Old Elora school found new life as arts centre
The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
When the Upper Grand District School Board closed the old Elora Junior School (now the Elora Centre for the Arts) in 1997, citing “safety issues,” the oldest portion of the school had been in continuous service for 141 years.
That easily made it the oldest school in Wellington County, and perhaps the entire province.
Only a portion of the building dates to 1856. There were a series of additions and major renovations over the years, ending in 1939 with the construction of the three-storey wing at the southwest corner, built to house an expanded high school that shared the complex with the public school.
Because of the numerous additions, and the operation of the Elora High School in the building from 1874 until 1959, the history of the structure is a complicated one, and often baffling to those unfamiliar with the it. Adding to the confusion are the various architectural styles, and the efforts by school boards to modernize the building with larger windows. To some eyes the building is a horror. Others see much charm in it due in part to the use of rubble stone construction.
Indeed, the three-storey portion of 1939 is the last use of that type of construction in a major building in Elora.
By tracing the history of the building and its major additions, the logic of the structure starts to make sense. The earliest part of the building, the southeast portion of 1856, was constructed as the village’s girls’ school.
Most larger centres in the 1850s segregated the boys and girls. It was not out of prudishness, but to offer different courses. The girls’ schools concentrated on household skills, art and needlework, in addition to basic language skills and arithmetic. The boys’ courses covered languages, arithmetic and sciences.
The Elora girls’ school operated in various rented rooms for four years before the permanent quarters were built in 1856. For a time, enrolment tickled the 100 mark. Some parents developed a low opinion of the girls’ schools thinking them snobbish and the useful content of the curriculum to be a watered-down version of what was offered to the boys. Consequently, they enrolled their daughters in the boys’ school, defying the regulations.
These were the days before compulsory schooling, which was not established until 1871. Nevertheless, all children, with few exceptions, attended school for at least a few years, when they were not required to help around the house or their father’s workplace. In general, girls attended school more than boys. Girls were required for a narrower range of chores around the house, and when they grew older and married, they frequently looked after the paper work and accounts for their husband’s business. And quite a few went on to a few years of teaching before marrying. In some years the number of girls on the attendance rolls was twice that of boys.
Tuition fees were originally part of the school system, but were abolished for public schools in 1861. That resulted in a jump in attendance at both the girls’ school and the boys’ school, which was then in a log building on McNab Street (now incorporated into a house at 37 McNab). With a growing population in Elora, and many farmers sending their children to Elora for school, crowding problems became acute by the mid 1860s. In 1865 the school board decided to build a new boys’ school adjacent to the existing girls’ school. Opening the following year, it was a two-room, one storey building, immediately to the north of the girls’ school, and connected to it with a corridor.
Enrolment for the two schools by the then totalled about 200, but in practice it was rare for all students to be at school on any given day. Most days only about 60% were present. With three classrooms in operation, that meant that about 65 were enrolled, and about 40 in each classroom on a typical day.
Later in the decade the school board gave up on the segregated curriculum. In 1870 it divided the girls’ school into two rooms, and hired a fourth teacher. That year it called for tenders for a major addition to the school buildings, then consisting of the two one-storey structures connected by a corridor.
When tenders came in far above expectations, the board cancelled the project. New construction did proceed in 1871, with the addition of a second storey to the old girls’ school and some other renovations.
More significant that year was the hiring of David Boyle as principal in July. He was then the teacher at Middlebrook School in Pilkington, and had previously trained as a blacksmith. It was a controversial hiring. Boyle lacked the formal qualifications for the position. The board, impressed with his achievements at Middlebrook, defied the provincial government when the Department of Education advised that Boyle could not be principal. The board was vindicated. Boyle would hold the position until 1881, and during that decade he became the most notable educator in Elora’s history.
Boyle began his duties at the same time as compulsory schooling was enacted in Ontario for all children between 8 and 14. A sizable minority of parents defied the law for the first couple of years, but it soon gained wide acceptance. In 1873 Boyle had 395 students on his rolls but only four classrooms. When more than half the students showed up it was pure pandemonium. New construction was clearly imperative.
The board hired local engineer and architect John Taylor to design and supervise construction of a large addition. Working closely with Boyle, Taylor came up with a design that expanded the 1866 boy’s school wing, and added a second storey to it, along with a wing to the north toward Knox Church.
The result was a “T” shaped building, containing six classrooms, and providing windows and ventilation on three sides for each classroom. The windows were tall and fairly narrow. Boyle wanted light and ventilation, but also desired plenty of wall space for maps and diagrams. Both Taylor and Boyle were fresh-air enthusiasts. Taylor designed a complicated ventilation system that drew air under the floor and distributed it to all the classrooms. It was a good concept, but never did work effectively. Portions of the system may still be in the building to this day.
As usual, the board had underestimated costs. The project had been budgeted at $2,500. When all the bills were in, they totalled more than $3,300. The cost, combined with the design, provoked much controversy in the village. Many considered the building an expensive botch.
As events turned out, the large addition proved to be a wise move. In March 1874 the High School’s cramped log building on David Street burned to the ground. It had opened in 1849 as the Elora Grammar School. The public and high school boards quickly reached an agreement to move the high school into the former girls’ school wing. The public school would move entirely into the new “T” shaped building to the north.
The public school was originally intended to have six classrooms, but the penny-pinching board reduced that to five as an economy measure. That left a spare room for Boyle to use exclusively as his school museum. By the late 1870s the Elora Museum, under Boyle’s guidance, became nationally famous, but it began as a collection of archaeological specimens, minerals, curiosities and other artifacts that Boyle and his staff used as teaching aids. In part it was an outgrowth of Boyle’s spare time fascinations, first with geology and then with Indigenous archaeology. Part of Boyle’s collection is now at the Royal Ontario Museum.
With the construction of 1871 and 1874, the school building gained an appearance that is easily recognizable today. Over the years there were many improvements and renovations: the first central heating system in 1895, replacing stoves in each classroom; and larger windows in two classrooms in 1914, for example.
Inspectors’ reports from the 1920s described the school as the worst in the area. The list grew longer by the year: there were no washrooms or running water, the central heating system was entirely inadequate, not all rooms had electric light, and ventilation was poor.
Elora council considered replacing the building in the mid 1920s, but balked at the cost estimate: $60,000. Instead, a comprehensive renovation plan dealt with the problems. Washrooms were added in the alcove between the old girls’ and boys’ schools. Larger windows replaced older ones in the high school rooms, and a new electrical system provided lighting to all classrooms in the structure. Eight years later, a new steam heating system, using radiators, replaced the older hot air system.
In the mid 1930s the high school board, under directives to add shop classes and home economics to the curriculum, decided to add a new wing. Construction of the three-storey addition, designed in 1937, was delayed two years while the board and council bickered over the cost of $18,000.
When the new Elora High School (now Elora Public School), on the east end of Elora, opened in 1959 the public school took over the entire older building. Conversion of the high school in 1970 to Elora Senior School reduced the old building to Elora Junior, with classes from kindergarten to Grade 6. The building operated under that name until its closure in 1997.
Today, with a new mandate, and a historical designation, the old school building is seeing ever increasing use as the Elora Centre for the Arts.
It brings pleasure to former students, when they enter the building to see their old school still contributing to the community after 150 years (in 2026 that is 170 years).
*This column was originally published in the Advertiser on June 9, 2006.