Aug. 16th. [1849]—Visited the Court-house where the sessions are held, and where the Sheriff and the Treasurer (Col. Hewat) have their offices. It is a solid stone building, with a district prison behind it. How do prisons proclaim the general depravity of human nature! Go where you will, you find prisons. Walked about the town of Guelph; the locality is diversified and intermixed with verdure and trees, and surrounded at the distance of half a mile and with the wild native forest, with cultivated clearings here and there. From the eminence opposite to the Court-house, the prospect is delightful, and Guelph truly appears “beautiful for situation.”The Courthouse, and jail, are testimony both to the assertion of the law as established by government and to the tragic failure of the citizenry to live up to their legal obligations. (The justice of the law itself the Major sets aside in his remarks.)
Major Thornton says little about the appearance of courthouse but notes that it is well-situated. Anyone overlooking Guelph from "the eminence opposite" ("Grange Hill" today) would note the centrality of the courthouse on the town site. It's placement on rising ground across Woolwich Street from the Speed River gave it physical prominence in keeping with its social significance. Added to this significance is the neighbouring jail, speaking to the potential stakes involved in judicial proceedings, not excluding the administration of capital punishment.
It was not inevitable that Guelph should have a grand courthouse at all. In the eyes of the British administration, the Guelph region was initially part of the teutonic-sounding District of Hesse, created in the wake of the American Revolution. Court proceedings for the expansive district were held in Detroit, until that was handed over to the United States in 1794.
When Guelph was founded in 1827 by John Galt, it was considered part of the Gore District (founded in 1816, named after Francis Gore, then the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada) with its seat in Hamilton. Some Guelph worthies were appointed as Commissioners of the Peace (think "Justice of the Peace"), namely William "Tiger" Dunlop, Col. Lampray, and Messrs. Pryor, Brewster, Hodgert, and Strange, who were empowered to handle minor criminal matter locally, either individually or in panels in the Court of Quarter-Sessions. Minor civils suits were adjudicated locally by the Court of Requests.
No special building was required for these matters. Indeed, legal proceedings were held at the British Coffee House initially. This arrangement was not unusual in Upper Canada: the convenience of holding court proceedings in a tavern buliding need not be elaborated.
However, major legal proceedings were undertaken in Hamilton, the district centre. For example, trials of people accused of aiding and abetting William Lyon Mackenzie during the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 were held there. Difficulties experienced in arranging for prisoners and witnesses from Guelph to attend proceedings in Hamilton over poor roads, in bad winter weather, and with lacklustre accommodations illustrated the deficiences of the District's legal arrangements.
In 1840, the government shuffled the cards again. Guelph became part of the new District of Wellington, which included not only today's Wellington County but also much of today's Grey, Bruce, and Waterloo counties. The new district would require a courthouse in keeping with its role as the regional seat of justice. Supporters of Berlin (Kitchener), Fergus, Guelph, Preston and Waterloo argued for their towns to be declared the district capital. In the end, Guelph won and the Act stipulated that it should be the judicial seat of the new district as soon as a suitable courthouse could be inaugurated.
Perhaps, in keeping with Major Thornton's concerns about the depravity of humanity, a jail was built first, starting in 1839 and being completed the following year. In terms of design, it is notable as one of Guelph's few octagonal structures, later joined by the "Palace" in Exhibition Park.
Construction of a new courthouse did not commence right away. Court proceedings were held at the Suffolk Hotel (corner of Gordon and Fountain Streets), where rooms upstairs were converted for use as a court room, judge's chambers, etc. After this hotel burned down, it was replaced by the Red Lion Hotel (later Fountain House, which survives to this day). The fire may have persuaded the building committee to get on with construction of a new, more dignified and less combustable structure. Construction was set in motion in 1842 and the edifice completed in 1844.
There is some ambiguity as to who designed the structure. James Innes (Mercury, 8 March 1866) implies that the designer was Thomas Young, the Toronto architect who is known to have designed the jail. However, as Ken Seiling (1980) points out, no firsthand record explicitly identifies the architect of the courthouse in particular. It seems likely, though, that the building committee in charge of both structures bought the plans for the jail and courthouse from Young at the same time.
Having said that, some local reports name local builder and architect David Allan as the designer. Guelph notable John Higinbotham (1933) relates the following:
David Allan studied architecture with Sir David Bryce, but did not practise it as a profession, although he designed and superintended the erection of the Court House, Saint Andrew’s Church and his own mills in Guelph, all of them monuments of stability and most graceful in their lines.David Allan was Higinbotham's grandfather. Perhaps the intervening years enlarged his grandfather's role in the matter of the courthouse.
Other records name a few individuals who, along with David Allan, were involved in construction of the courthouse. The Wellington County Historical Atlas (1906) notes that John Black "assisted to build" both the jail and the courthouse. Arthur McQuillan, a noted local builder, recalled that his father James the stone mason had a hand in building the courthouse along with many of Guelph's other early, stone buildings (Mercury, 28 April 1923). Also, Thomas McBride, resident of Guelph since 1828, worked on the courthouse in his capacity as a carpenter (Mercury, 20 July 1927).
The style of the architecture has been described as "Regency—Romantic stream" (MacRae 1983), meaning that it has a symmetric facade (more or less classical in inspiration) but incorporates a number of gothic elements, including battlements, corner towers, and stone construction. In terms of the motivation of this style, MacRae (1983, p. 259) states that it "could produce an expression of modern sophistication and yet imply dungeons," which does seem to fit. As such, Guelph's courthouse was only the second courthouse in Ontario designed in this style, the first being the London District (now Middlesex County) courthouse in London, Ontario.
MacRae (1983, pp. 104—105) provides a nice description of the new building's configuration:
Young designed the second Upper Canadian castellated courthouse around its ceremonial heart, the courtroom. Externally, he expressed this by buttressing the centre with four protective towers, the northern pair serving as stair towers and having matching entrance doorways in their bases. The central space above the courtroom was designated for the sittings of the grand jury, still a large and important body in 1837. All windows in the north facade of the Guelph building were large, their transoms and French casements glazed with leaded, diamond-shaped panes. Both the judges and the magistrates were comforted by fireplaces, as were the sheriff and court officials in the rooms overhead. The second floor office of the district treasurer contained the only provision planned in 1837 for the safe-keeping of documents or money: a shallow recess in the thick stone partition wall, fitted with an iron door. The south-east tower housed the constables on the ground floor, near the door in the courtroom leading to the jail. They shared their space for a time with the "court housekeeper," or janitor, one of whose duties was to see that the courtroom floor was thickly strewn with fresh sawdust during the Assizes—an oblique comment both on the state of the District roadways and on the prevalence of tobacco chewing among the spectators.The accompanying figure gives a basic overview of the building's elevation and plan:
Readers familiar with the courthouse today will note that it now appears considerably different. Indeed, repairs and renovations began when the structure was only a few years old. These are discussed in detail by Seiling (1983). Major renovations and additions were undertaken in 1850, 1873, 1953, 1955, 1963, and 1982.
The horse-head hitching posts that appear in front of the courthouse in many older illustrations were installed in 1877.
The postcard above provides a typical view of the courthouse from down Woolwich Street. The jail is visible to the left, and three men can be made out standing at the front entrace. The hitching posts are still evident by the roadside. The national flag flies from a pole on the roof. The postcard has the older, undivided back format with a message written on the front: "The compliments of the season to Mr. and Mrs. Church. // John Simpson" The card was sent to Mrs. Church of Victoria, BC, on 24 December 1904. If it were not for the date, the postcard could be understood as an ironic notification of the launch of a lawsuit, "compliments" of the sender. Instead, the card serves to remind us that people often paid little attention to images on the postcards that they sent for correspondence.
The postcard above provides a similar view, although it has been colourized and the jail behind the courthouse seems to have been removed from view. What appears to be a curious sort of large faucet is visible in the centre foreground by the side of the street. Was this fixture some sort of hydrant? Horse-watering convenience? The postcard was sent on 7 September 1909 to a Miss A.E. Scott in Tasmania with the message: "Many thanks for pretty postal[.] hope you like this one. I have been away on my holidays or you would have got an answer sooner. ans soon [sic] Reg" The message suggests that this image was chosen deliberately. Perhaps Miss Scott collected postcards of courthouses. It seems likely that she was a stamp collector too—putting the stamps on the front would allow them to be visible if the postcard were pasted into an album, as many were.
The postcard above provides a view of the courthouse from up Woolwich Street. One prominent feature in this postcard is the substantial mast planted in front of the courthouse. Although we cannot see the top, it may have been put there in lieu of the flagpole that was evident on top of the courthouse in earlier images but now seems to be missing. A standard fire hydrant can be glimpsed behind a horse-head hitching post in the lower, centre foreground. A group of four young men can be seen sitting about the courthouse's front door. Hopefully, they were not planning anything that would get them into trouble.
The courthouse had a near death experience in the late 1970s when Wellington County considered doing away with it as part of plans to modernize their operations. Happily, the Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee was able to persuade the County to "recycle" the building and request that the City of Guelph give it a heritage designation, which was accomplished in 1980.
This image was probably taken at the time of the Old Home Week Guelph in 1913. Note the people in good clothes heading up Woolwich Street. The street also sports a new lighting system and the stairs connecting the street to the sidewalk in front of the Court House. The card was mailed on 23 September 1914 and conveys some sad news: "My dear[,] just a line to tell you our barn was burnt down last night[.] all we could save was the horse and buggie and pigs[.] it was struck with lightning and was burnt down in about 15 minutes. Clara" This incident is what lawyers would call an Act of God.
Naturally, the courthouse was the site of many trials and other legal proceedings. The most discussed of these were the ones that involved capital punishment. The first of these was the trial of Charles Coghlin in 1847, who was accused of the murder of Richard Oliver in the course of a fight. Coghlin was found guilty and hanged from a gallows erected for the purpose outside of the courthouse. This and later examples are discussed by Irwin (2002).
While the primary function of the courthouse was to serve as the locus for regional legal proceedings, the courthouse made itself available for a variety of civic functions. One such function was as a place of worship. In 1851, for example, the Parochial Association of St. George's Church was held in the courthouse, apparently to the satisfaction of all concerned.
After the original St. Andrew's church on the Market Square was purchased by the town fathers to make way for the (old) city hall (now the site of the Ontario Court of Justice!) in 1856, the Presbyterian congregation met in the courthouse until their new building on Norfolk Street was completed two years later.
As noted in my earlier post on the origin of Chalmers Church, the congregation of Knox Church split up in 1869, apparently due to division regarding the behavior of their minister, the Reverend Ball. The breakway faction, no longer willing to congregate under the same roof, undertook to build their own, which became Chalmers Church, only a few doors down Quebec Street. Of course, churches cannot be built at the snap of a finger, so the rebel faction met for worship in the courthouse until 1871, when their new edifice was complete.
Besides providing space for religious observance, the courthouse served several other important functions. For example, it provided chambers for the Guelph and County councils until those bodies arranged to build dedicated structures of their own.
As the first "monumental" government structure raised in Guelph, the courthouse was the place to hold or to bless important events. For example, when the first train to visit Guelph arrived on the new Grand Trunk Railway tracks downtown on 30 January 1856, the party of dignitaries, including the Governor General, that arrived aboard her was escorted to the courthouse for a celebratory round of speeches. After that, the party retired to the British Hotel for libations.
On 18 September 1856, when the cornerstone of the (old) city hall was laid, the Town Council, contractors, and various well-wishers assembled at the courthouse and, led by the band of the rifle corps, marched in procession to the site of the new building. It seems that the glamour of the old building was needed to add to the dignity of the new one, something that was best conveyed physically by a procession.
In his history of Guelph, A.E. Byerly (1935, p. 95) notes that some concerts were held the courthouse, for example:
In 1857 efforts were started to build a rectory for the Catholic clergy and James G. Moylan advertised a Bazaar and Concert for Easter evening, April 14, 1857, at the Court House, to raise funds for the building.Did the conductor use the judge's gavel?
Finally, the Centennial issue of the Mercury (20 July 1927) notes that the courthouse had a lawn bowling team!
While the Guelph Bowling Club is the oldest organization and boasts the largest membership, other flourishing bowling bodies are the Court House, Hillcrest, Reformatory and Homewood. These clubs are all fortunate in having excellent greens, and inter-club matches which are arranged from time to time always create considerable interest.Did the courthouse team have an advantage? Imagine disputing calls with a teams of judges. (The courthouse, now the Wellington County Administration building, today. Courtesy of Google Street View.)
Things have changed a great deal for the courthouse since Major Thornton's visit in 1849. It has perhaps become less noticeable as its environs have filled in with other structures. It is now an office building that plays a less obvious role in the civic life of the county than it did as a courthouse. It hasn't featured on a Guelph postcard for quite some time. Still, unlike other old Guelph buildings, such as its former neighbour the Priory, it has adapted and survived and invites us to recollect its role in the judicial history of the Royal City.
Works consulted include:
- Allinson, C.L.C. (1967). "Courts and Court-buidings at Guelph."
- Burrows, C.A. (1877). "The annals of the town of Guelph."
- Byerly, A.E. (1935). "The beginning of things in Wellington and Waterloo Counties."
- Higinbotham, J.D. (1933). "When the west was won."
- Irwin, R. (2002). "Capital punishment in Wellington County." Wellington County History 15:31–44.
- Seiling, K. (1983). "Wellington County Courthouse: A link with the past." [Wellington County Museum and Archives A2008.112]
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