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The interwar years for Havergal College were marked with opportunities (the New School on Avenue Road, also known as the Lawrence Park West School) - and challenges. In addition to the North Toronto site, Havergal College also had six other locations, including Havergal-on-the-Hill on St Clair Avenue (1911), the St George (1915) and Rosedale (1921) locations, and the Jarvis Street campus. From 1926 to 1933, Havergal College had the overhead of running two senior schools (Avenue Road and Jarvis Street locations), as the latter had not yet been sold as expected.
The Memory of War
In the classroom, students would continue to be influenced heavily by war-time issues of imperialism, patriotic femininity, and loss.
In her letter to the girls in April of 1919, Principal Ellen Knox hammered home a message of duty, diligence and dramatic sacrifice:
"How little could I have dreamt as I looked down the rows that the hands of a girl here and there would one day be brown and hard with lifting shells; that Mary Burnham, a little Third Form girl, bubbling over with energy, would one day grope her way through the midnight streets of Dieppe, and stand helpless and hopeless amongst a group of black-shawled women, and watch in broken-hearted pity the awful splitting asunder of the Sussex and the drowning of the wounded men! ...that Jean Harstone of a later date would drive an ambulance steadily forward through a terrifying hell fire..." (Ludemus, 1919)
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Current Events Scrapbook: "The Allies"1919-1920
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Mary Stanton Sheen 1924 Scrapbook
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College
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Current Events Scrapbook: "Like the Oak, Friendship Endures"1919-1920
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Mary Stanton Sheen 1924 Scrapbook
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College
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Current Events Scrapbook: "Home at Last"1919-1920
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Mary Stanton Sheen, class of 1924, Scrapbook
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College
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Current events class workCirca 1921
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Margaret Carrick, class of 1921, notebook
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College
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"Bolshevism at HLC!"1919
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College
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"Bolshivism?"1919-1920
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Mary Stanton Sheen, class of 1924, Scrapbook
Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College
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The Havergal College school song1924
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The Havergal College school song, written in 1924 by Toronto composer Sir Ernest MacMillan, is entitled 'Vitai Lampada Tradens'. The words were written by Dr. C.V. Pilcher. The title refers to the school motto, translated as 'Passing on the torch of life'. This motto, adopted by the school in 1920, replaces the earlier pre-war motto: 'Operacto Peracto Ludemus' ('When our work is done, we shall play'). It is, of course, no coincidence that the later motto and resultant song is highly evocative of literary themes coming out of the First World War. It is still sung today, along with the official school hymn, 'Unto the Hills'.
Credits:Sir Ernest MacMillan
played by Ms Sarah Siu and sung by Ms Lynn Janes
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InfluenzaAlthough no Havergal student died in the devastating 1918-19 flu epidemic, four Havergal College alumnae were among the 1,750 Torontonians who fell to the disease.
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Influenza: "A Sad Predicament"1919
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College
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Havergal in the 1920sToronto as a city was maturing. While the rate of pre-war progress may have slowed, advancements were made in education, public health, and civic infrastructure. Several Toronto landmarks were built, such as Sunnyside (1922) and Maple Leaf Stadium (1926), and the year 1927 would see two important social changes: the arrival of 'talkie' movies, and the end of prohibition.
Havergal College staff and students may have reaped the benefits of the changing city, but the daily routine remained virtually the same as in the 1890s: assembly with prayers, singing and a talk from the Principal - followed by classes and an assortment of extra-curricular clubs.
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Radio comes to Toronto1926
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College
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Havergal College Housekeeping Staff1927
Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College
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Boarder leaving for home1928
Avenue Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Dr. Catherine Steele 1928 Archives, Havergal College
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