The Architects of our City

Roy Hartnoll Bishop was born to the family of Charles and Mary Bishop on August 4 1887.  Roys father Charles was a prominent Toronto architect and Superintendent of Buildings for the Toronto School Board.  Charles, the oldest of seven attended school in Toronto and graduated from the School of Architecture in 1912.  He worked for the firms Darling and Pearson, Chapman and McGiffen and as a draftsman for Sproat and Rolph before he served as Lieutenant-Colonel with the Royal Canadian Engineers from 1914 to 1918.  During the war, Roy was wounded at Ypres and Arras and was mentioned for his tunneling work at Vimy and for his bridge construction at Cambrai. He served during the German occupation and spent nine months on the Rhine at Bonn. He married Caroline Steward in 1925 and they had two sons Brian and Don.

In 1920, he partnered with Chapman and Oxley to design the King Street Public School in Whitby, the Pure Food Building at the Canadian National Exhibition, the Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion in 1922, Albert College in Belleville and the Maple Leaf Stadium on the Lakeshore at Bathurst in 1925.

In 1924, Roy open his own offices with a branch office at the corner of Bond and Mary in Oshawa.  In Oshawa, Roy designed the General Motor Administration Offices on William St. in 1927.  He designed the original building for the Skinner Co which is the heart of the A. G. Simpson factory.  He partnered with Charles Dolphin to design the garage for Ontario Motor Sales at Mary and King which became the Oshawa Daily

Sunnyside Pavilion


Maple Leaf Stadium and Tip top Tailors from above

Times building.  He worked for the General Motors to develop 6 house designs for employees as part of General Motors home building plan in the Mary St. North area.  Roy also designed an addition to the W. E. Phillips Co. in 1927.  Numerous other homes were designed, the most notable was the Davis residence and the Ewart McLaughlin house on Simcoe St. N.

1929 was a busy year for Roy.  He designed one of the best Art Deco buildings in Toronto.  Tip Top Tailors commissioned Roy to design their new offices on the Lakeshore near Bathurst, right next to the Maple Leaf Stadium that Roy partnered to design years ago.  He also designed the Kanawa hotel in Wasaga Beach, a home for Paul Meredith on Binscarth Ave and renovated the Gordon Lefebvres Oakville home, Holyrood.

In 1930, he designed the Windsor Hotel in Sault Ste Marie for the CPR, the Labour Temple at Church and Shulter, the Hoar Transport Terminal and a garage on the old Loretto Abbey property at Dundas East and Bond in 1932.

In 1940, Roy served as a Major with the RCAF serving as the Chief Flight Control Officer at Trenton and at Uplands Airport. He served 1 year as a RCAF Conducting Officer in the North Altantic making 12 crossings and 10 months at the No. 1 Main Depot in Toronto.

He became the staff architect for the Dominion Food stores in 1945. He was in charge of their post war expansion plans which included remodelling the old York Arsenal into the Dominion Head Office and designing stores across the country.

He was a member of Ontario Association of Architects and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. He was a director of Military Engineers Society of Canada and the Chairman of the Toronto Branch.

Roy passed away on December 28 1948 and is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.