St. Catharines Collegiate – celebrating 100 years
This Saturday St. Catharines Collegiate is celebrating a centenary, its 100th anniversary reunion.
But the history of today’s collegiate extends a lot further back than just a century — the collegiate can trace its roots in this community back to the mid-1820s.
It was in 1827 that a group of prominent local citizens met to discuss how to establish a secondary school which would continue the education of local students who until then had been limited to the very basic grade school education then available in this community.
William Hamilton Merritt contributed a small plot of land on Church Street on which the school could be built, and donations were sought to cover the costs of building the new school and hiring its first teachers. It was on Sept. 14, 1829, that the new school opened its doors. It was called the Grantham Academy. It was a co-ed institution — open to boys and girls — very unusual at that time.
The governance of the school underwent major changes in the mid-1840s. The school was renamed St. Catharines District Grammar School and, sadly, the school’s new trustees turned it into a boys-only institution (which quickly led to the opening of several private schools for girls in the village).
The passing of the Ontario School Act of 1871 brought about extensive reforms in schools, both primary and secondary. The secondary schools were divided into two streams, high schools and collegiate institutes, and it was at this time that the former Grantham Academy/District Grammar School became St. Catharines Collegiate Institute and Vocational School, receiving provincial funding for the first time.
By this time — 40 years after this school’s founding — the St. Catharines had grown and the student body grew with it. Now a public school with public funds, St. Catharines Collegiate could expand its facilities. In 1873 modest sized wings were added to the east and west ends of the original building. In 1880 an even larger wing was added to the north side of the school, and a bell tower was added to the front of the building, producing the appearance we see in our second photo.
By the early years of the 20th century the Collegiate Institute was experiencing further growing pains. Enough funds were accumulated then to expand the facility further — a new auditorium and gymnasium building (The Annex) was opened behind the original building in 1911.
But during the 1910s it became clear to the board of education that it had gone as far as it could go with the Church Street property. Funds had to be raised and plans made for a proper 20th-century building to replace the original 1829 building and its subsequent additions.
Following the end of the First World War, money was available again for domestic improvements and plans were made for a new Collegiate. But where should it be built? The board of education wanted to build it on the Riordon property, on Geneva Street where Garden City Arena and Rex Stimers Arena now stand.
William B. Burgoyne, publisher of The Standard, disagreed. He wanted the school to be built in a large open space on the north side of Church Street east of Geneva — across from where the B’nai Israel Jewish synagogue stands today, and extending about two-thirds of the way toward Welland Avenue.
After months of discussions about the matter, during which it even became an issue in the municipal election held on New Year’s Day 1922, a third location was finally chosen — today’s site on Catherine Street. The building would take over the Athletic Lacrosse Grounds on the southeast corner of Maple and Catherine streets along with a residential area extending southward along Catherine to Hetherington, where a row of existing houses would have to be torn down.
Construction of the new Collegiate began in mid-1922 and the school was opened in time for the start of the school year in September 1923.
So, this weekend hundreds of the school’s former students will gather at the Collegiate on Catherine Street to celebrate the school’s 100th anniversary reunion. Enjoy!
The St. Catharines Collegiate on Church Street as it looked after the expansion of the original Grantham Academy building in the 1870s. Photo taken in 1904.
EDWIN POOLE