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Great Architects of the University

by Wallace McLeod, FPS

We certainly don't want to be arrogant,
but you've got to remember that my
hometown of Toronto is the largest city
in all Canada, and it' s growing bigger all
the time. This is bound to cause prob-
lems, because one thing the Creator has
stopped making is real estate. Land is in
short supply, and (we are told) it must be
put to good economic use. This means
that obsolete old buildings are torn
down, and nice new shiny things get put
up in their place. Because the city fathers
are so progressive and realistic in their
attitude, the "bleeding hearts" often say
the City is bent on destroying its own
past. Actually, there may be some truth
in the allegation. Take a look at any
architectural history of Toronto, and

St. Basil's Church, on the campus of the University of Toronto; built in 1856
by Brother William Hay

time after time you will find pictures of
grand old buildings labeled
"Demolished. " Still, there are a few im-
pressive landmarks left; some of them,
located on the campus of the University
of Toronto, were designed by notable
Freemasons.

They often say you can't really under-
stand the University of Toronto until
you've been there for a lifetime. Part of
the problem comes from the fact that it
was produced by " Federation. " About a
hundred years ago four independent uni-
versities were brought together under
the same umbrella, and two of them ac-
tually moved, so they'd be closer to-
gether. The University sits on about two
hundred acres of prime land in the
middle of Toronto, and at last count (in
1987-1988) it had 3592 full-time faculty
members and 52,258 students. This
makes it the largest university in
Canada. It expanded tremendously
during the salad days of the 1960s, and a
lot of modern ugly efficient buildings
were erected. But there are still some
beautiful old ones. Three of them are
connected with the old independent uni-
versities. Let's take a quick look at them,
and the men who built them.

St. Basil's Church and William Hay
(1818-1888)

St. Michael's College was founded by
the Basilian Fathers as a Catholic Insti-
tution in 1852. It affiliated with the Uni-
versity of Toronto in 1881, and entered
into full federation in 1910. Not too long
after it was established, it moved into an
elegant building that housed, under the
same roof, a church and teaching facili-
ties.

The responsible, William Hay, had
been born at Dikeside, Aberdeenshire,
not too far from Peterhead (the eastern-
most town in Scotland), on 17 May 1818 .
He learned the trade of architect, and
lived in St. John' s, Newfoundland, from
1847 to 1850, as clerk of the works for the
construction of the Anglican Cathedral
of St. John the Baptist. After a brief
return to Scotland, in 1853 he came back
to the new world, eventually settling in
Toronto. He soon became one of the
leading architects there, and within the
next decade designed many buildings, a
few of which are still standing, though
they have been extensively remodeled.
He was the man who built the original
parts of St. Basil's Church and St. Mi-
chael's College, on the campus of the
University of Toronto (1856). He also
designed the school addition to Holy until
1843. It was secularized in 1849, Trinity
Church (1858), closer to down- town
Toronto, and the nearby Scadding House
(about 1860). He was active out- side of
Toronto, and was responsible for St.
George's Anglican Church in New- castle,
forty-five miles to the east of Toronto
(1857), and St. Andrew's Pres- byterian
Church in Guelph, about the same distance
to the west (1857-1858). From 1858 to 1860
he served as a coun- cillor of the
Canadian Institute (now the Royal Canadian
Institute), "the oldest scientific society
in Canada."

Hay was initiated in St. Andrew's
Lodge, No. 1 on the Provincial Register,
Toronto, on 9 May 1854, and soon affil-
iated with St. John's Lodge, No. 55,
which was instituted in 1856. Old re-
cords tell us that he participated in the
Masonic corner-stone laying for Victoria
Hall, in Cobourg, in 1856. He served as
Grand Superintendent of Works for the
Ancient Grand Lodge of Canada, one of
the two independent bodies in Ontario,
in 1857-1858. After the union of the two
Grand Lodges, he was again Grand Su-
perintendent of Works in 1861-1862.
One authority says that he was "an ar-
dent freemason," who was "associated
with many Masonic organizations. " He
left Toronto in 1862, to finally return to
Scotland. His most significant commis-
sion there was the restoration of St.
Giles's Cathedral in Edinburgh (1872-
1883). He died near Edinburgh on 30
May 1888.

University College and Frederic W.
Cumberland (1820-1881)

A Royal Charter was granted to King's
College, in the town of muddy York (the
old name of Toronto), in 1827. Origi-
nally it was an Anglican (Episcopalian)
foundation; it took awhile to get organ-
ized, and it did not begin to hold classes
and in 1853 it established University
College, to be responsible for all the
teaching in Arts. For several years the
new faculty held its classes in the original
King's College site, but in due course it
was able to transfer them into an impres-
sive new building that had been designed
by F.W. Cumberland.

Frederick William Cumberland was
born in London, England, on 10 April
1820, the great great grandson of Ri-
chard Bentley (1662-1742), the finest
student of classical Greek that England
ever produced. Cumberland himself was
trained as a civil engineer and surveyor.
Probably because his wife's sister was
married to Thomas Gibbs Ridout, a
well-known banker of Toronto (who, in-
cidentally, was made an honorary Past

Grand Master in 1859), the young en-
gineer came out to Toronto in 1847. One
of his first jobs here was to lay out the
intersection of Yonge and Bloor Streets
which is still a major landmark of the city.
He soon set up shop as an architect, and
entered into partnership with his wife's
nephew Thomas Ridout. Their first
major building was St. James ' C athedral
(1850). Then in 1852 he established the
firm of Cumberland and Storm, which
over the next fifteen years was re-
sponsible for a number of buildings that
(by some strange oversight) are still
standing. The Post Office they built on
Toronto Street (1853) is now the head-
quarters of the giant Argus Corporation.
Probably their masterpiece was Univer-
sity College (1856-1859); it is still (even
to the writer, who is a graduate and a
teacher from a rival college) the most
beautiful building on the campus. Its
magnificent Norman door provides the
emblem for University (Masonic)
Lodge, No. 496, Toronto. Cumberland
and Storm also carried out the altera-
tions in Osgoode Hall (which is now a
law school), including the splendid Great
Library (1857), and built the Chapel of
St. James the Less (1858).

In 1859 Cumberland was chosen
general manager of the Northern Rail-
way Company, and gradually steam
locomotion came to demand more and
more of his time, until his architectural
partnership was finally dissolved in
1867 . His interest in trains took him into
politics, and he represented Algoma (in
northern Ontario) in both the Provincial
Legislature and the Federal House of
Commons. He was also a Colonel in the
Militia, and helped to found the
Canadian Institute (Royal Canadian In-
stitute).

Frederic William Cumberland was in-
itiated into Freemasonry in St. Andrew ' s
Lodge, No. 1 on the Provincial Register,
Toronto, on 16 August 1853, and served
as Master in 1857. He became District
Deputy Grand Master of Toronto Dis-
trict in the new independent Grand
Lodge of Canada in 1858. He died on 5
August 188 1.

Victoria Collcge and William G.
Storm (1826-1892)

Upper Canada Academy was founded
in Cobourg, a bit more than sixty miles
east of Toronto, in 1836. It was chartered
as Victoria College in 1841, and in 1845
it conferred the first arts degree that was
earned by study at an Ontario institution
of higher learning. Not that it's relevant
for our purposes, but Victoria College
was in the forefront of advanced educa-
tion for women; in 1883 it conferred the
first medical degree to be earned by a
woman in Canada, and one of its
graduates for 1884 was the first woman
to receive the degree of Bachelor of
Science in Ontario. (Tust to set things in
perspective, Oberlin College began to
admit women as students in 1837.) In
1892 Victoria College federated with the
University of Toronto, and moved from
Cobourg, into a new building that had
just been completed.

The architect of this new building, Wil-
liam George Storm, had been born on 29
October 1826, at Burton-uponStather
in Yorkshire, England, where his father
was a builder. In 1830 the family moved
to York (now Toronto), and in 1838 the
senior Storm actually erected the scaffold
on which Lount and Matthews, two of
those condemned to death for their part
in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837,
werc hanged. The son served his appren-
ticeship as an architect, and in 1850 was
given a job in the of fice of ~.W. Cumber-
land, preparing the drawings for St.
James' Cathedral. Then in 1852 Cum-
berland took him on as a partner, and
over the next fifteen years they col-
laborated in a number of major projects.
The senior partner usually gets the credit
for them, but according to one authority
" Storm played an increasing part in the
construction of these buildings." After
Cumberland turned his attention to
trains and politics, Storm continued his
architectural career with distinction.
Two of his more striking commissions
from this period are St. Andrew's
Church, on King Street (1875), and Vic-
toria College, on the campus of the Uni-
versity of Toronto ( 1892)--a building
with which the present writer is well ac-
quainted. One authority writes in appre-
ciation, "If the interior disappoints, the
exterior is an assured, astutely scaled
composition that conveys an enduring
presence. Its balance of horizontals with
verticals, of massive towers with ample
porches, provides the campus with one
of its finest and most imposing struc-
tures. "

William George Storm was initiated
into Freemasonry in St. Andrew's
Lodge, No. 1, Toronto, on 11 June 1850,
and served as Master in 1858 and again
in 1859 . He became District Deputy
Grand Master of Toronto District in
1861. He died on 8 August 1892.

The fourth of the original colleges in the
University of Toronto was Trinity Col-
lege. It was founded in 1851 as an Angli-
can institution, and at once began its
work in a gorgeous new building de-
signed by yet another notable Freema-
son, Kivas Tully (1820-1905), who was
made a Past Grand Master (Honorary)
in 1897. Trinity College entered into
Federation in 1904, and moved to a new
location on the main campus in 1925.
The City allowed the old building to be
torn down in 1956, so we shall not discuss
it further at this time--if only to spare
you a sermon on the self-righteous phil-
istinism of politicians.
There are, as we have said, many more
recent structures in the University of
Toronto. But if you are not a fan of metal
and glass filing cabinets, or if you prefer
buildings that look as if they had aspira-
tions towards higher ideals, you will not
find many that are more satisfying than
these three, St. Basil's Church, Univer-
sity College, and Victoria College--all
three built by Masons, who were in-
itiated into Masonry in the same Lodge
within the space of four years.
Sources o~ Intormatlon:

Procccdings of thc Grand Lodg~ of Canada 1882), 239;
(1893), 171, 312; John Ro~s Robertson, His~ory of
Frccmasoni~J in Canada (Toronto, 1900), Henry T.
Smith, History, St. Andrcu)'sLodgcA.F andA.M.,
No. 16, G.R.C., 1822-1901 (Toronto, 1901), C.B.
Sissons, A Histoty of Victoria Unioc,sity (Toronto,
1952); Eric Arthur, Toronto: No Mcan City
(Tor~,nto, 1964) 245, 251; W. Stewart Wallace,
editor, Thc Macmillan Dictionary of Canadian Biogra-
S,hy (4th edition, revised by W.A. McKay;
Toronto, 1978); Frederick H. Armstrong, in Dic-
~ionary of Canadian Biography 11 (Toronto, 1982)
391-393; Frederick H. Armstrong and Peter
Baskerv,lle, ibid. 11.225-229; Shirley G. Morriss
ioid. 12 (1990) 991-994; W. McLeod, editor,
Whcncc Comc Wc? Frccmasonry in On~ario, 176~-1980
(Hamilton, 1980) 261; Anne Rochon Ford, A Pa~h
no~ S~rcwn wi~h Roscs: Onc Hundrcd Ycars of Womcn a~
~hc Unioc,si~y of Toron~o 188~-1984 (Toronto, 1985)
McLeod, "Noteworthy Canadian Freemasons,"
Ncwslc~c, of ~hc Commi~cc on Masonic Educa~ion 9.1

(Summer 1989) 14-16; 9.2 (Fall 1989) 29-32.

ANOTHER VIEWPOINT...

Bro. R.R. Beardsley's article, "The
Order of Judas Maccabeus" [Oct. 91,
page 8] incorrectly claims that the Jews
under the Maccabees "revolted against
Roman hegemony. . . after the Romans
revolted against the Selucids under An-
tiochus Epiphanes, who were a "succes-
sor" state created by the breakup of the
Alexandrian Empire. Not only were the
Selucids enemies of Rome and Ptolomaic
Egypt (and everyone else in their vicin-
ity), but also the Maccabean rebels made
diplimastic overtures to Rome which re-
sulted much later, in Roman hegemony
over the Hasmonean Jewish state
Selucids .

Evidently Bro. Beardsley has confused
the Selucid act of desecration and the
Maccabean revolt with the Roman dese-
cration and Zealot revolt which occurred
later (in the early Christian period.)

Dennis A. Leuenthal, MPS, Hong Kong

