History

by Edgar Andrew Collard

Stephen Leacock wrote the invitation. And this invitation went out in 1906 to some of the leading University graduates in the City. They were asked if they were in favour of establishing a university club and, if so, would they act as a provisional committee?

The idea had been discussed a few days earlier at an informal luncheon given by W. Graham Browne in the old Saint James's Club. Stephen Leacock had been among those there, as was Dr. John McCrae. They had decided, after much discussion, to issue the invitations and to get the project launched.

The response was prompt and enthusiastic. There was no doubt that a Club of the sort was badly needed. It would not be just another club. It would be a gathering place for graduates of all universities, offering them the amenities of fellowship in a suitable atmosphere.

The first Club House, opened on March 28, 1908, was a big three-storey house (once the home of the Ibbotson family). It stood on the northwest corner of Dorchester and Ste-Monique streets. Ste-Monique Street has disappeared; it ran where Place Ville Marie is today.

Membership increased rapidly. The members decided to build a new Club House, one designed for their own requirements. The site was chosen on Mansfield Street — a site of university associations, close to the McGill Campus and on land once part of Hon. James McGill's old farm.

The architects were the firm of Nobbs and Hyde, and Percy Nobbs's original architectural sketches, preserved in the Club's archives (currently hanging at the front desk), are marvels of delicacy and charm.

Nobbs put his heart into the task. He was a Scot, thoroughly trained in architectural and heraldic lore at Edinburgh University, who had come to McGill as a professor of architecture in 1904. A number of the University's buildings were designed by him, including the Engineering Building, the Pathological Building and the McGill Union (now the McCord Museum).

The University Club he created is outstanding not only for its general spaciousness of design, but for his attention to ornamental details, suitable for each room and corner — fireplaces, brass railings, stained glass windows, heraldic ceilings and the verve and panache of one of the last of the grand stairways still standing in Montreal.

The Club House on Mansfield Street was opened at noon on December 17, 1913. The genius of Percy Nobbs provided a setting of graciousness and ease. But a Club is only as good as its members, only as rich as its traditions.
Such traditions formed early. Among its original members and founders were two men who became known to the world — Dr. John McCrae and Stephen Leacock.

The story of John McCrae and his poem, In Flanders Fields, are interwoven forever with the story of the Club. He had been active in the life of the Club from the start, and was still active on its committees when he left for service overseas as a medical officer with the First Canadian Contingent. Another member of the Club, Sir Andrew Macphail, happened one day to be glancing at a copy of Punch. He came upon the poem, In Flanders Fields.

The poem had been published anonymously. But Sir Andrew recognized the author at once. For many years he had been the editor of the McGill University Magazine. John McCrae had sent him poems from time to time. One of them was entitled The Night Cometh, a description of twilight settling down over the countryside. It was in exactly the same original, unique meter. So it was that the most famous of all war poems, which had appeared anonymously, was written by one member of the University Club, and another member of the University Club was first in the world to identify the author.

Stephen Leacock is another historic presence — always to be among the University Club's traditions. He loved the Club from its beginnings till his death in 1944. Perhaps no member has ever spent more time within its walls. Every afternoon, about four o'clock, after his last lecture in the McGill Arts Building was over, he would take his stick and tap his slow way down the slope to the Club's door.

He would take up his accustomed position, in a big leather chair in the corner, with his closest friends, his cherished cronies, about him. René du Roure would be there and John Culliton. The chuckles and laughter over the tinkling glasses were part of the Club's atmosphere. Stephen Leacock could be counted on as a living fixture.

On his way out he would point with his stick to the relief map over the mantel piece in the lobby — the map that recalls that the Club stands on the site of the Indian village of Hochelaga, long reputed to be the village visited in l535 by Jacques Cartier, who read St. John's Gospel to the uncomprehending inhabitants.
Leacock would remark: "Jacques Cartier read the Gospel of St. John in the lobby of the University Club". Then, after a pause, he would add: "And it is high time that somebody did it again!"

Time has mellowed the old building that Percy Nobbs designed for the Club, and enriched it with the gathering traditions of the years. Members today see upstairs the big chair still standing in the corner, under Stephen Leacock's portrait, and they pass up and down the curving stairway, past the stained glass window of the poppies in Flanders Fields.

In a hurried, harassed and deeply troubled world, the University Club remains an oasis of urbanity and graciousness — a Club of the sort that no doubt is even more badly needed today than it was in 1906.