Volume 102 Number 1, 2009 Issue #432

This article is part of an ongoing project to write a history of the General Protestant Cemetery (St. John's) and some of the people buried there.

The buildings of a city, particularly the public architecture, offer us an opportunity to connect with the past and those who have peopled it. Using the George Street United Church as a starting point, we can consider the lives of two men who were instrumental in constructing that building: the mason, Richard Atwill, and the joiner, William Campbell.

The George Street Church

Methodism had its beginnings in Newfoundland in 1766 when Lawrence Coughlan, regarded as the first Methodist missionary to the Island, arrived in Harbour Grace.¹ While Methodism did well in Conception and Bonavista bays, it was slow in coming to St. John's. It was not until 1815 that the first society of Methodists was organized there. Once the Methodists came to the city, though, they not only stayed, but grew in number and influence. As the first congregation in the city, the Gower Street church is considered the "mother of Methodism" in St. John's. However, Gower Street is not the oldest Methodist structure in the city.

St. John's has a renowned history of devastating fires, especially in the earliest established area of the city, the downtown, and these fires showed no charity, destroying ecclesiastical as well as secular buildings. The first Methodist chapel was probably built on what is now Prescott Street and was decimated by fire on February 12, 1816. The site of the second place of worship was a plot of land located on the northern perimeter of the existing town, on a rise of land on Gower Street thought to be safe from fire. The new chapel, opened in 1817, did survive the Fire of 1846 and another in 1855. But by the mid-1850s, the congregation had become too large to be accommodated in this building and it was replaced by a larger structure that was consecrated and opened for worship November 29, 1857. Unfortunately, the church did not enjoy the divine protection that had sheltered its predecessor and it was burned out in the Fire of 1892. Once again the building had to be replaced, and the present Gower Street church opened in 1896. But the George Street building, dedicated in 1873, had survived the Great Fire of 1892, and is therefore the oldest Methodist church building in the city.

George Street Methodist Church, St. John's

Many of the people who contributed to the growth of Methodism in St. John's during the second half of the 19th century² came from the outports where they, or their families, had been prominent members of their communities — a distinction that they intended to see continue. They came to participate in the commercial, administrative, and social emergence of St. John's as the centre of the colony, and they brought with them their ambition to succeed, sufficient wealth to build expressions of their success, and a commitment to church and family. By 1862 it was apparent that there was need for a second church building and that it should be placed in the rapidly growing west end of the city. The Rev. Edmund Botterell, the Hon. J. J. [James Johnstone] Rogerson, and Capt. Edward White were appointed as a committee to select a site for the new building.³

The committee's first priority was to find land for the church. They were instructed to look for a place in the west end of the city in an area referred to as Riverhead.⁴ Riverhead was densely populated with houses along New Gower Street, Water Street west, and on the adjoining streets. It was close to the St. John's harbour front and most of the residents worked in the blacksmith forges, sail making shops, and cooperages that were also located in the area. Placing a church there would put it in the midst of the potential congregation of Westenders as well as those of the growing population on the Southside. The appropriate land was finally acquired in 1871 when a spot bounded by George Street, Buchanan Street, Hutchings Lane, and New Gower Street became available for lease.

The laying of the cornerstone afforded the congregation an opportunity to celebrate the hard work that had gone into reaching this moment in its history. The ceremony, on May 27, 1872, began with a procession from the Gower Street church to the George Street site via New Gower Street. The marchers, with flags and banners flying, included not only the Methodist congregation, but also clergy of other denominations. Amid hymns and speeches, a future pew holder, the Hon. Stephen Rendell, laid the cornerstone.

The Building Committee that was assigned to oversee the construction of the church was made up of C. R. [Charles R.] Ayre, John Steer, J. J. Rogerson, Edward White, George Gear, and John Woods. The architect Elijah Hoole of London, who would later work on the Gower Street church that was built after the Fire of 1892, created a design in the Gothic Revival style. For material, the George Street church was to be built of rough Newfoundland stone, with the outside covered with cement, the windows trimmed with brick, and the roof covered with Newfoundland slate. The stone used to build the church was donated by the Hon. Stephen Rendell, quarried from the Southside hills, and dragged to the site by Captain Edward White's sealing crew.

Richard Atwill and William Campbell were, respectively, the master mason and builder. While the life of Atwill was short, and sadly ended with the building of the George Street church, that of Campbell is interesting not only for the picture it presents of the building of St. John's, but also for the suggestions it offers of the relevant networking that took place amongst, and between, Methodists (and other dissenters), and tradesmen of the time.

Richard Atwill (1828 - 1873)

Little is known of Richard Atwill⁵ as he died a relatively young man. His headstone reveals some information which, when supplemented by a search of city directories and newspapers of the day, provides us with a slim profile.

Headstone of Richard Atwill

Richard Atwill was born October 22, 1828 in Broadhempston (Devon), England and probably came to Newfoundland in the 1850s. One might imagine that he came shortly after the Fire of 1846 when the city was in need of stonemasons to help with rebuilding St. John's. If this is true than one can also imagine that he came with all the hopes and dreams of a young man starting a fresh life in a new world. He became a pew holder at the Gower Street church,⁶ "a skilful mechanic, a good citizen and an upright, worthy man"⁷ and a member of the Order of the Sons of Temperance.⁸ In 1855, he married Emily Jane Andrews and started a family.⁹

Atwill was the master mason who oversaw the stonework of the new church. He was joined in his work by a number of masons who were recruited from Dorset by George Gear and C. R. Ayre. Two of these men were cousins, Henry Gollop and Edwin Clarke. Others included George Staples, John Hallett, and Alfred King.¹⁰ The number of masons engaged, at least six, attests to the extensiveness of the project. That Atwell was chosen to supervise the masonry work is evidence of the regard in which he was held for his industry and skill.

On Thursday, October 16, 1873, Atwill "rose and proceeded to the new Wesleyan Chapel, which he had been engaged in building the past summer; there he ascended a scaffold which from some cause fell, precipitating him to the ground, and causing him a vital injury. He was speedily taken to his home, which he had left before in perfect health and strength, where he lingered in agony till nature succumbed and his spirit fled into the presence of his Maker."¹¹ Atwill died on October 19, 1873 leaving his wife Emily and at least one child, William.¹²

The dedication of the church on December 14, 1873 must have been a bittersweet occasion for the congregation; but the church remains as a solid reminder of Richard Atwill's skill as a stonemason.

William Campbell (1823 - 1886)

More is known about William Campbell who, by 1873, was a well-established contractor, builder, and sometime architect. He was born in Bonavista, the son of Archibald and Susanna Beaumont Campbell, and moved to St. John's when he was young.¹³ After learning the builder's trade, Campbell operated a workshop on Allen Square while living nearby at 88 Queen's Road. Although he would later open a lumber yard in the West End (Campbell Lumber Company) and, a few years before his death, expand his interests to include building supplies (Campbell's Builders' Supply Store),¹⁴ Campbell is best remembered for his participation in the building of the George Street church, The New House on the Southside, the penitentiary, and a number of lighthouses.

Some of Campbell's earliest building contracts were in conjunction with the stonemason Alexander Smith.¹⁵ Together the two formed a successful partnership which included the building of the lighthouses at Dodding Head (or Great Burin) at Burin (1856)¹⁶ and Offer Wadham Island, Hamilton Sound, Bonavista Bay (1858).¹⁷ While most accounts of lighthouses concentrate on the light towers or the lives of the lighthouse keepers and their families, few tell much about the dwellings and outbuildings which were associated with the lighthouses. It was these buildings that would have been the responsibility of William Campbell. Unfortunately, the houses at both Dodding Head and Offer Wadham Island have been removed; but an excellent example of Campbell's later work exists at the Ferryland Head lighthouse that he built in 1871 in conjunction with the stonemason Thomas Burridge.¹⁸ The house, a two-storied wooden structure, has been designated a municipal heritage site by the town of Ferryland. In addition to being of historical value, it is also considered to be a good example of a typical light keeper's dwelling along the Avalon Peninsula.

Campbell and Smith also worked together on an entirely different project, the building of the penitentiary in St. John's. The lighthouse projects must have posed many difficulties, not the least of which would have been getting supplies and workers to the sites which were, in the instances of Dodding Head and Offer Wadham, islands. However, these problems paled next to the complexities of building the penitentiary.

Headstone of William Campbell

Discussion concerning the need for a penitentiary began in 1851, when the House of Assembly appointed a select committee. In April of that year, the Committee recommended that a penitentiary be erected in St. John's. A tender for lumber and other goods was posted in the September 21, 1852 issue of The Royal Gazette. The Journal of the House of Assembly records the debates on what type of penitentiary system to institute, the legislation needed to authorize a board of commissioners to supervise the construction and eventual management of the penitentiary, and the architectural plan. Amongst themselves, the commissioners debated whether it was best to advertise for the work to be done by one contractor, to have several contractors, or to become purchasers of the materials themselves and contract for the labour only. They finally decided on the last option, and reimbursements for labour were reported in the year-end report of the Board of Works for 1852. However, by June 1853, with the land cleared and the basement built to ground level, work stalled. Construction did take place off and on and provisional purchases continued. Having worked on other government projects, Campbell and Smith may have been used to the vagaries of bureaucracy; however, the building of the penitentiary would surely have exceeded all past experiences. When the penitentiary finally opened on August 24, 1859, it still was not completely finished. In 1861, Campbell was still receiving payment for carpentry work on the structure.¹⁹

The lighthouses and penitentiary were major government-funded projects and it is probable that Campbell was involved in the construction of other public buildings. The best record of a construction undertaken by Campbell is that of The New House which was built in 1876-1878. On this house, as with the Ferryland project, Campbell was teamed with the mason Thomas Burridge. He was also reunited with John Hallett, a mason who had worked on the George Street church. The New House was built for Captain Edward White, also of the George Street project, who kept precise information concerning dates, builders, materials, and costs.²⁰ A reading of the construction materials and basic furnishing for The New House shows other George Street connections, including: timber from Ayre and Marshall, fireplaces made at Angel's foundry and purchased from George Gear, and oil and paint from Steer Bros.

While much of Campbell's professional life showed connections with other well-known Methodists, Campbell's personal life moved outside this sphere. On September 30, 1850,²¹ Campbell married Jane Cole Hearder in St. Thomas' Anglican Church. Jane was the daughter of Captain Henry and Judith Hearder of Carbonear. According to various records, William and Jane had at least two sons and three daughters.²² Their sons Archibald and Colin were active in the building supply business for a while. Colin was married to Rachel C. Dicks and was the father of Ella Campbell who was well known for her work in the crusade against tuberculosis. She was the first nursing superintendent and matron of the sanatorium that opened in 1917.

One daughter, Susan Beaumont, married the Rev. William Kendall in 1879 and spent the rest of her life raising a large family as they moved from one outport posting to another. William and Jane's second daughter, Judith Nina, married William W. Watson in 1885. They had one child, Leonard Campbell Watson, who died in 1909. The Campbell's third daughter, Margaret Jane, was married to the commission merchant John H. LeMessurier who was a partner of Colin Campbell. She was living in Vancouver in 1917 and possibly stayed there the rest of her life.

After William's death, Colin and Archibald together managed the builder’s supply store that was located at the east end of Water Street. Its loss in the Fire of 1892 is graphically described in W. J. Kent's A directory containing names and present addresses of professional men, merchants and shopkeepers, burnt out by the general conflagration of July 8th, 1892 (1892): "William Campbell's builders' supply store caught fire early in the evening. It was a wooden building erected as a shed after the great fire of '46, and, being filled with inflammable materials — paints, oils, tar, amp;c., — did not stand above a few minutes."²³ The business relocated to 434 Water Street where, according to a contemporary report, there was "in stock a full supply of paints, oils, tar, pitch, nails, roofing felt and all kinds of builders' requisites. Mr. C. carries the largest stock in this line in the city, and, owing to the large quantity of goods he handles, is enabled to sell at a small profit. He also buys in the best markets, and, as he has made this line of business his especial study, he is in a position to supply the best material obtainable at the lowest possible figure. His store is now fully stocked and he will soon be carrying on as extensively as before the fire."²⁴ The Mr. C. referred to in the advertisement is probably Archibald as Colin was working as a commission merchant in 1892. But the business never did fully recover from the Fire. By 1894 Archibald was in business with William F. Horwood under the name of Campbell's Lumber Company.²⁵ Between 1894 and 1915, Colin and Archibald sold many of the Campbell family land holdings and business interests. In 1915 Archibald moved to Tennessee.

In life, William Campbell was a successful builder and building supplies merchant. While none of his businesses have survived in the Campbell name, both he and Richard Atwill deserve to be remembered. Their legacy is the buildings such as the George Street church that continue to grace the city of St. John's.

Suzanne Sexty is Honorary Research Librarian, Memorial University of Newfoundland Libraries.

¹ This very brief history of Methodism in Newfoundland, and particularly in St. John's, has been gleaned from a number of sources, including: J. W. Nichols, A century of Methodism in St. John's Newfoundland, 1815-1915 (1915); David G. Pitt, Windows of agates: the life and times of Gower Street Church, St. John's, Newfoundland, 1815-1900 (1990); Naboth Winsor, Hearts strangely warmed: a history of Methodism in Newfoundland, 1765-1925 (1982).
² Philip Tocque in Newfoundland: as it was, and as it is in 1877 (1877, p. 80) indicates that the Wesleyan Methodist population in St. John’s grew from 1,850 in 1857 to 2,926 in 1874.
³ The summary of the building of the George Street church has been written from accounts in George Story, George Street church, 1873-1973. (1973) and David G. Pitt, Windows of agates: the life and times of Gower Street Church, St. John’s, Newfoundland, 1815-1990 (1990).
⁴ The area was called Riverhead because of its proximity to the Waterford River. The designation Riverhead was, and still is, used, to describe the area roughly from Waldegrave Street to Road Deluxe and is often used in old land deeds. It reflects upon a time when the Waterford River and the harbour were much larger than they are today and covered a good portion of this area.
⁵ The surname is spelled as Atwill or Atwell. Although Atwell is the spelling that appears on Richard's headstone in the General Protestant Cemetery, this article will use Atwill for the following reasons. In Joan Taber's "Stone and quarry men of the West Country: a genealogical index of masons, quarrymen, builders, carpenters and all related occupations in Devon and Cornwall" at there are six Atwills identified as stone masons in Brockhempston, but no Atwells. As well, both George Story, in George Street church, 1873-1973 (1973), and David G. Pitt, in Windows of agates: the life and times of Gower Street United (1990), give the spelling as Atwill.
⁶ George Story, George Street church, 1873-1973 (1973) , p. 18.
⁷ "A sad accident," The Courier, October 22, 1873, p. [2].
⁸ [Obituary Richard Atwell], Harbour Grace Standard, October 25, 1873, p. [2].
⁹ The Patriot and Terra-Nova Herald, June 11, 1855, p. 3.
¹⁰ Some of these masons remained in Newfoundland, and one family in particular, the Gollops, remains to this day. For more information on the Gollop family see Michael Harrington, "The Gollops: stonemasons and lace," Evening Telegram, January 15, 1990, p. 5. In his "Reminiscences of [the] expansion of Methodism in [the] city," A. W. M[artin] recalls that the masons who came over from Dorsetshire and Devon were John Clarke, Richard Clarke, Henry Gollop, John Hallett, and George Atwill. George Atwill had previously lived in St. John's and was married to Jane Burridge, the daughter of another mason Thomas Burridge.
¹¹ [Obituary Richard Atwell], Harbour Grace Standard, October 25, 1873, p. [2]. There are a number of stories that attempt to explain the circumstances of his fall, but none could be confirmed. One of the more interesting tales is that Atwill had been given a symbolic trowel by the Freemasons as a tribute to his craftsmanship and that he had climbed the scaffolding to show it to the workmen. The workmen were in the process of removing the scaffolding and it collapsed when he added his weight to it. However, there is no indication in the records of the Freemasons that Atwill was ever a member, nor any record of such a trowel.
¹² Emily Atwill's obituary, Daily News, September 10, 1909, p. 4, notes that she had died at the residence of her daughter-in-law, Mrs. William Atwill. This would have been Harriet (Whiteway) Atwill who had married William Atwill March 23, 1881 (The Royal Gazette and Newfoundland Advertiser, March 29, 1881). William had predeceased his mother. According to Interments in the General Protestant Cemetery, 1909, Emily Atwill was buried in the family plot. There is also a headstone in the General Protestant Cemetery for Sarah Ann, daughter of Richard and Emily Jane Atwill, died May [?] 186[?] aged 4 years and 9 months who was probably their daughter
¹³ While H. Y. Mott's Newfoundland Men indicates that Campbell was born on June 2, 1843, this cannot be correct. Campbell's headstone in the General Protestant Cemetery gives his age as 63 when he died on April 19, 1886, which would place his birth in 1823 or 1822.
¹⁴ Information concerning Campbell's businesses and residences has been derived from various city directories, including Lovell's, McAlpine's, and Rochfort and also from documents in the Registry of Deeds.
¹⁵ Alexander Smith came to St. John's after the Fire of 1846 and was responsible for rebuilding many of the waterside buildings. In order to augment his earnings, he began carving gravestones. He established the St. John's Marble Works that survives today as Muir's Marble Works. For more information on Smith, see Gerald L. Pocius' account in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, v. XII or the Dictionary of Canadian Biography online at http://www.biographi.ca/index2.html.
¹⁶ "Detailed Statement of expenditure by the Board of Works on account of the erection of the light house at Dodding Head, for the year ending 31st December, 1857" in the House of Assembly Journal, 1858, appendix, p. 317.
¹⁷ "Detailed Statement of expenditure by the Board of Works on account of the erection of the light house on the Offer Wadham Island, for the year ending 31st December, 1857" in the House of Assembly Journal, 1858, appendix, p. 318.
¹⁸ "Annual report of the inspector of lighthouses, December 1869" in the House of Assembly Journal, 1870, appendix, page 556.
¹⁹ Information concerning the building of the penitentiary has come from a variety of sources, including: Journal of the House of Assembly for the years 1851-1862; Mel Baker and James E. Candow, "Signal Hill gaol, 1846-1859" (Newfoundland Quarterly, v. 85, no. 4, Spring/Summer 1990, pp. 20-23); Deborah O'Rielly, researcher, "Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador building report: H. M. Penitentiary, 85 Forest Road, St. John's" (2008).
²⁰ For a full account of the building of The New House, see George Story's article "Building a St. John's Victorian house," Canadian antiques collector, March/April 1975, p. 42- 45.
²¹ Parish records. Church of England, St. John's, St. Thomas Parish. Marriages, 1830-1852. PANL R2-F-5, box 2, #180.
²² The children have been identified from headstones, obituaries, and city directories.
²³ "A description of the burning of St. John's, N.F., July 8th 1892," [1892].
²⁴ W. J. Kent, A directory containing names and present addresses of professional men, merchants and shopkeepers, burnt out by the general conflagration of July 8th, 1892; a full account of the great fire, the customs' tariff and other matter of general information, 1892.
²⁵ According to an advertisement printed in 1961 (Newfoundland Who's Who, 1961, p. 47) the Horwood Lumber Company, Ltd. was incorporated in 1902, but the brothers, W. F. Horwood and R. F. Horwood, had been in St. John’s since 1893. They had opened a woodworking factory and lumberyard in response to the need for building supplies in the rebuilding of St. John's. An indenture of 1894 (Registry of Deeds, v. 11, folio 35) identifies William F. Horwood and Archibald H. Campbell as lumber dealers at St. John's "under the style or firm of the Campbell Lumber Company." In the indenture, they are putting their business holdings in trust to Colin Campbell and Robert K. Bishop for the purpose of winding up the business of Campbell Lumber Company.