| Notes |
- The Right Reverend Isaac Hellmuth, the acknowledged founder of the University of Western Ontario, occupies a special place in the history of the university, London, and education in the late 19th century. It is appropriate, as Western celebrates the 125th year of its founding, that we remind ourselves of the unique character of its founder.
Hellmuth was enticed to London in 1861 by The Right Reverend Benjamin Cronyn, the first bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Huron, for the express purpose of establishing a theological college that would graduate clergy to serve the religious needs of churches being established in the southwestern Ontario region.
When he started in his role, Hellmuth was almost immediately dispatched to England by the bishop to raise funds for the college He returned to London with $23,000 (a large amount in the day) and led the establishment of Huron College. The college opened on December 2, 1863, and for the initial two years, Hellmuth was the college's principal.
J. R.W. Gwynne-Timothy, author of Western's First Century published by Western in 1978, noted "an aura of mystery and romance surrounds Isaac Hellmuth, not dispelled but rather enhanced by his magnetic personality, dynamic character and remarkable career as 'a financier, an adventurer, and an ecclesiastical agitator of genius'". (Most of the following material is excerpted from the late Dr. Gwynne-Timothy's book written to celebrate Western's 100th anniversary.)
Hellmuth was born in 1817 in Warsaw, Poland into a highly respected Jewish family. However, even though his father was a rabbi, Hellmuth did not maintain the religion and traditions of his family. Instead, he took his mother's surname - Hellmuth - and began studies at the age of 16 at the University of Breslau. In 1840 he moved to England and converted to Christianity. In 1844 he immigrated to Canada and was a student at the Institution for the Training of Clergy in Cobourg, Ontario, a precursor of Trinity College. A year later, he was a member of the first class of 10 students at the newly opened Bishop's College in Lennoxville, Quebec.
Hellmuth was ordained in 1846 and the next year married Catharine Marie Evans. In 1853 he resigned his teaching post at Bishop's and their only child Isidore was born in 1854. For the next seven years Hellmuth was general superintendent in British North America for the Colonial Church and School Society, at Quebec City. He was prominent in the Society's work for free missions for fugitive slaves from the U.S., which was on the verge of civil war, and for missionary parishes in many areas including the Huron region around London.
While he continued as an Anglican priest, his focus on education was fully established.
The London to which he and his family moved in 1861 was a rapidly growing community. It had received city status in 1855 two years after the first railway train came into town. During the next few years Canada was in the grip of a serious depression and, indeed, London's population dropped from 16,000 in 1855 to 11,000 by 1859 and was only beginning to recover as the U.S. civil war broke out two years later. The newest boom for London was in oil, which had been discovered in nearby Oil Springs, and London East (then a separate municipality) became home to a number of fuel refineries.
Throughout this time Hellmuth continued to make fund raising trips to England and Ireland - an arduous journey by rail and sailing ships- to cultivate the fledging Huron College and also to establish two residential academic secondary schools. The first school opened in 1864 and was called London Collegiate Institute, more commonly known as the Hellmuth Boys School, and the second was the Hellmuth Ladies' School.
On the death of Bishop Cronyn in 1871, Hellmuth became the second Bishop of Huron. He immediately launched plans for the building of a great Anglican cathedral in London that would supercede the already established St.Paul's. Known as the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, it was built at the southeast corner of Richmond and Piccadilly streets, but was unfortunately demolished in 1982 to make way for the Selby Building's parking lot.
Bishop Hellmuth's proposed cathedral only two blocks from Huron College was part of his overall dream of a church-sponsored community. In the meantime, with the enthusiastic support of the faculty and alumni of Huron College, he heartily endorsed the upgrade of the college to a degree granting university.
Many in western Ontario felt the time had arrived for the London area to have its own university. Western Ontario was a wealthy part of the province and there was a general feeling it would be beneficial to have a university more convenient for students from this area. The province eventually agreed and approved "The Western University of London, Ontario" - Western's original name - on March 7, 1878.
Hellmuth's first step was to arrange the sale of the Hellmuth boy's school and property to the new university (This property became the first campus when classes finally began in 1881). He was elected as Western's first chancellor and personally donated $10,000 to the university. Huron College became affiliated as the faculty of divinity and while the new university was authorized to offer studies in arts, engineering, law, medicine and divinity, only medicine, arts and divinity were initially available. The first convocation in 1885 saw two graduates, one in arts, and the other in medicine.
Bishop Hellmuth himself did not remain a part of Western. In 1883 he resigned as Bishop of Huron and returned to England with his ailing wife who died a year later. He remarried in 1886 and lived in France before retiring in 1899. He died May 29, 1901 and is buried in the Priory churchyard in Bridlington, York, his first parish on his return to England. [5]
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Our Family History
1820 - 1901 (80 years)
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