(ParkdaleLiberty, May 2004)
by Liz Clayton
The chapel as it stands in its current state in the centre
of a future development in Liberty Village. Photo:
Liz Clayton.
Built in 1877, the Central Prison Chapel was a small place of solace in an otherwise hostile and unforgiving penal colony. Known as one of the harshest prisons in Ontario — and perhaps even in North America — in its time, the Central Prison for Men occupied a large portion of the lands between King Street West and the railroad tracks. The penitentiary itself, built by prisoners in the early 1870s, was an industrial compound of sorts that grew to include a library, schoolrooms, and numerous industries including a blacksmith shop, a twine factory, bake shop, corn broom manufactory, and greenhouses.
Though reform and rehabilitation were not high on the list for the powers that ruled the Central Prison, a two-storey chapel — its only churchlike feature its high arched windows on the second floor — was erected. Built to the designs of Irish immigrant Kivas Tully, then senior architect and engineer for the Ontario Public Works department, the chapel was constructed of brick, stone and wood in a Classical style, with a hip roof and ornamental detail. The chapel was built immediately adjoining the centre block of the prison just to its north, and a segment of wall from that building remains affixed to the property to this day.
Labelled the “Roman Catholic Chapel”, the building became home to Sunday morning Roman Catholic services as well as Protestant Sunday School, which in 1877 only drew 35 attendees. Although always designated as a chapel, the prison did not employ a full-time chaplain to offer religious guidance. Reports of inmates abusing the chapel’s spiritual largesse by chugging the entire bottle of communion wine did little to impress upon prison officials the importance of a sanctuary.
The Central Prison for Men operated between 1873 and 1915, and helped secure Toronto the title of “correctional capital of Canada” in the late 19th century (indeed, the prison neighboured the more genteel Mercer Reformatory for Women). When the prison ceased operations in 1915, its buildings were used as part of training and barracks facilities for the Canadian Army during the first World War, and were later used to process immigrants. Nearly all the buildings — save for the chapel — had been demolished by 1920.
As the lands surrounding the chapel were slowly annexed by railway companies, various owners took hold of the site, including Dr. Ballard’s Animal Food Products Limited. The property was eventually purchased by the John Inglis and Sons manufacturing company, which made changes to the chapel for its appliance (and wartime artillery) factories. Inglis ceased operations on the former prison site in 1990, leaving the chapel sitting as it stands today, isolated and eerie in the centre of a zone of brisk upwardly mobile developments, the lone souvenir of some of Toronto’s cruellest days.