White, Edward

WHITE, Edward (1873-1952) of London, Engl. collaborated with Sir Aston Webb and E. Maurice to prepare a truly grandiose Edwardian vision for the new Departmental Buildings along Wellington Street in OTTAWA, ONT. in 1913 (Strathmore Standard [Strathmore, Alta.], 18 Jan. 1913, 3, descrip.; Ottawa Journal, 1 Feb. 1913, 14, illus.; Contract Record [Toronto], xxvii, 5 Feb. 1913, 61, illus. & descrip.; Builder [London], civ, 23 May 1913, plate illus.). White was commissioned to develop the scheme by the Canadian prime minister during a visit to London in the summer of 1912 and the project was adopted by the Canadian government, but within weeks of unveiling, the plan came in for considerable criticism from the local architectural profession in Ottawa. C.P. Meredith thought the plan was 'lacking in harmony', and W.E. Noffke found the elevation facing the Ottawa river to be 'too flat'. The harshest comments came from Frank W. Simon, a fellow countryman of White who had recently completed his Canadian masterpiece, the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg (see his critique in the Ottawa Journal, 26 April 1913, 3). The government responded by shelving the proposal, and calling a new architectural competition for the site in 1914, but WWI intervened and the project was abandoned. The large scale original drawings presented by White in 1913 have survived and can now be found in the National Archives of Canada (NAC 756/23 661). An obituary article on White was published in The Builder [London], clxxxii, 11 Jan. 1952, 88.