The Textures of a Lost Toronto:
John Howard's Documentary Art & Drawings - 1830s - 1880s |
COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL TORONTO
By 1832, a year before Howard moved to York, the town had
displaced Kingston as Upper Canada's leading urban centre,
with an economy partly based on serving a hinterland that extended
out in a 60-kilometre arc in the pre-railway era as lumbermen
and farmers cleared the forests and transformed the colony's
landscape. The town's expanding port and road connections facilitated
economic growth, helped further by something of a transportation
revolution marked by the coming of steamships on Lake Ontario
(1816), the opening of the Erie and Welland canals (1825 and
1833), and by less dramatic developments, such as the macadamization
of part of Yonge Street (1830s).
Industrial output remained modest in Toronto before the 1860s,
with few operations expanding beyond workshop enterprises to
meet local needs. Yet, portents of the future could be seen
as early as the 1830s with the introduction of steam-driven
machinery in some businesses. Dramatic change began once the
railway arrived in the 1850s, bringing with it modern industrialization,
the filling in of the waterfront, and a corresponding growth
in banks, white-collar businesses, consumerism, and new class
and social structures.
CANADA COMPANY OFFICE, c.1834 (JH)
City of Toronto Toronto Culture, Museums and Heritage Services,
1978.41.60.
The Canada Company purchased a million hectares of land from
the Crown to resell or lease to settlers beginning in the 1820s.
The company's holdings were concentrated mainly in the Huron
Tract of today's southwestern Ontario, and thus the Canada
Company is a good example of how Toronto-centred businesses
exerted influence throughout the province. The Howard-designed
building of 1834 stood on the east side of Frederick Street
between King and Front. Its design followed the architectural
norm in late Georgian Toronto, being a balanced centre-hall
Neoclassical structure.
KING AND YORK STREETS, LOOKING EAST ALONG KING, 1834 (JH)
City of Toronto Toronto Culture, Museums and Heritage Services,
1978.41.61.
The large building on the southeast corner is the Chewett
Building, designed by John Howard in 1833. When built, it was
the community's first office block and the largest single structure
in town. It included offices, shops, residences, and the British
Coffee House (a hotel). For a time, John and Jemima Howard
maintained an in-town residence there.
CHEWETT
BUILDING, 1833 (JH)
Toronto Public Library (TRL), Howard Drawing 201. 
The Chewett Building was typical of 19th-century urban commercial
construction: it took maximum advantage of the land available,
with narrow ground floor shops built to the lot line, and with
storage, offices, and apartments located above. Howard designed
other commercial blocks and smaller one- and two-shop retail
facilities in Toronto and elsewhere in the province.
VICTORIA ROW, 1842 (JH)
Toronto Public Library (TRL), Howard Drawing 221.
Another Howard-designed commercial project was Victoria Row,
on the south side of King Street, west of Church. It was built
in the early 1840s for James McDonell, a government clerk who
had inherited property in the city and who wanted to exploit
its financial potential. (Note the toilet facilities in the
rear sheds.)
VICTORIA ROW, c.1890
Toronto Public Library (TRL), T 12638.
This photograph shows Victoria Row after being modernized
in the Second Empire style in the 1860s. We might wonder what
John Howard thought of the changes as architectural tastes
moved beyond those of his frmative years.
STORE FOR JAMES McDONELL ON CHURCH STREET,
1839? (JH)
Toronto Public Library (TRL), Howard Drawing 248.
This plan contrasts with the other Howard store designs above
because it is a much smaller structure. Note how he used space
efficiently, how a trap door in the driveway allowed for loading
goods into the cellar, and how he laid out the domestic and
retail spaces.
MARKET BLOCK, 1848 (JH)
Toronto Public Library (TRL), Howard Drawing 819.
This map
depicts the area between St Lawrence Market and Church Street
shortly before the Great Fire of 1849. It consisted largely
of rows of masonry buildings facing the streets (heavy lines),
and lesser, mainly wood buildings facing the laneways (thin
lines).
BANK OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA, 1845 (JH)
Toronto Public Library (TRL), Howard Drawing 239.
This impressive
Howard-designed bank dates to 1845-46 and stood at the northeast
corner of Yonge and Wellington streets. Howard
called the architecture 'Modern Greek,' which he interpreted
loosely, and which mimicked Sir John Soane's Bank of England
in London (in a modest way), presumably to convey a sense of
reliable gravity to the bank's clients.
THE BANK OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA, 1867
Toronto Public Library (TRL), T 10463.
UNION MILLS,
WESTON, no date (JH)
Toronto
Public Library (TRL), Howard Drawing 767.
Today's Toronto incorporates dozens of older communities.
Weston was one, a semi-rural village that grew along the Humber
River as a result of pre-modern industrial activity that used
waterpower. During this era Howard designed mills and other
industrial buildings outside of urban Toronto. A major shift
occurred with the coming of wood- and coal-generated steam
power (especially from the 1860s) because factory owners then
could concentrate their operations in emerging railway centres,
such as Toronto and Hamilton.
TAYLOR'S WHARF, 1835 (JH)
City of Toronto Toronto Culture, Museums and Heritage Services,
1978.41.51.
This view shows Taylor's Wharf at the foot of Frederick Street
(in the mid background) and the Gooderham windmill (right background).
The mill was unusual because most industry in Georgian Canada
favoured waterpower.
ENOCH TURNER'S PROPERTY, 1854 (JH)
Toronto Public Library (TRL), Howard Drawing 825.
Toronto's
famous brewer (and founder of his eponymous free school)
had property at the southeast corner of Palace (Front) and
Parliament streets. The orientation of the plan is upside-down,
with 'south'
being at the top. Note how Turner's business and home sat
in close proximity to each other. That was common before
later industrialization led wealthy producers and merchants
to segregate their homes in neighbourhoods away from their
enterprises and their workers.
GARRISON CREEK, 1851 (JH)
Toronto Public Library (TRL), Howard Drawing 737.
Among the many features on this map, perhaps the most interesting
are the proposed railway lines. When railways came to Toronto,
the undeveloped linear creek valleys became access routes to
bring trains into the heart of the city. Note the original
base of Dundas Street (now Ossington Avenue south of Dundas).
EXPLORE JOHN HOWARD'S DOCUMENTARY ART & DRAWINGS
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