Fonds consists primarily of architectural drawings by Edward J. Lennox, detailing many projects in the Toronto area, and a few outside of the city. It also contains a small amount of textual material pertaining to his professional career, and publications.
Textual materials relating to Lennox's work consist primarily of specifications for his building projects. A specification is a document which outlines the agreed statements of requirement with respect to materials to be provided and labour to be performed. They detail all materials to be used in construction including elements such as plumbing, wiring, toiletries, etc. They also detail the required plastering, painting, masonry, carpentry, glazing, and steelworking that needs to be done. Buildings for which specifications exist include St. Paul's Church on Bloor St. E., the Hospital for Incurables on Dunn St., Postal Station "G", the E.J. Lennox residence at the corner of Walmer and Davenport Roads, the west wing of the Ontario Parliament Buildings, 10-20 Waterloo Avenue, the Maurice Cody Memorial Hall of St. Paul's Church, Municipal and county buildings for the City of Toronto and the County of York, addition to the Excelsior Life Insurance Company, and the Western Hospital.
Lennox's office had a practice of annotating and altering previous specifications for new projects having similar construction. This production of two records within one document is apparent by the alteration of the date. It is often not certain which alterations are for what project, and whether the earlier original or later alteration is the final copy. A better copy of the former may be in the specifications for a later project. Specifications also have wrappers with names of local contractors, building materials manufacturers and suppliers.
Other textual records include a small amount of correspondence and reports pertaining to Lennox family's involvement in the Eastern Manitoba Lands Corporation and the Otter Lake Mining Syndicate, [1905-1937]; tenders, receipts and invoices for a few projects that were sent to E.J. Lennox & Son Architects between 1925 and 1935; and Lennox's drawings registers and a cash book, (1889-1924).
Published works that have been retained with the fonds consist of a few annotated architectural publications, including catalogues, style books, and technical manuals.
Toronto area buildings represented in the holdings by architectural plans include the Parliament Buildings, old City Hall, the King Edward Hotel, the Toronto Western Hospital, the Toronto Hospital for Incurables, the Excelsior Life Assurance Co. at 59 Victoria Street and 20 Toronto St., the Toronto Electric Light Co. warehouse and office building on Lake St., the Russell Motor Car Company factory and office building on Weston Rd., the Dominion Radiator Co. Foundry at Queen and Dufferin Sts., the Toronto Foundry Co. foundry on Liberty St., various St. Paul's Church buildings and Casa Loma. Buildings outside Toronto include: the Powerhouse for the Electrical Development Company and the Toronto and Niagara Power Company Substation, both in Niagara Falls; a warehouse in Winnipeg, Manitoba; and a boat house and hotel in Muskoka.
Full drawing suites for many of the projects have not survived in the fonds. Some series contain only fragmentary working drawings or depictions of design elements in a certain period of the work. The full scope of Lennox's production of over 70,000 drawing sheets may be seen from the content of the Registers of Drawings (Series C 43-95). Lennox often made red line references to other sheet numbers that depicted details of areas on the drawings.
The records have been arranged into three sous-fonds based on the chronological progression of the firm's name.
For a more detailed description, use this link to the Archives of Ontario's descriptive database:
http://ao.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/PROV/PROV/REFD+C+43?SESSIONSEARCH