March 15, 1827, King's College - the precursor to the University of
Toronto - was granted its royal charter by King George IV. Throughout
2002, U of T celebrated 175 years of Great Minds. As part of the
celebration, the U of T website featured excerpts from The
University of Toronto: A History, written by Martin Friedland, University
Professor and Professor Emeritus of Law at U of T.
Hart House Founders' Prayer refers to the "conversation of
wise and earnest men." In the early years of the House, women were
not admitted on equal terms with men. Some concessions were made. A
number of designated concerts were open to women. Women's organizations
were refused space. The women of the University of Toronto Swimming
Club could not use the Hart House pool, and women faculty members could
not use the faculty club while it was in Hart House.
innovation was made in 1954 by Hart House Warden Joseph McCulley, who
had been appointed in 1952 after Nicholas Ignatieff died suddenly. The
former billiard room in the basement was transformed into the co-educational
Arbor Room. The first permanent women students' washroom was installed
in Hart House, and a new outside entrance was constructed in the south
wall of the building.
The possibility of
opening Hart House to women only came after Vincent Massey's death.
Smith and Chancellor Beatty and their wives cut the ceremonial tape,
and roses were given to the first two hundred women to enter the room.
Women could not enter until 3 o'clock in the afternoon, however; until
then it was reserved for men. They could also come as guests to the
150-acre Hart House farm in the Caledon Hills, purchased in 1949. Warden
McCulley, who had been head of Pickering College and then deputy commissioner
of penitentiaries, wanted to keep the House itself as essentially a
male preserve. So did Vincent Massey, then the governor general of Canada.
not until the appointment of a new warden, Arnold Wilkinson, and after
Massey's death that women became full members of the House. President
Claude Bissell recorded in his diary in 1968 "the possibility now,
with Vincent Massey's death, of opening Hart House to women." He
appointed a committee, which so recommended, and on January 27, 1972
the university board of governors approved a recommendation that women
be admitted to the House on the same terms as male students.
always taken part in Hart House Theatre, which was administered separately
from Hart House. The theatre, used only sporadically since 1937, was
revived after the war.
Gill, an American actor with academic credentials, was brought in to
run the program for students. The theatre would in large measure be
used for student productions, unlike in the pre-war years, when it was
used mainly by amateur and semi-professional actors.
Sutherland , fourth from right, in the 1956 Hart House production
of Molière's School for Wives
production in 1947 was Shaw's Saint Joan, with Charmion King
in the title role. "Her performance of Joan," the Globe and
Mail critic wrote the following morning, "is a luminous portrayal,
instinct with an inner fire of truth and spiritual beauty, and exquisite
in its shadings of emotion and execution."
used to sell out pretty well every performance" of the student
productions, said the theatre manager Jimmy Hozack. When Gill died in
1974, a memorial service in the theatre included a reading of Saint
Joan by some of those who had taken part in the first production - Charmion
King, David Gardner, Donald and Murray Davis, and Eric House.
now well known actors and directors in addition to those in Saint
Joan worked under Gill's direction, including Frances Hyland, Leon
Major, Kate Reid, and Donald Sutherland. Many who worked with him went
on to Stratford when it opened in 1953. As for women in Hart House,
recent documents have rephrased the words "conversation of wise
and earnest men" as "the conversation of the wise and the