MONTREAL - On Jan. 8, 1872, Sgt. Carson of the Ottawa St. police station in Griffintown was called to a nearby tenement. He found Thomas and Eliza McCaffrey and their children huddled on the floor, with no food or heat. In the corner lay the two youngest — “hard as lumps of marble,” as The Gazette reported. The three-month-old infant and two-year-old boy had frozen to death overnight.
Poverty stalked Montreal a century and a half ago. And unlike Britain — home of the workhouse immortalized by Charles Dickens — Quebec offered no government assistance. It was up to private individuals to step into the breach.
In 1863, a group of prominent businessmen founded the Protestant House of Industry and Refuge, a shelter and soup kitchen its first president, John Redpath, confidently predicted would achieve “victory over pauperism and its attendant vices and misery” within a few years.
Ending poverty and homelessness turned out to be harder than the founders thought. But the House of Industry filled an important gap in an era when private charity was the only thing that stood between poor Montrealers and starvation.
Never heard of the former workhouse? It might surprise you to know the institution still exists today.
This week, the Grace Dart Extended Care Centre, an east-end rest home that traces its origins to the House of Industry, celebrated 150 years of care with a gala fundraiser at Le Windsor. For Gary Aitken, a longtime member of the centre’s board who is writing a book on the institution’s history, the anniversary is an opportunity to shed light on a forgotten chapter in Montreal’s past.
In the mid-1800s, the city’s population was booming as railways, the Victoria Bridge and industries along the Lachine Canal brought prosperity, said Aitken, a retired insurance broker.
“But along with it came poverty. They literally were finding frozen corpses on the street. People had no place to go,” he said.
“Montreal was a filthy, plague-ridden place. It was one thing after another, whether it was cholera, or influenza, or diphtheria.”
In Ontario (then called Canada West), the government subsidized aid for the destitute. But in Quebec (Canada East), responsibility for helping the needy was mainly entrusted to Catholic orders of nuns.
Alarmed by rising misery, community leaders decided action was needed.
In addition to Redpath, founder of a sugar refinery, they included shipping magnate Hugh Allan, former mayor James Ferrier, future mayor William Workman, members of the Molson family and confectioner Charles Alexander.
The founders of the House of Industry have been criticized for a judgmental attitude that distinguished between the “deserving poor” (elderly people and invalids who were unable to work) and the “undeserving poor” (able-bodied people who couldn’t find a job because of such problems as alcoholism).
But Aitken, who started researching the institution’s history after discovering a trove of documents, including the handwritten minutes of meetings dating back to 1863, said they deserve credit for helping people who were falling through the cracks.
“They really did make a difference,” he said.
The minutes reveal the founders’ diligence and commitment, Aitken added.
“What I admire about these men was that, from the first meeting, they met an average of once a week, the point being that they really put themselves into this,” he said.
“It’s stunning to see how they would have a meeting and they would agree that certain people would do certain things.” By the next meeting, those tasks had been accomplished, he said. “People really got on with what they had to do.”
Their first step was to open a soup kitchen on Fortification Lane in December 1863. By the next year, they had raised $70,000 in donations (about $1.3 million in today’s money) and laid the cornerstone for the House of Industry at Bleury and Dorchester Sts. (now René-Lévesque Blvd.), which opened in 1865.
Conditions were spartan.
“The men slept in the basement. There was a dormitory upstairs for the women,” Aitken said. “(In the morning) they got some oatmeal and tea. They were asked to contribute some labour. The women did some sewing. The men spent an hour or two chopping kindling. And then they were expected to go and look for a job.”
And just like the workhouse where Oliver Twist made his famous request, “Please, sir, I want some more,” the House of Industry was not known for gourmet fare. Staff were instructed that the soup should be nutritious, but not so tasty people would be tempted to come back for more.
While some residents stayed just a few days, it soon became clear that others needed a permanent home. In 1885, the House of Industry moved elderly people and invalids into a newly constructed “Country House,” on a former farm in the east end bequeathed by Thomas Molson.
Facing the river, the property near the present-day Port of Montreal offered a respite from the filth and smokestacks of the city. “It was green and pastoral and it would be a lovely, clean spot,” Aitken said.
In 1953, the original House of Industry on Bleury St. was torn down when Dorchester was widened. But the Country House is still in use as the original wing of the Grace Dart Extended Care Centre. Formed in 1999 by the merger of the Montreal Extended Care Centre (the latter-day name for the House of Industry) and the nearby Grace Dart Hospital, it has a capacity of about 350 beds. Unfortunately, the location is inconvenient for the anglophone population the Grace Dart serves, Aitken said. The fact that the hospital has changed its name several times has also reduced its visibility, he added.
“If you stop anyone on the street and say, ‘What do you know about the Grace Dart Extended Care Centre?’ they would say, ‘Never heard of it,’ ” Aitken said.
“We’re an anglophone institution in the east end of Montreal. Unless you’ve got a family member there, you’re not likely to connect with the name.”
Aitken said the institution deserves wider recognition — both for the work it does today and its historic legacy.
“I felt strongly in our 150th year the story should be told and we should find a way to make ourselves better known.”
For more information on the Grace Dart Extended Care Centre, call 514-255-2834, Local 3350, or visit gracedartfoundation.ca.