William mollington

< RETURN TO SCULPTORS

As if the job of finding his works was not bad enough his life was snuffed out all too early after taking a serious fall off a ladder.

There is supposed to be a house on Dundas Street in Toronto across from the Ontario Art Gallery that has sculpting still in existence on the front of the building.  I tried to locate the spot and was not successful.  Those buildings have been changed so much over the years.

His grandson told me of his talent for making fine furniture but that for some reason of another got broken up and destroyed.  One small work survived and I got a photo taken at that time.

If you are familiar with the old buildings of Toronto you can still see carvings over the doorways of some Old Man or some such subject.  Again there are no signatures to tell you who did them so you are playing a guessing game whether his firm Holbrooke & Mollington did it or Gullette & sons depending on the dates the buildings were built.

One such building is the Bank at the corner of Yonge Street and Front.  It was called the bank of Montreal at the time I took the photos.

 

List of works done by W.C. Mollington

1. Manning arcade, “Caryatids”

2. Old Post Office on Adelaide St. Toronto

3. Fireman & Policeman, Old Dundas Fire Hall

a. Dundas & Parliament Streets, Toronto

b. Bank of Montreal, Yonge & Front

c. Mask of Sir John A. Macdonald

d. Floral & Birds Exh. 1875

e. York Club

f. Trinity College Port Hope, 2 eagles in wood

g. Library of Congress, Parliament hill

Queen Victoria, model for Library

The photos I took of the Library are in my records somewhere. I will try to find them and reproduce them in this book.

Again I have to apologize for not having anything else to say about this man and his company. Where the records exist I do not know. I am told the Balmer and Blakely destroyed all of the drawings they had of works done by Mollington.

My photos of the Library turned out just wonderfully but I no longer know where or how to find them. Be patient as I will look for them or go and retake them and put into print once and for all what we have already found.

William Curfoot Mollington is another of those unsung heroes of this country.  Finding information on this man is not nor was not an easy task.  I did get to visit with members of his family many years ago.  They too had a hard time finding remains of records pertaining to his career.

William Curfoot Mollington 1845 - 1887