HANNAFORD, Edmund Phillips (1834-1902), an engineer by training, is best known for his major architectural and engineering achievements completed for the Grand Trunk Railway in Ontario and Quebec. Born in Stoke Gabriel, Co. Devonshire, England on 12 December 1834, he began work at the age of 17 as a draughtsman under the tutelage of Isambard King Brunel (1806-1859), the leading engineer of the early Victorian era in England. Hannaford worked for Brunel in the period of 1851-53, then joined the engineering staff of the South Devon Railway in 1853 where he was engaged for four years. He emigrated to Canada in early 1857 and settled in Cobourg, Ont. where he took a job as a clerk with T.F. Nicholl, a local land agent and draughtsman (Cobourg Star, 22 July 1857, 2). By early 1858, he had joined John H. Lloyd in Cobourg, assisting him with preparing a new map of the town and the lithographic printing of this document. In June 1858, Hannaford used his skills as a delineator to prepare a ground plan of St. Peter’s Cemetery, and in September of that year he was asked to design a cemetery monument for the late Thomas Lloyd. The monument was carved by Charles Thomas, who had executed much of the stone carving on Victoria Hall in Cobourg (designed by Kivas Tully).
In late 1857, Hannaford moved to Montreal to take up the post of Assistant Engineer of the Grand Trunk Railway, and in 1869 he was promoted to Chief Engineer, a position he would hold for the next twenty-five years, overseeing engineering work on the GTR line from Portland, Maine through Quebec and southern Ontario to Windsor and the American border. This work included preparing designs for two important landmarks of Canadian architecture, the G.T.R. Union Station in Toronto (1872), and the GTR Bonaventure Station in Montreal (1886-88).
There is no question that the design and construction of Union Station in Toronto was a major architectural and engineering achievement in 19th C. Canada, but there are indications that Thomas S. Scott, the brilliant English-born architect then residing in Montreal, may have contributed to the architectural design of the grand entrance hall and tower at the station, leaving Hannaford to work out the engineering and structural design of the 470 foot-long train sheds to the south. It should be noted that Scott exhibited his 1871 drawings for Union Station in Toronto at the Royal Canadian Academy in Ottawa in 1880 (Ottawa Free Press, 8 March 1880, 2). Scott also appears to have collaborated with Hannaford on the design of Bonaventure Railway Station in Montreal in 1886-88. Here again, Scott would have been responsible for the refined Second Empire style design of the façade and entrance hall, and Hannaford likely supervised the structural design of the train sheds behind the Arrival Hall.
The name of Hannaford can also be linked to the design of the G.T.R. Station in Guelph, Ont. (1889), and undoubtedly there are other stations on the line which still stand today which may have been designed by Hannaford between 1869 and 1895. Hannaford retired from his post as Chief Engineer of the G.T.R. in late 1895 (Canadian Engineer, iii, Jan. 1896, 278, with port.) and he later died in Montreal on 18 August 1902 (obituary Montreal Gazette, 19 Aug. 1902, 5; Montreal Daily Star, 19 Aug. 1902, 10, with port.; obit. Railroad Gazette [New York], xxxiv, 22 Aug. 1902, 663; biog. and obit. Canadian Society of Civil Engineers [Montreal], xvii, Report of the Annual Meeting, 1903, 8-10; biog. in William H. Atherton, Montreal From 1535 to 1914, Vol. iii, 439-40).
COBOURG, ONT., ground plan and layout for St. Peter’s Cemetery, 1858 (Cobourg Star, 23 June 1858, 3)
COBOURG, ONT., a cemetery monument and memorial to the late Thomas Lloyd, at St. Peter’s Cemetery, 1858 (Cobourg Star, 15 Sept. 1858, 2)
MONTREAL, QUE., major addition of new freight sheds and freight offices at the Grand Trunk Railway complex, on Bonaventure Street facing Chaboillez Square, 1867 (Montreal Herald, 22 March 1867, Supplement, descrip.)
(with Thomas S. Scott) TORONTO, ONT., Union Station, for the Grand Trunk Railway, Front Street West near York Street, 1872; demol. 1927 (The Leader [Toronto], 26 Jan. 1872, 2, descrip.; Globe [Toronto], 14 June 1872, 4, descrip.; Mail [Toronto], 5 Dec. 1872, 4, descrip.; Canadian Illustrated News, v, 29 June 1872, 402, descrip.; viii, 2 Aug. 1873, 72-3, illus. & descrip.; W. Dendy, Lost Toronto, 1978, 16-18, illus. & descrip.)
MONTREAL, QUE., Grand Trunk Railway Office Building, Etiennne Street at Mill Street, Point St. Charles, 1880-81 (Gazette [Montreal[, 7 June 1880, 4, descrip.; 12 April 1881, 5, descrip.)
(with Thomas S. Scott) MONTREAL, QUE., Bonaventure Railway Station, for the Grand Trunk Railway, 1886-88; burned 1948 (La Minerve [Montreal], 22 March 1886, 1; Gazette [Montreal], 16 Oct. 1888, 2, descrip.; Dominion Illustrated [Montreal], 19 Jan. 1889, 38; C.A.B., ii, Jan. 1889, 9; dwgs. at NAC, National Map Collection, 78903/72)
GUELPH, ONT., Grand Trunk Railway Station, 1889 (signed drawings in the C.N.R. Plan Room, Union Station, Toronto, Item No. 949-20)