BY VERONICA STIENBURG, ARCHIVIST
The Sisters of Providence started teaching at St. John’s school in Perth, Ontario in September 1892. Their first convent was a house which served them for over 10 years until they needed more space. In 1904 the congregation commissioned H.P. Smith, a Kingston architect, to design a convent for the Sisters, to be built beside the rectory of St. John’s Parish. In the Archives, we have some beautiful coloured presentation drawings, showing the proposed design of the new convent.
Here is a 1904 presentation drawing of the Front Elevation of the building and two photographs of the actual built convent. Do you notice any differences between the plans and the photographs?
You may have noticed that a three-side semicircle protrudes on the ground floor on the left side of the building, but there is no matching protrusion on the right side as there is in the plans. Also, the central part of the building is a bit longer in the plans than what was built. There are three windows on either side of the main entrance in the plans, but the convent was actually built with only two on each side. The main entrance doesn’t have a porch in the plans, but neither does the earlier photograph, which shows that the porch at the front door was added well after construction.
H.P. Smith, Architectural Plans for St. John’s Convent, Perth, 1904.
Postcard of St. John’s Convent, Perth ca. 1910-1915
