West Lake Boarding School
On the north side of Highway 33 just east of Road 32 (Mallory Road) at street number 13986, 6 km west of Picton. Google Maps will take yo to 14005 Loyalist Parkway.
Commemoration
Built before 1839, this home, a fine example of "Loyalist Neo-Classical" architecture, was the main building of the West Lake Boarding School between 1841 and 1865. The first seminary in Canada of the Society of Friends, this institution was opened as a girls' school in 1841 and, with the completion of a frame structure for boys to the east, the school was in full operation in 1842. Thomas Clarke, a local Quaker, assisted by his wife, was the first Superintendent. By 1854 the school had a total registration of 110 pupils of whom 47 were girls and 63 boys. The school ceased operations in 1865 and was sold in 1869.
Background
As seen elsewhere on this tour, religion and education went hand in hand in colonial Ontario. Local communities, through their churches, took responsibility for the education of their children.
Most of the education leaders and reformers of Upper Canada had the honorific “Reverend."