PAISLEY, James Ernest Harris (1890-1955) was born in Ottawa, Ont. on 29 June 1890, son of James K. and Minnie B. (Harris) Paisley. He attended Ottawa Collegiate and St. Andrew's College in Aurora before moving to Montreal to enroll at McGill University where he graduated from the Dept. of Architecture in 1915. After serving with the Royal Canadian Engineers during WWI he moved to Toronto to work in the office of D.R. Franklin (1919-20) and then became Chief Designer in the architectural department of the Toronto Board of Education (1921-22). In 1924 he was invited by Col. Ferdinand H. Marani to form a partnership (see list of works under Marani & Paisley). They collaborated on several distinctive Georgian Revival institutional buildings including St. Andrew's College at Aurora and Ridley College in St. Catharines. In early 1929 Paisley severed his connections with Marani & Lawson and opened his own office in Toronto, but the lack of architectural commissions during the Depression may have prompted his move to London, England in 1936 where he later designed hospital buildings and hostels for the Ministry of Supply during WWII. In 1951 he rejoined his colleague F.H. Marani in the new firm of Marani & Morris in Toronto. Paisley returned to his home town of Ottawa in 1953 and worked as a staff architect in the Dept. of Public Works until 1955. He died there on 16 April 1955 (obituary in the Ottawa Citizen, 18 April 1955, 31; biog. in R. Hamilton, Prominent Men of Canada, 1931-2, 483; inf. from Royal Inst. of British Architects, London)
(works in Toronto unless noted)
WOOLNOUGH CORSETIERE BUILDING, Bloor Street West near Yonge Street, 1929; demol. (Toronto Daily Star, 13 Sept. 1929, 22, illus. and descrip.; Toronto b.p. 10019, 19 Aug. 1929; Const., xxiii, May 1930, 163-4, 172, illus. & descrip.)
HELENA RUBENSTEIN SALON, Bloor Street West near Avenue Road, 1929; demol. (Const., xxii, Dec. 1929, 374-5, 381-2, illus. & descrip.)
WELLESLEY APARTMENTS, Wellesley Street East at Church Street, a 5 storey apartment block for Grover C. Murdoch, 1930; still standing in 2024 at 64 Wellesley Street East (Toronto b.p. 15996, 20 May 1930; Toronto Star, 4 April 1930, 36, illus. & descrip.,and 31 Dec. 1931, 5, illus.)
YONGE STREET, at Gerrard Street West, stores and offices for Gibson Bros. Realty, 1930; demol. c. 1965 (Toronto Star, 8 Aug. 1930, 23)
AURORA, ONT., St. Andrew's College, a new chapel, and major addition to the Lower School, 1930 (Telegram [Toronto], 7 March 1930, 21, illus. & descrip.; Toronto Star, 25 April 1930, 34, descrip.; C.R., xliv, 11 June 1930, 34, illus. in advert.)
ETOBICOKE, ONT., residence for Issac Ilsely, King George's Road, Lambton Mills, 1931 (C.H.G., xxv, Feb. 1932, 47, 50, illus. & descrip.)