| In 1914, Robert McCausland Limited created 24 stained-glass windows for the four exterior walls of the new Weston Public Library. Each window was decorated with a crest and a banner. Twenty-three of the banners were inscribed with the name of a different author, while one banner was left blank.
McCausland was established in Toronto in 1856 and now claims to be the oldest stained glass studio in North America. Its windows are in many important buildings around the world. The firm’s work in Toronto includes windows are at St. James’ Cathedral, St. Michael’s Cathedral, The Hockey Hall of Fame and the Ontario Legislative Buildings.
"Stained glass was used in several of the early Carnegie libraries to add an air of quality to the appearance;" notes a history of Ontario’s Carnegie libraries, "the libraries at Guelph, Chatham, and Ottawa, for example, were enriched in this way."1 Authors’ names were inscribed on a few of Ontario’s Carnegie libraries. "The Brantford window heads with display of authors’ names were matched in the Fort William Library, where the busts of similar authors were depicted in the stained glass window heads on three sides of the building."2
Authors' names, running clockwise
East wall (now interior wall) clockwise from entrance: Milton, Chaucer, ________ [Blank-no author]
South wall, east of original main door: Havergal, Burns, Lamb, Addison
South wall, west of original main door: Duncan, Thomas, Stevenson, Kingsford
West wall, facing Weston Road: Longfellow, Tennyson, Browning
North wall, from west to east: Macaulay, Thackeray, Scott, Dickens, Wordsworth, Moore, Shakespeare, Ruskin, Johnson, Lampman. (Windows inscribed with Wordsworth and Moore are in the branch head’s office, but are visible through the glass wall.)
1 Margaret Beckman, Stephen Langmead and John Black, The Best Gift; a record of the Carnegie libraries in Ontario (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1984): 134.
2 Ibid, 136.
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