Abstract

This thesis takes Montreal's 1894 Erskine Presbyterian Church, by Montreal architect Alexander Cowper Hutchison (1838-1922), as a specific example of the building of an Akron-auditorium combination plan church. Although relatively rare in Montreal, this American church type was perhaps the most popular style of church for evangelical Protestant congregations in North America from 1880 through about 1914. Inspired by theatre architecture and a Methodist Sunday School programme, these churches featured an auditorium sanctuary contiguous to a two-tiered multi-celled Sunday School building. They were typically commissioned by newly affluent businessmen and were frequently built in the Richardsonian Romanesque manner. This study is a social and architectural examination of the Erskine Congregation's three church buildings of 1833, 1866 and 1894 and the 1937 alteration by Percy Erskine Nobbs (1875-1964) at the behest of William Massey Birks (1868-1950) because of new conceptions of "churchliness". The thesis contributes to the understanding of ideology on built form and the church building practices of 19 th century Montreal Scots Presbyterians. It is the first study devoted to this church type in Montreal.