Here are a pair of century old postcards (c. 1909) of two schools in Sandwich. The Sandwich Public School, and St. Francis.
St. Francis School, built in 1901, was located on the corner of Peter & Detroit. The site today is a parking lot.
The Sandwich Public School was on Bedford St. (today known as Sandwich St.), when amalgamation took place in 1935, the school must have been renamed, as my lists from the mid 1930’s do not show a Sandwich Public School anymore.
Nice pics. It’s interesting that “Fred” was abbreviated, from Frederick I suppose. I guess “Fred” by itself was too informal.
It’s also amusing that anyone would want a postcard of a school in the first place, but a good historical record. Today postcards are limited to tourist locations, like the CN Tower, or a city-wide photo, not a school.
Ya I never thought about it but that is weird. Must’ve been something to do with the fact that pictures were more expensive back then? IIRC I think I’ve seen old postcards of motels too.
Ever notice that the majority of interesting buildings are now parking lots? They weren’t demolished for new structures (even though the ones that have been are usually replaced with non-descript work) but just demolished for parking or non-use.
Maybe one day we will realize our folly and actually work to conserve our heritage.
Great picture of St. Francis by the way. In the second picture it looks like the school has a bell tower which rules out General Brock.
When these cards were first published, back in the early years, photography was a tricky hobby, and certainly not for amateurs.
Cameras were large and bulky, and supplies weren’t always easy to come by. For the average person, they had little access to make personal photographs, and as a result there was a large demand for postcards. Mundane subjects were almost always covered, churches, schools, hotels and in later years motels. Although by the 1950’s cameras and supllies were easly available, and fairly low cost. I suppose that motels continued to make and sell postcards, becasue that was the way it was always done…
For out of town visitors, postcards were a quick, cheap and easy alternative to personal snapshots. You could usually find all the prominent buildings at the time on a post card.
They are today an excellent historical record, as they are fairly abundant, and fairly reasonable (for the most part) to accquire. It’s strange if you think about how many were produced over the years, but the real peak was from about 1900-1950, which in the span of things isn’t really that long of a time period.
Fred Neal was local historian of very early times, along with this set of postcards (of which I have publised one in the past – http://internationalmetropolis.com/?p=419 – there are others from the series I can post if there is any interest), he also published a book in 1909 called “The Township of Sandwich”. It is a great book full of old (at the time) photos of Sandwich, along with current (from 1909) photos, and a History to 1909 of the Sandwich area. As a majority of the photos on the postcards, also appear in the book, it’s safe to date the cards to around the same time period as the book.
Original copies can be pricey and hard to find, but there was a reprint published in the 1970’s that shouldn’t be too dificult to come across.
Me – I think many times the new building was built behind the old, hence the old being demoilished for a parking lot.
As for the Public School, I wonder if it was replaced by the original Brock school, based on the Bedford St. address, or if it was renamed for Brock with amalgamation in ’35?
Yes, reprints of Neal’s ‘Township of Sandwich’ should be fairly easy to come by. I’ve seen new reprints at Books for Less (where I got mine) for $6 and there’s usually a couple copies on the shelf at Juniper’s for $12-15. Between these two bookstores alone, the IM reader who wants to learn more about local history can pick up quite a few excellent local history titles for a song.
These schools look like churches compared to some of the prison-institutions-like schools built in recents years.
You could be on to something there Andrew. I wonder if teh archives would have the answer or if the public school board could be called and asked of that question.
I would be very interested to see more post cards if you would be so kind as to post them. I am sure I am not in the minority on that.
Mr. Stefani, whre are those stores located?
Fausto, I couldn’t agree more. Especially the schools built itn eh late ’60s and early ’70s. They thougth they were energy efficient. Boy, were they wrong!