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Of crossings, conduits, networks and channels: the circulation of foreign planning innovations within English Canada, 1900–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2016

CATHERINE ULMER
CATHERINE ULMER*
Affiliation:
Department of History and Classical Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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Abstract:

From the early 1900s to 1914, an informal, but dedicated, group of English-Canadian actors took up the cause of urban planning, forming connections with the international planning cohort, and circulating foreign innovations and expertise across the country. This article considers such urban planning networking, first exploring the local urban context from which interest in planning emerged, then, through the use of case-studies, studying the four key channels through which English-Canadian actors acquired and disseminated foreign planning information. Through this analysis, the conscious and critical nature of local interactions with the wider urban planning cohort is emphasized.

Type
Dyos Prize winner 2017
Information
Urban History , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , November 2017 , pp. 678 - 697
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 Library and Archives Canada (LAC), C.P. Meredith Papers (CPM), MG29 E62 (vol. 4), fol. 31, J.P. Hynes to C.P. Meredith, 6 Dec. 1913.

2 Ironically, though he worked in America, Bennett was British and undertook training at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris.

3 Edmonton hired landscape architects Anthony Morell and Arthur Nichols (1912), Prince Rupert contracted landscape architects Franklin Brett and George D. Hall (1908) and Kitchener engaged landscape architect Charles Leavitt (1914).

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7 For example, in their article ‘Early town planning legislation in Nova Scotia: the roles of local reformers and international experts’, Urban History Review, 40 (2012), 3–14, J.L. Grant, L. Vissers and J. Haney use a case-study of Nova Scotia's early town planning legislation calling attention to the role of local concerns and actors in the adoption of outside planning knowledge and refuting assertions that the province's first town planning act was simply a ‘copy’ of British legislation (5).

8 For a wider examination of such debates, please see Rutherford, P., ‘Tomorrow's metropolis: the urban reform movement in Canada, 1880–1920’, in Stelter, G.A. and Artibise, A.F.J. (eds.), The Canadian City: Essays in Urban History (Toronto, 1977), 368–92Google Scholar; Weaver, J.C., ‘“Tomorrow's metropolis” revisited: a critical assessment of urban reform in Canada, 1890–1920’, in Stelter, and Artibise, (eds.), The Canadian City, 393–418 Google Scholar.

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23 Nasr and Volait (eds.), Urbanism: Imported or Exported?, xii.

24 Saunier, ‘Sketches from the Urban Internationale’, 380.

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26 This article presents such a categorization based on the extent of my current research. It is not exhaustive and therefore may not represent all the means used to gather and diffuse information.

27 Although this study focuses on those elites who worked to circulate planning ideas across Canada, David L.A. Gordon has well-documented the extent of elite involvement in planning Ottawa: ‘From noblesse oblige to nationalism: elite involvement in planning Canada's capital’, Journal of Urban History, 28 (2001), 3–34; idem, ‘William Lyon Mackenzie King, planning advocate’, Planning Perspectives, 17 (2002), 97–122.

28 Gordon, ‘From noblesse oblige to nationalism’, 11.

29 Hodgetts, Dr C., ‘Unsanitary housing’, Report of the Second Annual Meeting (Ottawa, 1911), 50 Google Scholar.

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31 For one, by inviting Vivian to Canada in 1910, Grey fostered ties between Vivian and the cities he encountered on his tour. Vivian kept up his connections and returned to Canada in 1912 to ‘see what progress [had] been made’ (Vivian, H., ‘How to apply town planning to Calgary’, in Two Notable Addresses on Housing and Town Planning (Calgary, 1912)Google Scholar, 12).

32 Although W.L. Mackenzie King wrote to Geddes that ‘[t]he question of town planning is to my mind one of the most important which any country has to consider’, he proved unable to help: University of Strathclyde Archives (USA), Patrick Geddes Papers, T-GED 9/1007, King to Geddes, 30 May 1911.

33 National Library of Scotland, Patrick Geddes papers, MS 10571, fol. 81, Grey to P. Geddes, 3 Jul. 1911.

34 For correspondence regarding Meredith's support of Mawson, see LAC, CPM, MG29 E62 (vol. 4), fols. 29, 33; (vol. 5), fol. 39.

35 See LAC, CMP, MG29 E62 (vol. 4), fol. 33; (vol. 5), fols. 34, 36, 39.

36 LAC, W.F. Burditt Fonds (WFB), I275, vol. 16, W.F. Burditt to T. Adams, 3 Jan. 1919.

37 Burditt to Adams, 3 Jan. 1919.

38 LAC, WFB, I275, vol. 16, Burditt to Adams, 14 Apr. 1919.

39 Sclanders, F.M., ‘The city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan’, Canadian Municipal Journal, 9 (1913), 254 Google Scholar.

40 Now Canberra, Australia.

41 C. Yorath to the Real Estate Board of Saskatoon, Jun. 1913, quoted by J.W. Reps in ‘Introduction to “Town Planning”’ online via Urban Planning, 1794–1918: An International Anthology of Articles, Conference Papers, and Reports, http://urbanplanning.library.cornell.edu/DOCS/yorath.htm, accessed 15 Sep. 2014.

42 Yorath later reflected that due to the outbreak of war and the fact that ‘as a result of. . .utter disregard of sound principles of development’, the city was near bankrupt by the end of 1913, and his city plan was shelved: City of Saskatoon Archives (CSA), annual reports of the city commissioner, file no. 1072–8, ‘City commissioner's annual report, 1918’, 46.

43 See ‘Town planning’, Western Municipal News, 8 (Sep. 1913), 298–300; ‘Town planning’, Canadian Municipal Journal (CMJ), 9.5 (Oct. 1913), 438; ‘Housing and town planning’, CMJ, 10.9 (Sep. 1914), 354.

44 CSA, annual reports of the city commissioner, file no. 1072–8, C.J. Yorath, ‘City commissioner's annual report, 1920’, 54.

45 Simpson, M., Thomas Adams and the Modern Planning Movement: Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1900–1940 (Oxford, 1985), 75 Google Scholar.

46 Hodgetts was made the COC's medical advisor in May 1910.

47 An obvious example of the growing importance of planning the agenda of the COC can be seen in its journal. Though it was originally entitled The Conservation of Life: Public Health, Housing, and Town Planning, in 1916 it was renamed Town Planning and the Conservation of Life to reflect the COC's new focus.

48 Hodgetts, Dr C., ‘Report of the medical advisor’, Report of the Third Annual Meeting (Ottawa: Commission of Conservation, 1911), 5 Google Scholar.

49 Ibid ., 9.

50 Dr C. Hodgetts, ‘Housing and town planning’, Report of the Third Annual Meeting, 1912, COC (1912), 133.

51 Ibid ., 132.

52 Hodgetts, ‘Report of the medical advisor’, 9.

53 Meller, ‘Philanthropy and public enterprise’, 307.

54 Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Town Planning Conference, London 10th to 15th October 1910: Transactions (1910), 30–57.

55 S.D. Adshead, ‘City improvement’, in ibid., 499.

56 Whyte, W., ‘The 1910 Royal Institute of British Architects’ conference: a focus for international town planning?’, Urban History, 39 (2012), 153 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 See Professor D.R. Keys, ‘Discussion from the overflow meeting’, in RIBA, Town Planning Conference, London 10th to 15th October 1910, 181; F.S. Baker, ‘Cities of the present-discussion’, in RIBA, Town Planning Conference, London 10th to 15th October 1910, 242.

58 T. Adams, ‘The British point of view’, in Proceedings of the Third National Council on City Planning, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 15–17 May 1911, 28.

59 For a nuanced consideration of this shift, see Stelter, G., ‘Rethinking the significance of the City Beautiful idea’, in Freestone, R. (ed.), Urban Planning in a Changing World: The Twentieth Century Experience (London, 2000), 98–117 Google Scholar.

60 W. Van Nus, ‘The fate of City Beautiful thought in Canada, 1893–1930’, in Stelter and Artibise (eds.), The Canadian City, 171.

61 Ibid ., 176.

62 ‘Discussion’, Report of the Fourth Annual Meeting, 8.

63 Adams, T., ‘Housing and town planning in Canada’, in Report of the Sixth Annual Meeting (Toronto, 1915), 161 Google Scholar.

64 M. Simpson, Thomas Adams and the Modern Planning Movement, 76–7.

65 Emerson Coatsworth, ‘President's address’, CMJ, 3.10 (Oct. 1907), 419.

66 See, for example, P. Burne-Jones, ‘The City Beautiful’, CMJ, 1.7 (Jul. 1905), 205–7; H. Craske, ‘The Garden City movement’, CMJ, 3.5 (May 1907), 184–5; Professor Gide, ‘The towns of the future’, CMJ, 3.10 (Oct. 1907), 480–1.

67 J.P. Hynes, ‘Town planning suggestions for Canadian municipalities,’ CMJ, 7.12 (Dec. 1911), 480.

68 J.J. Guerin, ‘Garden Cities in England’, CMJ, 8.1 (Jan. 1912), 12–13.

69 ‘Garden Cities and suburbs’, Canadian Architect and Builder, 18.8 (1905), 115–16.

70 See, for example, Sifton, C., ‘The work of Canada's Conservation Commission’, Canadian Engineer, 22 (1911), 137–8Google Scholar; Mitchell, C.H., ‘Town planning and civic improvement’, Canadian Engineer, 23 (1912), 911–13Google Scholar.

71 In Western Canada, for example, those interested could find articles on planning within the Western Municipal News or the progressive Grain Growers’ Guide. In Saskatchewan, journals like the Public Service Monthly reported on planning developments at the provincial level.

72 G. Wray Lemon, ‘A Canadian town planner in Germany’, 9 May 1914, Globe, A2; G. Wray Lemon, ‘A Canadian town planner in Germany’, 16 May 1914, Globe, 30; ‘Town planning: lessons from Germany, a Canadian's pilgrimage’, 4 Jul. 1914, Evening Post, 10.

73 LAC, Town Planning Institute of Canada (early series), MG28 I275, vol. 1, ‘Notes from the executive council meeting’, 21 May 1920.

74 Local and national newspapers too proved important vehicles for the spread of planning knowledge in Canada. Furthermore, while this discussion has focused on the importance of domestic journals, Canadian planners also subscribed to journals such as the American City and the British Town Planning Review.

75 Mawson, T., Calgary: A Preliminary Scheme (Calgary, 1914), 7–69 Google Scholar. For a wider examination of Mawson's work in Western Canada, see Rasporich, A.W., ‘The city yes, the city no: perfection by design in the western city’, in Francis, R.D. (ed.), The Prairie West as Promised Land (Calgary, 2007), 181–5Google Scholar.

76 Canada, Fourth Census of Canada, vol. 1 (1901), 130; Canada, Fifth Census of Canada, vol. 2 (1911), 148.

77 Foran, M., ‘Idealism and pragmatism in local government: the Calgary experience, 1911–1930’, Journal of Canadian Studies, 18 (1993), 92 Google Scholar.

78 Mawson's illustrations were lost for several years but can now be viewed in full; see: ‘Vienna on the bow: Thomas Mawson's City of Calgary plan’, Canadian Architectural Archives, accessed 3 Jun. 2016, https://asc.ucalgary.ca/collections/archival/architectural/mawson.

79 Foran, ‘Idealism and pragmatism in local government’, 93.

80 Mawson, T., Calgary: A Preliminary Scheme for Controlling the Economic Growth of a City (Calgary, 1914), 1 Google Scholar.

81 Foran, ‘Idealism and pragmatism in local government’, 94.

82 Ward, ‘The international diffusion of planning’, 56.