The Architects of our City

One of the most prolific architects in 19th-century Ontario, Henry Langley was born in Toronto in 1836.  After an education at the Toronto Academy, he spent seven years with William Hay from whom he was said to have "obtained a good training in Gothic architecture”.  Hay was a Scottish architect who worked in Toronto and designed a number of significant buildings including the Toronto General Hospital, St. Basil's Church and St. Michael's College.  When Hay returned to Scotland in 1862 to spend the rest of his life restoring St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Langley went into business with Hay's former partner, Thomas Gundry, an English architect.  The firm's strong reputation for design therefore was largely the result of Langley's work.  Langley undertook commissions for residential, commercial and public structures, but soon began to specialize in the design of ecclesiastical buildings.  Working with the firm known initially as Langley, Langley and Burke from 1872 until his retirement, he developed an extensive practice, fashioning some 70 churches throughout the province and altering or enlarging many more.  For an architect to please all these denominations at various times throughout the province probably required an unusual amount of diplomacy and patience.  Yet Henry Langley succeeded in doing just this; by the time of his death in 1907 he had designed churches for virtually every major denomination.  Three different denominations secured his services in Guelph, and he designed churches for at least fifteen other communities in Ontario, with seventeen churches in Toronto alone.  The measure of Langley's influence in church design was best demonstrated by his work in Toronto, where he built or completed the three major churches in the city.  From the late 1860s to the mid 1870s, he added the tower and spire to St. Michael's Roman Catholic Cathedral, the tower and spire of St.  James Anglican Cathedral, and built the "Cathedral of Methodism" - Metropolitan Methodist.  He also built major churches for the Baptists and Presbyterians.

In addition to churches, he and his firm also designed major public buildings in Toronto such as the Eighth Post Office, the Bank of British North America, and McMaster College, as well as mansions for leading businessmen such as William McMaster and Robert Simpson.

Langley was considered to be a leading professional among architects at a time when that occupation was only vaguely defined.  He had received his architectural education by the ideal means, serving a period of apprenticeship with a recognized architect, rather than practicing architecture after training in surveying or civil engineering as many did.  Well regarded by his peers, Langley figured prominently in the development of the architectural profession in Ontario, training many architects who later gained renown.  Throughout his career he promoted a professional approach to architecture.  The list of his pupils includes some of Toronto's finest architects such as Frank Darling, J.C.B. Horwood, Arthur Asa Post, and H.B. Gordon.  Henry Langley was a founding member of the Ontario Society of Artists in 1873, the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts in 1880, an architects association in Toronto in1876, and the Ontario Association of Architects of Architects in 1889.  He also established the endowment of a chair in architecture for the School of Practical Science at the University of Toronto.

In Whitby, Henry Langley is known to have designed twelve buildings, including the All Saints Church, in 1865–66, the St. John’s the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in 1867-68, the Whitby High School in1872-73, the Royal Hotel in 1872-73, the Hopkins’ Music Hall in 1877, Ryerson Hall in 1877 and the Watson Block in 1878.  In the Oshawa area, St. John’s in Port Hope, a stone church of moderate size built in 1867–68; and St Thomas in Brooklin, a modest but exemplary chapel of 1869–70 in board and batten.

In 1867, Henry Langley was commissioned to design the Simcoe St. Methodist Church, now the Simcoe St. United Church, a beautiful buff brick church, the home of many prominent Oshawa families for the last 140 years.

At his death he was characterized as "a man of great kindness of heart, upright in all his dealings with his fellow men, and one who from first to last upheld and practiced honourably his chosen profession."

Henry Langley was buried in the Necropolis in 1907, for which he had designed the chapel, superintendent’s lodge, and entrance gates in 1871–72.