The Queen Victoria Wing is a 19th century, semi-detached, two storey building attached to the Old General Hospital located on King Edward Place in St. John’s, NL. The designation is confined to the footprint of the building.
Formal Recognition Type
City of St. John's Heritage Building, Structure, Land or Area
Heritage Value
The Queen Victoria Wing was designated a municipal heritage building by the City of St. John’s due to its historic and aesthetic value.
The Queen Victoria Wing has historic value for its association with the history of women and medicine in the province. It was built for the care of women and children through a fundraising drive spearheaded by the Cowan Mission (named for Nurse Agnes Cowan, former Matron of the Riverhead Hospital in St. John’s and employee of the General Hospital). Donations poured in from individuals and organizations and the cornerstone was laid in June of 1897. It also stands as a memorial to the history of nursing in the province. In 1903 Nurse Mary Southcott was appointed Superintendent of Nurses in Newfoundland. Nurse Southcott had graduated from the London Hospital in 1901. She had the privilege of meeting with Florence Nightingale and was a firm believer in Nightingale’s method of training nurses. One of Southcott’s first priorities was to start a local training school for nurses. After securing instructors, she oversaw the first nurses training program in the province at the General Hospital. The first graduates completed their training in 1906. Students were originally housed in the Alexander Ward of the Victoria Wing, until the opening of the nearby King Edward VII Nursing Residence in 1912.
The Queen Victoria Wing has historic value because of its age. Constructed in 1897, this date has duel significance as it was the 400th Anniversary of John Cabot’s discovery of Newfoundland, and the 60th Anniversary (Diamond Jubilee) of Queen Victoria’s reign. The Queen Victoria Wing was so named in honour of Queen Victoria. The Queen Victoria Wing is also historically valuable as a remaining example of a stone building constructed during the late 1800s.
The Queen Victoria Wing has aesthetic value because it is a good example of surviving 19th century institutional architecture. The building’s most prominent features are the two rounded towers at each corner of the north facing façade. Each tower is topped with a copper cone-shaped roof supported with heavy concrete brackets. Each tower has long, narrow windows with transoms. The roof of the building is a low pitch gable and there are two concrete belt courses, one projecting and one grooved, delineating the first and second stories. The building is otherwise bare of external decoration, with the exception of the heavy concrete sills under the windows. The remaining windows are narrow and are set at regular spaces. A wooden clapboarded gallery is located on the west side; otherwise the building material is concrete parging.
Source: Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador: file number 1500 St. John’s – General Hospital – Old Buildings.
Character Defining Elements
All those existing, original exterior elements that embody the style of the 19th century institutional construction, including:
-the end towers with copper cone-shaped roofs;
-low pitch gable roof;
-heavy concrete brackets on towers;
-long, narrow windows with transoms in tower walls;
-number and fenestration patterns of windows;
-concrete belt courses: projecting between second and first floors, grooved between first and ground floors;
-heavy concrete sills;
-clapboard wooden gallery on west side;
-all existing window and door openings;
-general pattern of solid to void on exterior facades;
-concrete parging on exterior walls;
-existing building height and number of storeys;
-location on original Old General complex site; and
-general massing, and orientation.
Google map
Building Report: The General Hospital, St. John’s (1998)
