LEATHER, William Beaumont (1820-1907) was born in Bradford, England on 11 April 1820 and grew up in the Leeds area. He trained for his profession as engineer and surveyor in Leeds and '...built ten beautiful stone houses for which I drew the Designs and I saw ten executed' (St. James Cathedral Archives, Toronto, letter fo Rev. H.I. Grasset, 25 July 1850). in 1850 he emigrated to Canada where he settled in Toronto. In November of that year he formed a partnership with Sandford Fleming, already an established draughtsman and surveyor. According to Fleming's diary, Leather was 'an English engineer' and 'an engineering surveyor' in their printed advertisements (OA, MU 1050, Sandford Fleming Papers). The firm of Fleming & Leather was dissolved in late 1851 and Leather opened an office in Toronto [British Colonist [Toronto], 20 Jan. 1852, 3). He moved to London, Ont. to work alone and, in 1853, formed a partnership with William Robinson. The collaboration appears to have been an informal one, lasting four years and allowing each partner to work jointly or separately. Leather executed a variety of architectural, engineering and surveying commissions, and after the dissolution of the partnership in 1857 he began work on his best known design, the London Post Office (1858-60), a highly mannered Italian Renaissance palazzo executed in stone with heavily rusticated columns.
After 1860 Leather turned to civil engineering and land surveying, and for much of 1864 worked in New Brunswick for his old partner Sandford Fleming on the Intercolonial Railway. He moved to New Glasgow in 1865, then to Halifax in 1869 and returned to New Glasgow in 1871. By 1876 he had returned to Ontario and opened an office in Hamilton (Spectator [Hamilton], 9 March 1876, 2) where he worked until early 1879. He died there on 22 February 1907 and was buried at Hamilton Cemetery (obituary in the Spectator [Hamilton], 23 Feb. 1907, 24; biog. in M. Rosinski, Architects of Nova Scotia, 1994, 129; inf. Stephen A. Otto, Toronto)
TORONTO, ONT., water reservoir for the City Water Dept., 1851 (Examiner [Toronto], 31 Dec. 1851, 3)
LONDON, ONT., basements for the Middlesex County Court House, Ridout Street, 1853 (Weekly Spectator [Hamilton], 28 April 1853, 2)
LONDON, ONT., commercial block for A. & T.C. Kerr, North Street at Ridout Street, 1853 (Weekly Spectator [Hamilton], 28 April 1853, 2; Daily Spectator [Hamilton], 30 July 1853, 2)
LONDON, ONT., Temperance Hall, Library and Reading Room, for the Pioneer Div. of the Sons of Temperance, 1853 (Kingston Daily News, 26 April 1853, 2, descrip.; Weekly Spectator [Hamilton], 28 April 1853, 2; descrip.)
ST. THOMAS, ONT., Bank of Montreal, Talbot Street, 1853 (Weekly Dispatch [St. Thomas], 29 Sept. 1853, 2, t.c.)
LONDON, ONT., Victoria Bridge over the Thames River, 1854 (Hamilton Gazette, 21 Dec. 1854, 3)
LONDON, ONT., residence for Capt. Wilson, 1856 (Free Press [London], 18 June 1856, 3, t.c.)
LONDON, ONT., residence for Lionel Ridout, Great Talbot Street, 1856-58 (Univ. of Western Ont., Regional Coll., CA90 NRi D172, Box 4121, Estate Papers of Lionel Ridout)
LONDON, ONT., Post Office, Richmond Street at Queen's Avenue, 1858-60 (Daily Spectator [Hamilton], 29 April 1858, 2, t.c.; Free Press [London], 1 May 1860, 2, descrip.; N. Tausky & L. Di Stefano, Victorian Architecture in London & Southwestern Ontario, 1986, 119-20, descrip. & illus.)
NEW GLASGOW, N.S., foundry, Forbes Street, 1867 (Eastern Chronicle [New Glasgow], 3 Aug.1867, t.c.)
JARVIS, ONT., St. Paul's Anglican Church, Talbot Street East near Craddock Boulevard, 1897; still standing in 2023 (Canadian Churchman [Toronto], 1 July 1897, 415; and 20 Jan. 1898, 41, descrip.)