SURTEES, Robert (1835-1906), best known as an engineer active in Ottawa, Ont., was born in Ravensworth, Co. Yorkshire, England on 3 March 1835 and served an apprenticeship with a civil engineer in Darlington, England. In 1856, at the age of twenty-one, he emigrated to Canada and settled at Hamilton, Ont. where he secured the appointment of assistant City Engineer. In 1860 he moved to New Edinburgh, a suburb of Ottawa, and opened an office as a Civil Engineer. Despite having no formal education or training as architect, he was a competent designer who was well-versed in the fashionable Second Empire style that was popular in the late 19th Century. By 1865 he began to offer his services as an architect in Ottawa where his best known works include the By Ward Market (1865-76), and the Carleton County Court House (1870-71).
Surtees also tried his hand at architectural competitions; in 1868 he was one of nine Ottawa architects who prepared designs for the new Western Central School, Hugh Street (Ottawa Citizen, 13 March 1868, 3). The entry by Surtees was not selected, however, with First Premium being awarded to William Hodgson. In 1875 he accepted the appointment of City Engineer for Ottawa, overseeing important works including the development of the main city sewer system, and the doubling in size of the city waterworks network. These new responsibilities preoccupied Surtees, and he carried out only two architectural commissions after 1875, including one for several new buildings on the site of the Dominion Exhibition Grounds, Elgin Street (1879). In 1883, under the increasing pressures of office, he elected to take a position of Waterworks Engineer alone, and his colleague, E.E. Perrault, was appointed as the new City Engineer. He also advised the city of Peterborough, Ont., the city of Hull, Que., and the town of Arnprior, on the installation of their waterworks systems. Surtees resigned his position from the City in 1900, becoming advisor to the Ottawa Improvement Commission, because he was “….possessed of particular ability as a landscape architect’. It was Surtees who was credited with the planning and layout of the public driveways leading to the Experimental Farm and to Rockcliffe, as well as the design of the attractive Minto Bridges.
In 1904, while in Montreal, Surtees was badly injured when thrown from a sleigh. A stroke of paralysis followed, from which he never fully recovered, and he died in Ottawa on 29 September 1906 (obit. Ottawa Journal, 29 Sept. 1906, 1; Ottawa Citizen, 1 Oct. 1906, 4; Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, Report of the Annual Meeting, 1907, xxi, 16; biog. G. Mercer Adam, Prominent Men of Canada, 1892, 199; biog. and port. Canadian Architect & Builder, vii, Jan. 1894, 13; biog. and port. W. Cochrane, The Canadian Album: Men of Canada, iv, 1895, 342)
(works in Ottawa unless noted)
(attributed) BY WARD MARKET BUILDING, York Street, 1865-76 (Ottawa City Archives, Minutes of Council for part of the years 1874, 1875, 1876 and 1877, 185-85, 200; Lucien Brault, Ottawa Old and New, 1946, 107; Parks Canada, Canadian Historic Sites Vol. 24, Second Empire Style in Canadian Architecture, 1980, 78-9, illus. & descrip.)
NEW EDINBURGH, major additions and alterations to the woolen mills for Edward McKay, 1866-67 (Ottawa Citizen, 27 Nov. 1866, 3, t.c.; and 1 Nov. 1867, 3, descrip.)
CARLETON COUNTY COURT HOUSE, Nicholas Street at Daly Street, 1870-71 (Ottawa Citizen, 18 March 1870, 3; and 13 June 1871, 3, descrip.; and 12 Dec. 1871, 3; M. Carter, Early Canadian Court Houses, 1983, 219, illus.; Andrew Waldron, Exploring the Capital: An Architectural Guide to the Ottawa-Gatineau Region, 2017, 74-5, illus. & descrip.)
PROTESTANT HOSPITAL, Rideau Street at Charlotte Street, 1873-77 (Free Press [Ottawa], 11 Sept. 1872, 3; and 25 June 1875, 3, descrip.; and 5 Dec. 1877, 4, descrip.; Daily Citizen [Ottawa], 4 Sept. 1874, 3, descrip.; Ottawa: A Guide to Heritage Structures, 2000, 122, illus.)
BILLINGS BRIDGE, ONT., Town Hall, 1874 (Daily Citizen [Ottawa], 21 Sept. 1874, 1, t.c.)
NEW EDINBURGH UNION PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, MacKay Street near Rideau Hall, 1874 (Free Press [Ottawa], 18 June 1874, 2; Daily Citizen [Ottawa], 19 June 1874, 4, descrip.; British American Presbyterian [Toronto], 14 Aug. 1874, 5, descrip.)
ROCK VILLAGE, ONT., major addition and alterations to school house 'on the Montreal Road', 1875 (Free Press [Ottawa], 25 March 1875, 2, t.c.)
MAJOR'S HILL PARK, adjacent to the Rideau Locks, several outbuildings including summer houses, observatory, arbor, bridge and furniture 'designed in a Rustic style', 1875-77 (Free Press [Ottawa], 6 June 1877, 4, descrip.)
DOMINION EXHIBITION, Elgin Street, the Manitoba Building, an Art Gallery, the Dairy Building and major addition to the Horticultural Hall, 1879 (Free Press [Ottawa], 27 Aug. 1879, 3, descrip.; 11 Sept. 1879, 3, descrip.; 16 Sept. 1879, 1, map and descrip.)
HULL, QUE., Fleet Street Water Pumping Station, additions, 1888, and 1899 (Andrew Waldron, Exploring the Capital: An Architectural Guide to the Ottawa-Gatineau Region, 2017, 203, illus. & descrip.)