HENRY, Frederick (1865-1929), an architect and provincial land surveyor who was active in London, Ontario for over twenty years in the following firms:
Frederick Henry, Architect 1890-1891
Moore & Henry, Architects, 1892-1907
Moore, Henry & Munro, Architects, 1908-1910
Born in London, Ontario on 8 August 1865, he was the son of Bernard Henry, a pioneer merchant in that city, and he attended school in London. He articled in the office of George F. Durand, a leading architect in western Ontario, from 1886 to 1888. Concurrently, he also studied land surveying under John M. Moore, then a partner in the firm of Durand & Moore, and he qualified as a Ontario Land Surveyor in April 1887. The following month, he was appointed Assistant City Engineer, working directly under Thomas Tracy, another London engineer and architect who had formerly been a member of the partnership of Tracy & Durand from 1880 to 1882 (Daily Advertiser [London], 5 May 1887, 8).
In March 1888 Henry left Canada and moved to New York City where he worked as an assistant in the office of J. Cleveland Cady & Co., FAIA, a prominent architect there. By March of 1889 he had returned to London, Ontario and was once again working in the office of his mentor G.F. Durand. The untimely death of Durand on 20 December 1889 likely prompted Henry to remain in London, and to open his own office in that city in February 1890, when it was announced that he was to be the successor to the practise of Durand (Daily Advertiser [London], 20 Feb. 1890, 8; London Free Press, 22 Feb. 1890, 8; C.A.B., iii, March 1890, 30). Working under his own name, he appears to have been a capable designer in his own right, and an adherent and follower of the fashionable Romanesque Revival and high Victorian Gothic styles. His own signed drawings for Burns Presbyterian Church in Mosa Township (1891) show him to be a skilled delineator and draftsman, thoroughly versed in the language of ecclesiastical architecture which he learned well under the tutelage of G.F. Durand.
In 1892, he was invited by his former employer J.M. Moore to form a new partnership (see list of works under Moore & Henry). Their office was remarkably productive and successful, and together they handled more than 100 commissions for buildings in southwestern Ontario and as far away as Vancouver, Winnipeg and Montreal. It is unclear what the division of responsibility was in their firm, but an examination of the extensive collection of architectural drawings by Moore & Henry which has survived reveals that both Moore and Henry contributed to the production of designs and drawings. In 1908 their firm welcomed a new partner, J. Vicar Munro, and all three architects collaborated for the next two years (see list of works under Moore, Henry & Munro).
Henry appears to have suffered from cerebral palsy after 1909 or 1910 because his obituary published in 1929 states that he was “….an invalid for the past twenty years”, and this event left him under constant care by others, and may have hastened his retirement from the profession in 1910. He resigned from the partnership in that year, leaving Moore & Munro to continue work until late 1912. Henry died in London, Ont. on 7 February 1929 (obituary London Free Press, 11 Feb. 1929, 2). He was later buried at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Cemetery in London. A photographic portrait and detailed biography of Henry was published in the Annual Report of the Association of Ontario Land Surveyors, 1935, 93-4. The D.B. Weldon Library at the University of Western Ontario holds an extensive collection of original architectural drawings by Moore & Henry, and by Moore, Henry & Munro, for the period of 1892 to 1910. An illustrated biography of Henry, with commentary on his early work, appears in Nancy Tausky & Lynne DiStefano, Victorian Architecture in London and Southwestern Ontario, 1986, 383-423, illus.
(works in London unless noted)
QUEEN'S AVENUE, residence for William Duffield, 1890 (dwgs. at UWO, Moore Coll.)
RICHMOND STREET, new facade and alterations to premises of the former Albion Restaurant, for Thomas Taylor, 1890 (Daily Advertiser [London], 15 April 1890, 2, t.c.)
WEST NISSOURI TOWNSHIP, residence for G. C. Magee, 1890 (London Advertiser, 27 May 1890, 2, t.c.)
ST. GEORGE'S ANGLICAN CHURCH, Wharncliffe Road at Ann Street, 1890 (Free Press [London], 2 April 1890, 7, descrip.; London Advertiser, 22 Nov. 1890, 6, descrip.; dwgs. at UWO, Moore Coll.; N. Tausky & L. DiStefano, Victorian Architecture in London and Southwestern Ontario, 1986, 386-88, illus.)
WESTERN FAIRGROUNDS, an Art Gallery and Art Annex at the Main Exhibition Hall, 1890 (Daily Advertiser [London], 3 Sept. 1890, 2, t.c.)
MOSA TOWNSHIP, Burns Presbyterian Church, 1891 (C.R., ii, 28 March 1891, 1, t.c.; Glencoe Transcript, 3 Sept. 1891, 8; dwgs. at UWO, Moore Coll.; N. Tausky & L. DiStefano, Victorian Architecture in London & Southwestern Ontario, 1986, 389-91, illus.)
KING STREET, at Adelaide Street, houses for William S. Smith, 1891 (dwgs. at UWO, Moore Coll.)
DORCHESTER, ONT., residence for Daniel McIntyre, 1891 (London Advertiser, 11 Feb. 1891, 2, t.c.; dwgs. at UWO, Moore Coll.)
CENTRAL AVENUE, two pairs of houses for Henry Mathewson, facing Victoria Park, 1891 (Daily Advertiser [London], 31 March 1891, 2, t.c.; Free Press [London], 26 Sept. 1891, 9)
BYRON, ONT., residence for P. T. Flint, 1891 (London Advertiser, 19 May 1891, 2, t.c.; dwgs. at UWO, Moore Coll.)
YORK STREET, residence for Dr. J.W. Fraser, 1891 (London Advertiser, 25 May 1891, 2, t.c.)
ST. JOSEPH'S ROMAN CATHOLIC HOSPITAL, Grosvenor Street at Wellington Street, 1891-92 (London Advertiser, 4 June 1891, 8, descrip.; 22 Oct. 1891, 2, t.c.)
NEWBURY, ONT., School, 1891 (London Advertiser, 7 Aug. 1891, 2, t.c.)