A Pictorial History of St Paul's Anglican Church

David E. Smith is a political science professor at the University of
Saskatchewan and the author of Building a Province: A History of
Saskatchewan in Documents.

Despite its title, this book is much more than a pictorial history of
“the oldest Protestant Church in Canada.” True, there is a generous
supply of photographs, sketches, and drawings of St. Paul’s exterior
and interior over nearly 250 years (its beginnings are contemporaneous
with the founding of Halifax in 1749). True, as well, a meticulous text
based on documentary research by McAleer, professor of architectural
history at the Technical University of Nova Scotia, complements the
visual representation. But a building is more than its structural
fabric; it is also about history, design, context, reference, and
function. This book has all of that.

McAleer discusses and illustrates the remarkable similarities (and
striking differences) between St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s, Vere
Street, London. St. Peter’s was designed by James Gibbs, the author of
A Book of Architecture (1728), and it is certain that Gibbs’s famous
design book was used by the builders of St. Paul’s. McAleer also draws
comparisons with other “Wren-like” churches in North America, such
as Christ Church (“Old North”), Boston. The continuity of the text,
however, is found in the story of the evolution of St. Paul’s own
structure over two-and-a-half centuries.

This pictorial-documentary essay will appeal to anyone interested in
architecture, history, or the diffusion of culture. It may be read with
profit at home, or consulted in situ by readers lucky enough to visit
this elegant building.