King Edward High School

Fire takes out King Edward High School

by Eve Lazarus on June 18, 2022

On June 19, 1973, a three-alarm fire broke out at the old King Edward High School at West 12th and Oak Street. The building was destroyed, but remnants remain on the old site, now part of Vancouver General Hospital.

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Designed by William T. Whiteway:

William T. Whiteway, the same architect who designed the Sun Tower, designed the school in the neoclassical style and topped it off with a central cupola. It was the first secondary school built south of False Creek, opened in 1905 and was officially renamed King Edward five years later.

King Edward High — Courtesy Andrea Nicholson

Impressive Alumni:

The list of King Ed alumni includes an impressive array of Vancouver luminaries. There is philanthropist Cecil Green and broadcasters Jack Cullen and Red Robinson. Other notables to pass through the school’s corridors are Dal Grauer, president and chair of BC Power Corporation and BC Electric; Nathan Nemetz, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of BC; Grace McCarthy, politican; Yvonne De Carlo, actor; Jack Wasserman, newspaper reporter; Jamie Reid, poet; educator Dr Annie B. Jamieson and Olympic athlete Percy Williams.

The King Ed track team in 1926. Percy in the middle row, third from left. Courtesy Andrea Nicholson.

In 1962 King Ed became an adult education centre and the kids transitioned to Eric Hamber, says Andrea Nicholson, alumni coordinator. Vancouver City College took over the King Ed building in 1965. David Byrnes attended first-year university there in the late 1960s. “One day when we were goofing around my friend Malcolm told me he’d found a way into the attic,” says David. “I remember climbing up to look out the cupola and finding a rifle range.”

Taught Shooting:

Andrea confirms there was a rifle range and students from Cecil Rhodes and Henry Hudson elementary schools used to train there. Andrea’s mum Elizabeth (MacLaine) Lowe taught at the school and later became department head for business education. She was supposed to teach night school on the day the school burned down. “I remember as a child going up into the turret, and I remember when they pulled that school apart the dividers for the bathroom stalls were solid marble,” says Andrea, who could see the flames from the grounds of Cecil Rhodes Elementary at 14^th and Spruce.

Building Sold:

Vancouver General Hospital bought the King Edward building and land in 1970, though it remained an educational institution until the fire. Now, all that’s left is the stone wall at Oak and West 12^th Avenue, a stained-glass window installed in Vancouver Community College’s Broadway campus, and, in the Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre that replaced the school, there is a plaque, a large photograph of the original school and a circle of yellow tile in the lobby outlining the original King Ed High School.

King Ed Plaque

The wall received a Places that Matter plaque in 2012. Former King Ed teacher, and vice-president Annie B. Jamieson (1907-1927) had an elementary school named after her.

Tags Andrea Nicholson, Annie B. Jamieson, Cecil Green, Dal Grauer, Elizabeth Lowe, Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre, Grace McCarthy, Jack Cullen, Jack Wasserman, King Edward High School, Nathan |Nemetz, Percy Williams, Red Robinson, Vancouver Community College, Vancouver General Hospital, William T. Whiteway, Yvonne de Carlo

Our Missing Heritage: Vancouver’s First Hospital

by Eve Lazarus on June 30, 2018

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Last week, Michael Kluckner and I were over at Tom Carter’s studio looking out his seventh storey window onto the EasyPark—a cavernous concrete lot that fronts West Pender and takes up the entire city block from Cambie to Beatty Streets.

In 2013, Michael had the dubious honour (my words) of presenting the parking lot with a heritage plaque on behalf of Places That Matter.

He wasn’t recognizing the parking lot of course, but the buildings that were once Vancouver’s first city hospital and included a men’s surgical ward, a maternity ward, a tuberculosis ward, and the city morgue which faced Beatty Street.

Pender and Beatty Street in 1939. Note the Sun Tower left of frame and former Hospital buildings behind. Courtesy Tom Carter

If we’d been looking out Tom’s window back in 1912, we would have had a great view of the courthouse in what’s now Victory Square, the shiny new Dominion Building, and the former city hospital, built in 1888, which according to Michael’s Vancouver: The Way it Was consisted of a compound of brick buildings with wooden balconies set back from the street, flower gardens and a picket fence.

Aerial view of Larwill Park construction, the Sun Tower and the Vancouver hospital buildings. Note the Central School bottom right of frame demolished in 1946. Courtesy Tom Carter

By the turn of the century, the 50-bed hospital was too small for Vancouver’s growing population and a new hospital was built in Fairview in 1906 which became the Vancouver General Hospital as we know it now.

The first city hospital was repurposed into the headquarters for McGill University College (BC). And that’s another interesting story.

A former hospital building in 1949, shortly before it was turned into a parking lot. Courtesy CVA 447.61

In 1899, Vancouver High School joined forces with McGill to offer first year arts courses. Six years later the school moved to fancy new digs at Oak and 12^th Avenue (later renamed King Edward High School), and McGill moved into the former hospital buildings. McGill stayed in the old hospital until 1911 and faded from the landscape after UBC opened in 1915.

The tuberculosis ward, courtesy Tom Carter

JFCB Vance from Blood, Sweat, and Fear had a lab in there from around 1912 when the police station on East Cordova was demolished until the new station opened in 1914. According to City Directories, a former hospital building became the “old people’s home” until 1915 when Social Services (the City Relief and Employment Department) moved in and stayed until the late ’40s.

And just like that it’s a parking lot. 1951 photo courtesy Tom Carter

The city hospital buildings were gone by 1950 and now all that’s left is a plaque affixed to a parking lot.

Top photo: The first Vancouver Hospital in 1902. Courtesy CVA Bu P369

With thanks to Tom Carter for finding all these great photos and to Places That Matter for all the work that they do.

Tags Blood Sweat and Fear, Dominion Building, King Edward High School, Larwill Park, McGill University College BC, Michael Kluckner, Tom Carter, Vancouver City Hospital, Vancouver High School, Vancouver the Way it Was

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