The text from the plaque:
In 1796 the first Anglican priest arrived from England to minister to the citizens of York. The following year the Province set aside this piece of land for the building of a church. The present Cathedral, the fourth church erected on this site, opened in 1853, replacing the previous structure destroyed in the Great Fire of 1849. The first Bishop of Toronto, the Right Reverend John Strachan, along with a number of his parishioners, played an important role in the early development of the city and province. Over the years, the cathedral, the Mother Church for Anglicans in the diocese of Toronto, has been a place of worship, prayer and outreach in the heart of a busy community.
Cathedral Church of St. James
The Cathedral Church of St James in Toronto, Ontario, is the oldest congregation in the city. The parish was established in 1797. The present structure, begun in 1849 and completed in 1853, was at the time one of the largest buildings in the city. It was designed by Fredrick Cumberland and is a prime example of Gothic Revival architecture. It opened for services on June 19, 1853. The total length of the cathedral is 198 feet, with a maximum width of 98 feet.
The church cemetery was moved in the 1840s to St James-the-Less at Parliament and Bloor, although there are still unmarked graves under the modern parking lot. The church is listed as an Ontario Heritage Property and a National Historic Site and is the episcopal seat of the Anglican Church of Canada's Diocese of Toronto.
The tower and spire, measuring 305 feet (92.9 m), were added in 1874, with the clock being installed a year later. The tower and the spire are the tallest in Canada and the second tallest in North America (after St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York) - although the spire of St. James is still shorter than the dome of Saint Joseph's Oratory in Montreal which is the tallest church in the Western Hemisphere. The tower has five bells that still ring through the city today, and the chiming clock is "one of the finest examples of a chiming public clock anywhere in the world." [1] The tower also houses a full peal of 12 change-ringing bells, the largest such peal in North America. At the turn of the 20th century, St James' Cathedral was still the tallest building in Toronto, and was often the first thing immigrants noticed when they stepped off the train at old Union Station.
Royal St. George's College, on Howland Avenue, is the church's choir school and is open to boys in grades 3 through 12.
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