McKAY, Walter (1822-1886), active in Georgetown, Ont., at first as a carpenter from 1851, and after 1875 as an architect and builder. Born in the village of Tongue, Co. Sutherland, in northern Scotland in 1822, he emigrated to Canada in 1846 and settled in Streetsville, Ont. for five years where he learned the building trades. In 1852 he moved to nearby Georgetown, Ont. In 1878 he was referred to as “ Mr. McKay, architect of Georgetown” when he designed the Presbyterian Church at Ballinafad, a small village in Halton County, southwest of Georgetown. That same year he prepared a sophisticated Gothic Revival design for the Presbyterian Church in Norval, Ont. His obituary which was published in 1886 confirms that he moved to Manitoba in 1882, and that he is the same “Walter McKay, Architect, late of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba” who was recorded in 1883 as operating an office on Rosser Avenue in Brandon (Brandon Daily Mail, 11 April 1883, 1, advert.). He returned to Ontario after 1884 and died in Georgetown on 17 January 1886 (obituary Canadian Champion [Milton], 21 Jan. 1886, 3).
BALLINAFAD, ONT., Presbyterian Church, Trafalgar Road North at Halton-Erin Road, near 32 Side Road, 1878; still standing in 2023 (Guelph Daily Mercury, 27 Sept. 1878, 1; Acton Free Press, 3 Oct. 1878, 3)
GEORGETOWN, ONT., Congregational Church, Church Street at Market Street, 1877-78; converted to Public Library in 1913; still standing in 2023 (R. Ruggle, Norval on the Credit River, 1973, 27-8, referring to the church by McKay in Norval, which was “....based on the plans of the Congregational Church in Georgetown” which were also drawn by McKay)
NORVAL, ONT., Presbyterian Church, Guelph Street at Draper Street, 1878; still standing in 2023 (Georgetown Herald, 29 June 1938, 1, historical article on the church; One Hundred Years to the Glory of God - Norval Presbyterian Church 1878-1978, illus.)