Fighting Fire: The History of the Guelph Fire Department
In 1921, Wyndham Street was a prey to flames – so read the front page of the Guelph Evening Mercury. A major fire broke out at Robert Stewart Lumber Co. in the early morning of July 6, 1921. Chief Knighton and the Guelph Fire Department quickly responded to the call. Despite their quick response time,…
Cap-tivated: Frosh at the O.A.C.
Back to school time is right around the corner. Bright eye students getting ready for a fresh start and settling into a new school year. Before there was the University of Guelph, there was the Ontario Agricultural College (O.A.C.). It was one of the three founding colleges which would one day make up the University…
Guelph Mercury “Trip of a Lifetime”
In the fall of 1909, at a time when travel was alluring and rare, the Guelph Mercury announced the “Trip of a Lifetime” subscription contest. The contest boasted “a free outing to beautiful Florida,” an all-expenses paid, two-week trip for ten lucky women to escape the Canadian winter. An immediate success, the town was buzzing…
Lovett Signs – A Short History
When the Guelph Mercury ceased operation in 2016, the building that housed the newspaper’s headquarters was closed, and the iconic dimensional globe sign that proclaimed the Mercury site was donated to Guelph Museum’s collection. Lovett Signs moved the globe, the single largest artifact to survive the Mercury’s 149-year history, and stored it on their premises…
Call for Submissions – Art As Activism: Truth, Survivance, and Resilience
Image: Alex Jacobs-Blum, The Medicine Game SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Sunday, July 7, 2019 Guelph Museums invites contemporary artists to participate in Art As Activism: Truth, Survivance and Resilience, an exhibition about our collective journey toward decolonization, through the submission of art works that reflect personal experiences and challenge the conventions of institutional space. We are open to all…
The Doctor Goes North – John McCrae and the Earl Grey Expedition
Lord Earl Grey, Governor General of Canada from 1904 to 1911, travelled extensively throughout Canada and in 1910 became the first governor general to visit Hudson Bay. The expedition he mounted aimed to investigate a possible site for a port in Hudson Bay at the terminus of the recently surveyed route for a railway to…
Decolonizing Guelph’s Founding Story
As we acknowledge and celebrate the 192nd anniversary of the founding of Guelph by Scottish novelist John Galt, it is important that reflect on how we position our settler heritage within a present-day dialogue with Indigenous peoples. Guelph’s founding story has been told through the narrative of the Canada Company, a colonization company that was chartered…
Footsteps of John McCrae lead to new appreciation
Written by Tammy Adkin, Guelph Museums Manager When I was 17 years old, I was chair of the Peace and Justice Club at Assumption College School. I wore “Ban Nukes” buttons and participated in various marches and protests, chanting about turning swords into ploughshares. While my heart was in the right place, I never would…
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This pocket globe, circa 1808, was brought to Guelph from England by the Marsh family – it is one of 40,000+ artifacts in the collection.
