Tuesday Treasures Around the World

Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.
Travel Tuesday
Our World Tuesday
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My Corner of the World


Toronto ON

I'm going to continue with the University of Toronto for the next few weeks.


My photos have been taken over a number of years.

Victoria University is a college of the University of Toronto, founded in 1836 and named for Queen Victoria. It is commonly called Victoria College, informally Vic, after the original academic component that now forms its undergraduate division. Since 1928, Victoria College has retained secular studies in the liberal arts and sciences while Emmanuel College has functioned as its postgraduate theological college.


Photo - Photographs and caption by Philip V. Allinghgam.

I showed Annesley Hall last week, which belongs to Victoria College.

Margaret Atwood, Donald Sutherland and Norman Jewison are Victoria College alumni.

Victoria College was founded as the Upper Canada Academy by the Wesleyan Methodist Church.  In 1836, Egerton Ryerson received a royal charter for the institution from King William IV in England, while the Upper Canadian government was hesitant to provide a charter to a Methodist institution. The school officially opened to male and female students on October 12, 1836, with Ryerson as the first president and Matthew Richey as principal. Although the school taught a variety of liberal arts subjects, it also functioned as an unofficial Methodist seminary. In 1841, it was incorporated as Victoria College, named in honour of Queen Victoria, and finally received a charter from the Upper Canadian Legislature.

Missionary zeal was strong at Victoria College, at the University of Toronto, from the 1890s through the 1920s.

James Loudon, a former President of the federated universities, had prohibited dancing at the University of Toronto until 1896. However, dancing at Victoria was not officially permissible until thirty years later, in 1926.

Carved over this entrance “The Truth Shall Make You Free”- a tangible and enduring reminder of the legacy of the Victoria College missionaries.

As we entered we saw these two stained glass windows our the door.

This is another building belonging to Victoria, Burwash Dining Hall.

Emmanuel College has its origins in Victoria College, a Methodist college founded in 1836. From 1871 it operated a Faculty of Theology training candidates for the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. In 1884, with the merger of the Wesleyan Methodists and the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) into a single Methodist Church of Canada, the seminary the MEC had established at Albert University in 1857 merged into Victoria.

When the merger in turn to create the United Church of Canada took place in 1925, a number of congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Canada chose to remain a distinct denomination. Knox College, University of Toronto, founded as the Free Church rival to Queen's during the Disruption of 1843 and favourable to church union, was expected to serve as the new church's main seminary. However, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario awarded the building to the continuing Presbyterians. The faculty and most students of Knox left to form "Union College" with the Faculty of Theology at Victoria. Shortly renamed Emmanuel College, the new college became affiliated with the University of Toronto as a United Church of Canada seminary in 1925.The Emmanuel College, Toronto main building was designed by architect Henry Sproatt.

Northrup Frye Hall

Born in Sherbrooke, Quebec but raised in Moncton, New Brunswick, Northrup Frye was the third child of Herman Edward Frye and of Catherine Maud Howard. Frye went to Toronto to compete in a national typing contest in 1929. He studied for his undergraduate degree at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, where he edited the college literary journal, Acta Victoriana. He then studied theology at Emmanuel College (like Victoria College, a constituent part of the University of Toronto). After a brief stint as a student minister in Saskatchewan, he was ordained to the ministry of the United Church of Canada. He then studied at Merton College, Oxford, before returning to Victoria College, where he spent the remainder of his professional career.

This painting of Northrup Frye was inside the college.

 But the statue of Northrup outside is outstanding!!