William Hay (architect)

William Hay (17 May 1818 – 30 May 1888) was a Scottish

Hay tackled his first job as an architect at the age of 24 with the St James Episcopal Church in Cruden Bay in 1842–1843. He married his first wife, Janet Reid (1819–1860), in 1844, and that same year relocated to Edinburgh to become an assistant to architect John Henderson.^[2]

After working with Henderson for two years, Hay moved to London to apprentice with George Gilbert Scott in 1846. Scott entrusted him with overseeing the building of the nave of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in St. John's, Newfoundland. For that project he travelled throughout England and Scotland in late 1846 and early 1847 to acquire materials and skilled craftsmen. In April 1847 he, along with his wife and her brother Thomas (their ward), sailed to Newfoundland. He remained there until the nave was completed in 1850.^[1]

Hay spent some time in his native town working in 1850–1853, building there St. John's Episcopal Church, Longside and a house at No. 22 Broad Street for his mother, Jean Hay (née Alexander). During this time he considered setting up practice in either Montreal, Canada East, or Chicago, Illinois, and made visits to those cities. He ultimately settled on establishing his practice in Toronto, and accordingly moved there in late 1853. He remained in that city until late 1861, following the sudden death of his wife, who never bore children, in 1860.^[1]

While in Toronto, Hay developed a highly successful architecture firm which he left to his recently acquired partner, Thomas Gundry. His apprentice

After some time spent in Scotland in 1861, Hay spent the year 1862 in Bermuda consulting on problems developed during the building of the first Trinity Church, started in 1844 in Hamilton. He had previously been consulted in 1848–1849 for work on the church by Bishop Reid; having reviewed James Cranston of Oxford's 1844 designs for the structure. He had made several alterations to those plans at that time. The church was completed in at least two stages but was destroyed by arson in 1884. Hay, who also designed a replacement church in Bermuda for the town of St George's (begun in 1874 but never completed) [3] was approached to design the replacement Trinity Church in the neo-Gothic style. Built between 1886–1905 and designated a cathedral in 1894,^[4] it was his last significant work and his most famous.^[5]

In 1862 Hay formed a partnership with architect David Stirling in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They worked together through 1865 on the Halifax Club (1862), Alexander Keith's residence (1863), and a new Provincial Building designed for use as a post office, customs house, and railway department (built from 1863 to 1868, now the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia).^[6] He married his second wife, Jemima Huddleston (1838–1905) of Ryde, Isle of Wight, in 1864. The couple produced one daughter, Fanny, and settled in Edinburgh where Hay set up a new practice.^[1]

In 1871 he was hired by Sir

Selected works

Building	Year Completed	Builder	Style	Source	Location	Image
St. Michael's College	1856	William Hay (architect)	Gothic architecture	2	50 Saint Joseph Street Toronto, Ontario
St. Basil's Church, Toronto	1855–1856	William Hay (architect)	Gothic architecture		St. Joseph Street west of Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario
Oaklands	1860	John Macdonald, design William Hay	Gothic architecture	8	De La Salle College, Toronto, Ontario
Holy Trinity Rectory	1861	William Hay (architect)	Gothic architecture	15	10 Trinity Square, Toronto, Ontario
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia	1863–1868	William Hay (architect)	Gothic architecture		Halifax, Nova Scotia
St. Giles' Cathedral	1872–1884	William Hay (architect) and George Henderson (architect)	Gothic architecture		Edinburgh, Scotland
Bermuda Cathedral	1885	William Hay (architect) and George Henderson (architect)	Gothic architecture		Hamilton, Bermuda

References

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