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THE FOURTH QUARTER-CENTURY (1925-1950)
Unlike that of his predecessors, the service of Rev. W~ L. Baynes-Reed to St. John's stretched far into a second quarter-century before his work was done. The expansion of the church buildings and lands, which had begun with his arrival, was to continue till his death, and even beyond.
The year 1925, which had seen the completion of the parish hall, the opening of the north aisle, and the installation of a new steam-heating plant, had marked the end of another quarter-century, but in a sense it was merely a breathing space in an ambitious building programme which was not yet complete.
The next stage was the installation of the chime of eight bells, cast at Croydon, England, in the bell foundry of Gillett and Johnston, who provided the carillon of the Peace Tower at Ottawa. The bells, dedicated at a special service on September 12, 1926, were the gift of Miss Cathrine Stuart Morrison (1840-1925), who with her sister had lived for many years at the corner of Edgewood Avenue and Kingston Road.
Inside the church a magnificent organ, built by the world-famous Casavant firm, was installed at a cost of some $8,000.
Year by year the beautiful stained glass memorial windows were added, twelve on the south side of the church depicting the principal Old Testament figures, and twelve on the north side representing the New Testament saints. One of the great east windows, portraying the life of Our Lord, had been moved from the old church, having been erected there in memory of the Rector and laymen who founded St. John's; one of the west windows was presented as a Memorial after World War I.
Two sections of the cemetery holdings were disposed of at substantial profits in these years, one in 1926 to become the present site of Norway Mansions and of the Creber Monument Works; the other in 1928 to provide the land for old Patricia Drive. The income from these transactions was applied to reducing the mortgage indebtedness, as were the funds being raised by dozens of parish activities; one recalls the well-intentioned effort, for example, of an A.Y.P.A. group in presenting a play to crowded houses for a week, only to find that someone had overlooked the payment of a royalty of $375 to the New York copyright holders, an oversight which had to be explained by St. John's solicitors.
As the number of graves in the cemetery increased, some major expenditures had to be made to provide efficient facilities, as well as to beautify the grounds. An attractive cemetery office was built, designed by Mr. Morton Gibb, who had been the architect of the church additions in 1925. The well-known lych-gate was added on Kingston Road, and the house at 182 Kingston Road was bought as a residence for the Cemetery Superintendent.
Perhaps the largest outlay required was that in 1936, when it was necessary to cope with the engineering problem posed by the stream flowing across the northern part of the cemetery. The continual filling and grading of the ravine slopes had forced the stream bed northward to such an extent that its waters menaced the rear of homes on Eastwood Road. A delegation of property owners protested, and the Cemetery Board sought the opinion of a firm of engineers. The control of surface water from rains and melting snow each spring required the construction of a series of catch basins drained by a culvert, the whole concealed under a paved roadway following the original course of the stream.
This manifestation of St. John's desire to keep faith with its neighbours involved a cost of $20,000 but a permanent improvement to the cemetery resulted. In general, one may say that despite heavy expenditures in these "hungry thirties," the cemetery was then put in a sound financial and material position from which it has never departed.
It was in this same period that St. John's was asked with other eastern Canadian churches to make a substantial contribution to the Restoration Fund, designed to replace the depleted and well-nigh nonexistent treasury of the Western Church. Although the parish was still carrying a mortgage of many thousands of dollars, it was able to pledge and exceed the quota set for its contributions, an achievement in fund-raising which was to be duplicated during the Anglican Advance Campaign a few years later, and which has been repeated once more during the present Centenary Campaign. St. John's has never had wealthy parishioners, but it has never lacked generous ones.
The year 1938 brought a gratifying announcement to Rev. W. L. Baynes-Reed and his parish; the Rector had been chosen as one of those to represent the Canadian Church at the Coronation of King George VI in Westminster Abbey. Once more Rev. W. L. Baynes-Reed crossed the Atlantic, and once more his congregation laboured in his absence, this time to bring to completion the south aisle of the church, with its cloak-room and choir room.
On Sunday October 2, 1938, this last unit of the church building was dedicated by the then Suffragan Bishop, Dr. A. R. Beverley, in a service which combined the annual Thanksgiving Service with the opening of the new aisle and chapel.
This was the Rector's final thanksgiving for the completion of the church he had striven for forty years to improve, and although no one then suspected it, this was his last Thanksgiving service. During the winter, he was taken ill with a heart attack, but after some weeks he appeared to be on the road to recovery. -Then in January he left his bed in order to comfort the last hours of his dying brother, C. Edmund Baynes-Reed, and caught a severe cold. The cold became pneumonia, and he died on January 27, 1939.
For the first time in its long history St. John's was without a Rector. A sense of personal loss struck the members of the congregation. Endless lines of parishioners filed silently past the casket as the Rector's body lay in state in the church, guarded by clergymen, members of the Toronto Scottish Regiment, the Sons of England, and Boy Scouts.
The following Tuesday, the church was the scene of one of the largest funerals ever witnessed in the district, as the Primate of All Canada, Archbishop Derwyn T. Owen, conducted the service, assisted by Archdeacon J. B. Fotheringham, a life-long friend of Rev. W. L. Baynes-Reed, and in temporary charge of St. John's.
Only now was it evident to many of those present how vast was the circle of friends who mourned with St. John's for their beloved Rector, whose funeral procession wound interminably along the paths of the cemetery his efforts had built up. His body was laid in a grave a few yards from the site of the first church of St. John's, at the demolition of which in 1927 he had read special prayers.
During the months of February and March, Archdeacon Fatheringham took charge of the parish until the arrival of the new Rector. In a special service in April he unveiled the beautiful Ascension window given by the congregation in memory of the late Rector, and on the same evening was dedicated St. Leonard's Chapel, as the Chapel in the south aisle was now to be called, in memory of Rev. William Leonard Baynes-Reed.
In a last desire to serve St. John's, the Rector had willed to the church his entire estate. His beautiful home was purchased from the executors of his estate by the trustees of the Perpetual Core Fund of the cemetery. The $8,000 thus realized was applied to the church debt, and since that time the churchwardens of St. John's have rented the rectory for successive incumbents.
The story of the rectory parallels that of the church itself, for it too was originally a schoolhouse. The second school erected in the district, it had stood at the north-east corner of Kingston Road and Heywarth Crescent. It was purchased from the Board of Education in June 1904, and after being moved from the rear of the older part of the present Norway School site, was converted into a very comfortable home by Rev. W. L. Baynes-Reed. Later, it too, like the original church, was demolished, in this case to make way for the western section of the school buildings.
The Rector, having purchased the lot at 156 Kingston Road, built the present rectory on it at his own expense, to receive his bride, Winnifred Violet Gretchen Baynes-Reed, who was not spared to enjoy it, for she passed away after a brief illness on June 12, 1914.
During the forty-one years of Rev. W. L. Baynes-Reed's ministry, St. John's had become a large and important parish, and a heavy responsibility awaited the new Rector. A worthy successor was soon found in the person of Rev. A. T. Briarly Browne, who was to direct St. John's far the next six years.
Born on January 24, 1895, in a Church of England Rectory near Sheffleld, England, Arthur Tindoll Briarly Browne had before him the example of a father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and six uncles, all of whom had been priests of the Church of England.
As a boy he attended Worksap College, where in addition to being a good student, he was the school's highest ranking athlete. He came to Canada in 1914, determined to learn something of a less sheltered life, and worked as a hired man at farms near Milton and Guelph, spending two winters in the bush.
Taking a course at Guelph Agricultural College, he carried off a prize for stock-judging. After five years' experience as a working layman, he entered Trinity College in 1919, and graduated with first class honours and a collection of prizes and awards. He became a Licentiate in Theology in 1922, a Bachelor of Divinity in 1930, and more recently has received from Trinity College the degree of Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa.
His first experience in charge of a parish was a summer spent in a Saskatchewan diocese in 1922; here the extent of the territory he served obliged him to spend much of his time on horseback. In 1923 he married Evelyn Elizabeth Cooke, daughter of the Rector of St. Luke's, Hamilton, and was ordained deacon the same year; in 1924 he became a priest, going to St. George's, Guelph, as curate for the next two years. He was then named curate of St. James' Cathedral in Toronto, becoming priest in charge in 1935.
When Rev. A. T. Briarly Browne came to St. John's at Easter in 1939, the parish, although well equipped, had a debt of over $30,000. The new Rector set himself the task of discharging this obligation, and received the whole-hearted co-operation of the Parish Association and the congregation in general. Six long years of work prepared for the happy ceremony on a May evening in 1945 when the mortgage papers were burned on the chancel steps by the president of the Parish Association, Mrs. F. W. Croft, and the churchwardens, Messrs. Thomas Turif and Harold Carr.
It must not be forgotten that these were the dark years of World War II, when the parish was deprived of much of its manpower, and when those who were left behind took cheerfully upon themselves the additional duties of supplying the little comforts and remembrances needed by the troops abroad. The curate, Rev. J. A. Langstone, enlisted in 1942, and was replaced by Rev. Harvey Scuse for the remaining three years of the war.
It was nevertheless St. John's good fortune to be blessed during these difficult years by the presence of two devoted servants who were a tower of strength to the Rector and the parish; the Deaconess, Miss Mary Shotter, and the Cemetery Superintendent, Mr. Mellor Dunham. Their long years of capable service made an enduring contribution to the life of the church.
Although this was a period of thrift and financial consolidation in the parish, a number of improvements were nevertheless under-taken: the parish hall and parts of the church were redecorated, the gymnasium and bowling alley repaired, and flood lights installed on the tennis courts. In addition the parish responded with its usual readiness to the appeal of the Church Extension Committee for funds to be used to aid young parishes.
One of the less tangible contributions of Rev. A. T. Briarly Browne was his encouragement of church music at St. John's. The first Rector, Dr. James Beaven, had been keenly interested in liturgical music; his successor, Rev. Charles Ruttan, had married a gifted musician who made the church choir one of her special interests. But it was with the coming of Mr. W. H. Mould, himself one of the most active fund-raisers for the new organ, that choral and organ music in St. John's reached their present high level, a level sustained by the constant interest and assistance of the Rector, who was the representative in Canada of the English School of Church Music, now the Royal School of Music.
A large and well-trained choir is now part of St. John's tradition, and the boy choristers have become yearly more famous, particularly as a result of their Christmas radio broadcasts.
Unfortunately for St. John's, Rev. A. T. Briarly Browne's abilities did not pass unnoticed elsewhere. Having come to St. John's during the first year of World War II, he was to leave in the last year of that same war, to become Dean of Ontario, and Rector of the Cathedral Church of St. George in Kingston. Were St. John's to pride herself on the rise of her rectors and curates in the ranks of the Church of England, the parish could point to no fewer than three Deans named from among her clergy: Rev. G. L. Starr in 1897, Rev. H. H. Clark in 1932, and Rev. A. T. Briarly Browne in 1945.
St. John's sixth and present Rector has only begun what promises to be a long and fruitful career in the parish. The Rev. Frederick Joseph Nicholson was born in Windsor, England, on November 28, 1901. After attending school in Surrey, he was about to enter Kingston Grammar School as a scholarship winner, when his family moved to Canada in 1914. Taking his Diploma in Accountancy at Central High School of Commerce in Toronto, he worked as an accountant till 1923. But his real interest was in social work, particularly with boys.
He forsook the business world and undertook a heavy programme of playground, club and camp work with boys in downtown Toronto, while at the same time studying in the School of Social Work of the University of Toronto, and later taking theology at Trinity College. Since his ordination in 1928, he has been active in dozens of religious and welfare organizations, directing camps, acting on committees, sitting on advisory Boards and Councils, speaking at Conferences, while serving first as Superintendent of the Jewish Mission of the Diocese, and later as the second Rector of St. Chad's in 1936.
Under his leadership, the church building of St. Chad's was renovated and improved, a $26,000 mortgage paid off, and the church consecrated with its finances in sound shape.
Since Rev. F. J. Nicholson's arrival at St. John's in 1945, the parish has made steady progress on all fronts. The first challenge presented to it was the Anglican Advance Appeal: St. John's quota was $16,391, and over $18,000 was raised. The missionary allotments, amounting to some $4,000 per year, have been regularly paid up. The Sunday School membership continues at a high level, the school, now directed by the Deaconess, Miss Margery Pezzack, being entirely self-supporting. An eager congregation packs the large church every Sunday, and a steady stream of candidates for church and missionary work now flows from the parish. Funds for the projected Centenary celebrations, which will include the installation of a carved reredos, and a modern lighting system, have been heavily oversubscribed. Indeed in every field of its activities, the parish is thriving.
The clue to this prosperity is undoubtedly to be found in the strong parish organizations;
The Women's Auxiliary, with a sixty year history of service, The Mothers' Society, unique in its kind, founded by Rev. W. L. Baynes-Reed in 1908, The Parish and Sidesmen's Associations, with their large memberships, The A.Y.P.A., Chi Rho, and other Young peoples' groups, The Church School and Bible Classes, The Mothers' Union, Cubs, Boy Scouts, Brownies and Girl Guides…
…and many others which are not mentioned here.
It is to the encouragement and development of these multitudinous activities within the parish that St. John's versatile Rector has given particular attention. In this he has enjoyed the collaboration of two able assistants: Rev. Lewis H. Garnsworthy, who left St. John's in 1948 to become Rector of the daughter parish of St. Nicholas, and Rev. Fraser Bournes, the present curate.
St. John's, Norway, in 1950 is a far cry from the village parish of a century ago. One may stand today at the same corner of Kingston Road and Woodbine Avenue where the founders of St. John's gathered so many years ago, but one can no longer see what they saw. The toll-gate, the cluster of village houses, the stage-coaches, the tiny church on its wooded hill; all these have disappeared. A few thin weather-beaten tombstones are all that is left of the first St. John's.
But what is real in this church, as in all churches, is not material, and cannot be seen. The spirit that is the real St. John's is the same today as ever. As the parish crosses the threshold of its second century, the hearts of its parishioners are filled with pride in its past and hope for its future: a future in which the Lord will undoubtedly ask great things of a church He has so graciously nurtured through its first hundred years.
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