The Textures of a Lost Toronto:
John Howard's Documentary Art & Drawings - 1830s - 1880s |
INSTITUTIONAL TORONTO
Urban Toronto had its birth in 1793 when a threatened American
invasion led British officials in Upper Canada to establish
a naval arsenal by the shores of Toronto Bay, build Fort York
to defend it, attract a civilian population to supply the military
with goods and services, and move the colonial capital here
from the exposed border town of Niagara.
When John
Howard moved to 'York' 40 years later, the community
had evolved from a backwoods outpost into the province's largest
centre. Yet much of its prosperity and character still came
from its status as the capital and as a garrison town, as well
as in attracting businesses, institutions, and professionals
with a colony-wide interest. In 1834, a year after Howard's
arrival, the province incorporated the town as the 'City of
Toronto' in order to create a municipal structure to meet the
needs of an urbanizing population.
THIRD PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, 1834 (JH)
City of Toronto Toronto Culture, Museums and Heritage Services,
1978.41.30.
The Upper Canadian parliament buildings, designed by Thomas
Rogers and constructed between 1829 and 1832, stood at Front
and Simcoe streets. The surrounding area was largely a mixed
institutional and affluent suburban district that had emerged
after the War of 1812. However, less prestigious structures,
such as immigrant sheds and taverns, stood nearby, as sharp
neighbourhood distinctions did not exist in Georgian Toronto.
The parliament
buildings overlooked Toronto Bay before the waterfront began
to be filled in with the coming of the railways and modern
industrialization in the 1850s.
UPPER CANADA COLLEGE, 1842 (JH)
City of Toronto Toronto Culture, Museums and Heritage Services,
1978.41.95.
Howard's
watercolour records a luncheon held in the prayer hall of
Upper Canada College near the parliament buildings. The event
celebrated the laying of the cornerstone for King's College,
a post-secondary educational institution in today's Queen's
Park (and the forerunner of the University of Toronto). Although
governed and subsidized by the province, UCC and King's fundamentally
were Anglican institutions. They represented an attempt to
make the Church of England the 'established'
church in the province. However, the population was too diverse
and the times were too liberal to achieve that goal. King's
became the non-sectarian University College in 1850, while
UCC became non-denominational and eventually lost government
funding in 1900.
NORTH SIDE OF KING, TORONTO TO CHURCH STREETS, 1835 (JH)
City of Toronto Toronto Culture, Museums and Heritage Services,
1978.41.40.
John Howard's watercolour depicts the 1824 jail, the 1835
fire hall (by Howard), the 1824 courthouse, and the 1833 Anglican
church of St James. These public buildings marked the importance
of both governmental and other organizations in Toronto. For
instance, when the Church of England created the Diocese of
Toronto in 1839, it was natural that St James' would become
the cathedral and that its rector, John Strachan, would be
consecrated bishop.
JAIL AND PROPOSED COURTHOUSE, 1837 (JH)
Toronto Public Library (TRL), 938-1-2. 
The Howard-designed 'Home District Gaol' stood at the southeast
corner of Front and Berkeley streets (but the courthouse was
not built). Constructed between 1837 and 1841, the jail's design
followed 18th-century British precedents, being a 'panopticon,'
which allowed guards at the centre of the building to monitor
the cell wings with ease. The Don Jail replaced it in the 1860s
except for a brief period of military use in 1866-67 to house
prisoners taken during the Fenian Raid.
PROVINCIAL LUNATIC ASYLUM, 1846 (JH)
City of Toronto Toronto Culture, Arts Services, A75-77.
The Provincial
Lunatic Asylum was Howard's greatest building project. Architecturally,
the inspiration for the main façade
was the National Gallery in London, completed shortly before
Howard moved to Canada. (The portico, however, was not built
and another architect constructed the southward-projecting
wings in the 1860s to a different design.) Before the asylum
opened in 1850, the mentally ill either lived with their families
or in jails, but received little, if any, professional care.
THE ASYLUM IN 1867
Toronto Public Library (TRL), T 10965.
LUNATIC
ASYLUM GROUNDS, 1844 (JH)
Toronto Public Library (TRL),
Howard Drawing 423.1.
This
map shows the land set aside for the asylum along Queen
West (at today's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health).
In developing the facility, Howard studied contemporary literature
on asylums and visited similar buildings in the United States,
as well as investigated new developments for providing water,
heat, light, and ventilation in large buildings.
LUNATIC
ASYLUM, UPPER FLOOR AND ATTIC, 1845 (JH)
Archives of Ontario/Archives
de l'Ontario, AO3267.
Patients
were divided by gender and by the severity of their conditions.
Each treatment unit was self-contained, with such facilities
as a dining room serviced by dumbwaiters from the basement
kitchens. Amenities included Protestant, Roman Catholic,
and non-denominational chapels as well as a ballroom where
patients could exercise and socialize. Corridors did double
duty as recreational and visiting areas, and sunrooms overlooked
the grounds. The land around the building contained gardens
where patients worked to help reduce operating costs and
to engage in healthy outdoor labour as part of their treatment.
LUNATIC
ASYLUM, BASEMENT AND GROUND FLOOR, 1845 (JH) Archives of
Ontario/Archives de l'Ontario, AO4699. 
While
this plan conveys the order and rationality of Howard's
concern to create a worthy public asylum, much of the idealism
behind his design was lost when the full facility was not
built, the number of patients admitted exceeded capacity,
and understaffing and other problems subverted the care offered.
CITY
HALL, 1849? (JH)
Toronto Public Library (TRL), Howard Drawing
411.
This
was Toronto's second city hall, built in 1845. While the
drawing is Howard's, the architect was Henry Bowyer Lane,
who produced a sort of Palladian building. Known as the 'New
Market House' it served as city hall until 1899. Howard competed
to be the architect to renovate the building; however the
job went to another, William Thomas.
THIS BUILDING IN 1868, AFTER RENOVATIONS IN THE 1850s
Toronto Public Library (TRL), T 11786.
CHURCH
STREET SEWER FROM RICHMOND TO SHUTER STREETS, 1844 (JH)
City
of Toronto Archives, PT169C-66.
Public
works projects were part of Howard's duties as city surveyor.
These plans are typical of those he created and show the
standard Toronto gravity-fed sewer lines of the period. The
1840s and 1850s saw a recognizably modern city begin to take
shape. This was due partly to population growth, but also
to the innovations of the Victorian era, such as the installation
of sewers and the other mundane elements that made urban
life congenial. For example, gas home and street lighting
came in 1842. A waterworks opened at about the same time,
although it was intended primarily to help fight fires. (Private
wells and carted water remained common, while health problems
associated with bad water persisted for decades to come).
BRIDGE
ACROSS ANN AND McGILL STREETS, 1854 (JH)
City of Toronto
Archives, PT169-43.
Howard
designed bridges, levelled and paved roads, built sidewalks,
and carried out other engineering duties to subdue the landscape
to meet the needs of a growing urban centre. This bridge
design was a standard one used to carry small streams under
road surfaces.
BRIDGE
OVER GOVERNMENT (GARRISON) CREEK, 1848-51? (JH) City of Toronto
Archives, PT169-78.
The location of this bridge is uncertain, but with its Picturesque
aesthetic, it is a more elaborate design than the one
across Ann and McGill streets. (It may have been designed
to improve access to the garrison lands leased from the
military by the City for a park. If so, the bridge may
have been built on the line of King Street, west of Bathurst.)
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JOHN HOWARD'S DOCUMENTARY
ART & DRAWINGS
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