, 203n17; Ontario Legislative

Index

245

Building, 49, 79; University of Toronto library, 123–4, 125, 126 Townsend, Charles Harrison, 178 Toynbee Hall, London, 178 Trafalgar Institute, Montreal, 134, 134–6, 187, 191 transportation, development of, 4, 98. See also railroads Trinity Church, Boston, 125

Vancouver Daily World: on Bank of Montreal, 91 Vanderbilt, William Henry, 30, 40, 51, 76 Vanderbilt, William Kissam, 40 Van Horne, William, 51 Victoria, Queen, 7, 99, 148, 149 Visconti and Lefuel, 21 Voysey, C.F.A., 38

Union Bank, Winnipeg, 107 United Kingdom. See Great Britain United States: Canadian architects’ relationship to, 24, 29–31, 94, 103, 113–14, 117, 122, 123–4, 155–6, 159; Colonial Revival style, 61–2, 66; electricity/electric lighting, 79; Gothic Revival, 11; Montreal transportation links, 4; Shingle style, 56, 59; Taylor travel, 24, 29–31 United Westminster Schools Foundation, 175 University College, London, 174–7, 178, 182, 217nn29–30 University of Pennsylvania library, 124, 126 University of Toronto library, 123–4, 125, 126 University of Vermont: Billings Library, 125, 126, 209n45 Upper St Urbain Street, Montreal, house additions, 186

Waite, Richard, 24, 49 Wallace, Arthur W., 142 Waterhouse, Alfred, 19, 21, 22, 135 Weekly Post (Lindsay): on Ross Memorial Hospital, 152 Wells, John, 28, 74, 146 Wetherall, Charles, 135 Wharton, Edith, 63 Whighton (contractor), 104 White, William, 138 Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 178–9 Whitman, Alfred/Whitman house, Halifax, NS, 189, 202n92 Whittier, Charles A., 31 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 197n12 Wilkins, William, 176 William Notman & Son, 167 Willingdon, Lord, 182 Wills, Frank, 11 Windsor Station, Montreal, 49, 85 Winnipeg: Bank of British North America, 80, 107–8, 108, 191; Bank of Montreal, 108; Merchants Bank of Canada, 24, 80, 105, 106–7, 190, 207n72 Winsor, Justin, 124

Vancouver: Bank of Montreal, 80, 89, 89–91, 188; Molsons Bank, 80, 190

246

Index

Witness (Montreal): on Drummond house, 53; on McGill fire, 117 Workman, Thomas, 112 Workman Workshops, McGill, 112, 113, 115, 115, 117, 188 World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 66, 95–6, 106 Wren, Christopher, 12, 97, 99, 175 Young, William, 21