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Charles Henry Wheeler
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Architect, music critic.
Born at Lutterworth, North Leicestershire, England on 23 April 1838, little is known about his early life and education except he was married to Annie Wakefield of Fairford, Gloucester in 1858. It is believed that he studied architecture and music in Birmingham, England in this same period. He continued his pursuit of his architectural career in this city and later in London for approximately twenty years.
Early in the 1880s, he began to hear favourable accounts of life in the Canadian West and decided to seek his fortune in this area. Wheeler arrived in Winnipeg with his wife and six children in February 1882. He must have been a remarkable man at age forty-four and with a large family to leave England and an established career to move to an unknown boom-town like Winnipeg. Once here, he began to work for the architectural firm of James Chisholm.
It was not long before Wheeler began to distinguish himself in his new homeland and city. In 1883, his plans for the new Holy Trinity Anglican Church (located at the corner of Graham Avenue and Donald Street) were chosen from over forty submitted sets in an international competition as the Winnipeg design for the new building. Soon afterward, Wheeler established his own firm and had many valuable architectural contracts in Winnipeg and throughout the prairie region. He also contributed to the formalization of architectural practice in Manitoba, serving in 1906 as a founding Vice-President of the Manitoba Association of Architects.
However, his successes as an architect did not detract from his other great interest, music. He was choirmaster at Knox and Zion churches and involved in several other musical pursuits in the city. In later life, he retired from his architectural career to devote himself to his love for music. Wheeler eventually became the music and drama critic for The Winnipeg Tribune, a post that he held until his death.
Wheeler died at the Winnipeg General Hospital on 7 January 1917 as a result of injuries sustained from falling on an icy sidewalk. He was buried in the St. James Cemetery.
Some of his architectural work in Manitoba included:
Building |
Location |
Year |
Status |
Euclid School |
Corner of Lusted & Euclid, Winnipeg |
1882 |
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Holy Trinity Church |
Corner of Graham & Donald, Winnipeg |
1884 |
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G. F. and J. Galt’s Warehouse |
103 Princess corner Bannatyne, Winnipeg |
1887 |
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James Robertson & Company Warehouse |
179 Pacific, Winnipeg |
1887 |
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George D. Wood & Company Warehouse |
22-24 Alexander East, Winnipeg |
1887 |
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Stephenson House (E. F. Stephenson) |
11 Osborne, Winnipeg |
1888 |
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Home for the Incurables |
Portage la Prairie |
1889 |
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Shaarey Zedek Synagogue |
King & Henry, Winnipeg |
1890 |
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Home for Incurables |
3rd Street NE, Portage la Prairie |
1890 |
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Merchants’ Bank |
11th Street & Rosser, Brandon |
1890 |
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A. C. Baskerville & Co. Warehouse |
660 Main, Winnipeg |
1890 |
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Morden Methodist Church |
Morden |
1890 |
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Mathewson House |
432 Assiniboine, Winnipeg |
1890 |
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Sanford Building |
291 Bannatyne Avenue, Winnipeg |
1890 |
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Deaf and Dumb Institute |
Portage Avenue, Winnipeg |
c1891 |
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Maxwell & Co. Warehouse |
Winnipeg |
c1891 |
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Carroll House (E. M. Carroll ) |
Winnipeg |
c1891 |
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Provincial Gaol |
20 Third Street SE, Portage la Prairie |
c1891 |
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Brandon Asylum for the Insane (addition) |
First Street, Brandon |
1892-1893 |
Destroyed by fire (November 1910) |
Foulds Block |
546 Main Street, Winnipeg |
1892 |
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St. Mary St. Alban Anglican Church |
Kaleida |
1892 |
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Galt House (John Galt) |
Winnipeg |
1892 |
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Bathgate House (R. D. Bathgate) |
Winnipeg |
1892 |
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Burridge House |
99 George Avenue, Winnipeg |
1893 |
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Perkins House (J. Perkins) |
Edmonton Street, Winnipeg |
1893 |
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Kirkland House (George Kirkland) |
McDermot Avenue, Winnipeg |
1893 |
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Killam House (A. C. Killam) |
Winnipeg |
1893 |
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John Peck & Company Warehouse |
33 Princess, Winnipeg |
1893-1894 |
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Court House |
Kennedy Street, Winnipeg |
1893-1894 |
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Bank of Ottawa Building (construction supervision) |
363 Main Street, Winnipeg |
1894 |
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Davis Block |
Market Square, Winnipeg |
1894 |
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Water Works Company’s Station |
Armstrong’s Point, Winnipeg |
1894 |
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Union Bank alterations |
Main & Bannatyne, Winnipeg |
1894 |
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Macdonald House |
61 Carlton Street, Winnipeg |
1895 |
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Campbell Block |
532-534 Main at James, Winnipeg |
1895 |
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Argyle School No. 2 |
corner Argyle & Henry, Winnipeg |
1896 |
Demolished |
Dufferin School No. 2 |
Park corner Logan, Winnipeg |
1896 |
Demolished |
Assiniboine Block alterations |
173 Main at York, Winnipeg |
1896 |
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Lennon House (D. T. Lennon) |
195 Kennedy, Winnipeg |
1896 |
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Plaxton House (John Plaxton) |
226 Vaughan, Winnipeg |
1896 |
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Taylor Warehouse (R. R. Taylor ) |
Winnipeg |
1896 |
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Winnipeg Opera House |
Notre Dame & Adelaide, Winnipeg |
c1896 |
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Winnipeg Industrial Exhibition Grandstand |
Dufferin & Sinclair, Winnipeg |
1900 |
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Deloraine School No. 490 |
Deloraine |
1902 |
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Carman School No. 176 |
Carman |
1902 |
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Bacteriological Laboratory |
Winnipeg |
1906 |
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Brookside Quarantine Hospital |
Brookside Cemetery, Winnipeg |
1906-1907 |
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Tees and Persse Block |
285 Market Square, Winnipeg |
? |
|
Nanton House (A. M. Nanton ) |
Winnipeg |
? |
|
Smart House (James Smart) |
Brandon |
? |
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Taylor House (R. R. Taylor) |
Middlechurch |
? |
|
Rough House (W. Rough) |
Winnipeg |
? |
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See also:
The Architectural Legacy of Charles H. Wheeler by Giles Bugailiskis
Manitoba History, Number 54, February 2007
The Early History of the Cauchon Block, Later the Empire Hotel by Randy Rostecki
Manitoba Pageant, Spring 1976, Volume 21, Number 3
Architect Wheeler Lives by Lillian Gibbons
Manitoba Pageant, Autumn 1978, Volume 24, Number 1
Charles Henry Wheeler, Dictionary of Canadian Biography XIV, 1,049-1,050.
Sources:
“New residences,” Winnipeg Tribune, 10 April 1893, page 8.
A History of Manitoba: Its Resources and People by Prof. George Bryce, Toronto: The Canadian History Company, 1906.
Death registration, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
“Chas. H. Wheeler dies in hospital,” Manitoba Free Press, 8 January 1917, page 5.
Buildings at the Brandon Mental Health Centre by David Butterfield and Randy Rostecki, Manitoba Historic Resources Branch, November 1988.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada, 1800-1950 by Robert G. Hill, Toronto.
We thank Nathan Kramer and Robert Hill for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Giles Bugailiskis.
Page revised: 8 September 2023
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