John M. Maughan (III) 1871 - 1926
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John M. Maughan (III) born 31-Aug-1871 in Ontario. Died 6-Jul-1926 in Toronto. He was buried in necropolis cemetery on 9-Jul-1926. The death register lists his occupation as an insurance broker. The attending physician, Dr. A. C. Bennett of 1326 King St. W., Toronto, indicated John suffered for 30 years of chronic intestinal nephritis, arterial schlorosis, and angina abdominalis. In his final 5 months he was also diagnosed with cardial fleuvial insufficiency. Worked for Hartford Insurance as an agent.
pages 6-7 Normal School and Provincial Museum (1853-1933) The Toronto Normal School was another centre of development of the museum idea in Toronto. From Mr. Fleming's history of the Normal and Model Schools of Toronto, attached to this report, we learn that the Legislature of 1852-3 appropriated £500 per annum to be used by the Museum of the Normal School for the purchase of books, publications, specimens, models, objects relating to education and other departments, which included "Artificial productions of Canada, especially referring to mineralogy, zoology, agriculture and manufacturing." Until after 1896, natural history material seems to have occupied a very subsidiary position in the collections of the Normal School. With the addition of a third storey to the building about 1896, the Museum was considerably enlarged by the addition of the archaeological material transferred from the Canadian Institute and the inclusion of a hastily-prepared collection of birds and mammals, soon replaced by better material. In 1906, the Museum was raised to the status of Provincial Museum. Dr. William Brodie was appointed first Provincial Biologist in 1903, and his extensive collections of biological material acquired by the Museum. The old collection of animals was in part replaced by the purchase of new material. Mr. Charles W. Nash, who became lecturer on biology for the Ontario Department of Agriculture, began in 1900 a series of checklists of vertebrates for the Museum. This series, reissued as The Manual of the Vertebrates of Ontario, was an important contribution to our knowledge of the vertebrate fauna of the province. Mr. Nash prepared a large number of casts of fish, reptiles, etc., for the Museum and in 1908 presented his private collection to the Museum. In 1910, Mr. Nash succeeded the late Dr. Brodie as Provincial Biologist. With such men as Boyle, Brodie and Nash on the staff, the Provincial Museum became the ,centre of information for teachers and students of natural history. Mr. Nash died in 1926, and in 1933 the Museum was closed, the archaeological and biological material coming to the Royal Ontario Museum. The material transferred to the Royal Ontario Museum of Zoology from the Ontario Provincial Museum in 1933 was as follows: mammal skins 139, mammal skeletons 9, mammal heads and horns 37, mounted mammals 6, bird skins 1,061, bird eggs 740, bird nests 80, mounted birds 330, reptiles 92, amphibians 27, fish 267, insects 28,000, molluscs 550, miscellaneous 150, bound books 127, pamphlets, bulletins and journals 1,980. Practically all this material was of Ontario origin. A collection of 218 mounted foreign birds loaned to the Provincial Museum by Mr. John Maughan, Jr. but donated to the Royal Ontario Museum of Zoology was transferred at the same time. pages 42-44 The Normal and Model Schools of Toronto and Their Relationship to the Provincial Museum - by J. H. FLEMING In 1850, seven and one-half acres were purchased for £4,500; this was a square bounded by Gerrard, Gould, Victoria, and Church Streets, and afterwards became known as St. James Square. The Normal and Model Schools and the Provincial Department of Education were housed in one building having a frontage of 184.33' and a depth of 85', opened in November, 1852, the buildings having cost £9,000 and the fittings £1,500. As yet, the Museum of the Department of Education had not come into existence; additions in the rear of the main building finished probably in 1857 allowed the removal of the two schools, the Normal and Model, and room became available for a museum, which was opened to the public in 1858. The grounds on the south half were planted with trees that were then unusual in Toronto; tulip trees, copper beech, catalpa and double-flowering white cherry are some that survive. The north half of the square was laid out as playing fields for the school and contained two magnificent elms. The whole square was surrounded by a particularly ugly wooden fence. A writer of fifty years ago remarks: "There is no prettier spot in all Toronto in which to pass a summer morning, to sit under the trees, the public being rather rigorously excluded from the lawn. There you may often see the ladies and children of the vicinity sitting on the iron benches beneath the trees, and watching the robins whom the Department has not excluded from tripping over the close-shaven grass." The benches were of cast iron in rustic design, also iron deer were placed in strategic positions about the grounds. The gates were carefully locked on Sundays. At the laying of the corner stone in 1851, it was stated in the address to the Earl of Elgin that two acres of the ground were to be devoted to a botanical garden, but beyond the rare trees and shrubs planted in the south front of the grounds, the idea got no further. The Department of Education had at its head as superintendent a very remarkable man, the Reverend Doctor Egerton Ryerson, generally regarded as the founder of the present system of education in Ontario and whose statue stands in the Normal School Grounds facing Gould Street. Dr. Ryerson made several trips to Europe in pursuance of his plans for a modern system of education in Ontario, or Canada West, as it then was. In the Documentary History of Education, there is recorded among the Acts of Legislature of 1852-3 one making an appropriation of £500 per annum to be used by the Museum of the Normal School buildings, the amount to be expended by the Chief Superintendent of Education for the purchase of books, publications, specimens, models, objects relating to education and other departments, which included "artificial productions of Canada, especially referring to mineralogy, zoology, agriculture and manufacturing." While in Europe in 1854 and 1856, Dr. Ryerson, under authority of the Government, commenced the collection of objects of art for the Educational Museum. That the selection of the exhibits was done with good judgment and on disinterested advice is evident from the rather meagre details in The Story of My Life, printed after Dr. Ryerson's death. The main entrance to the buildings led directly to a central hall open above, with a gallery around the second storey. Wide corridors to the right and left on the ground floor gave access to the offices of the Superintendent of Education and the library. A theatre entered from the central hall had a seating capacity of 470, and a gallery, since removed, seated 150. The second storey was occupied entirely by the Museum, reached by staircases on either side of the central hall. There were in all eight galleries, devoted to casts of statuary, casts of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities, copies of paintings, school apparatus and numerous busts of historical interest. A small collection of Canadian birds was also included but disappeared within a few years. The original arrangement of the collections was undertaken by Dr. S. P. May, the Curator, and he is credited with the selection of the excellent series of prints. The Museum when opened was exactly what it was intended to be by its founder, Dr. Ryerson; it was well housed, well arranged, and by the use of reproductions the history and art of the Old World were brought to the teacher and student at a time when the opportunities of travel abroad were few. The Museum remained undisturbed till after 1890, in which year Dr. May published a catalogue of the exhibits. The growing importance of the Archaeological Museum founded by David Boyle, then housed in the Canadian Institute, with the need for additional accommodation by the Department of Education and the Art Schools, resulted in the addition of a third storey to the building. This was finished about 1896 at a cost of $20,000. The rearrangement of the art collections, still under Dr. May's superintendence, within the space available on the second floor of the building now restricted by the need for departmental office space, left the exhibits badly crowded, a condition the Museum never recovered from. The third floor was reserved for the incoming Museum of Archaeology, and for a new department of biology; a hastily prepared collection of birds and animals was put on exhibition, fortunately soon to be replaced. The archaeological material transferred at this time to the Normal School had been brought together in the Canadian Institute building at 58 Richmond Street, East. The nucleus of the collection was the private collection of David Boyle which had been presented to the Institute and incorporated in the Museum of Natural History and Archaeology. This Museum was opened in the third storey of the Institute's building on the occasion of the annual conversazione for the session 1887-8. Archaeology quickly assumed a dominant position in the Museum; the annual reports by Mr. Boyle long issued from the Canadian Institute were continued and the collections grew in importance. In 1901, Mr. Boyle was made Superintendent of the Museum of the Education Department of Ontario, in succession to the late Dr. S. P. May, and in 1906 the Museum was raised to the status of Provincial Museum, which name it retained to the end. Dr. William Brodie was appointed first Provincial Biologist in 1903, and his extensive collections of biological material were acquired for the Museum. The old collection of birds and animals had already in part been replaced by the purchase of new material from Mr. John Maughan, Jr., and Mr. Maughan was commissioned to complete the exhibition collections, and to prepare photographic illustrations suitable for lectures. Mr. Charles W. Nash had become lecturer on biology for the Ontario Department of Agriculture, and issued a series of pamphlets on the economic value of birds to agriculture, beginning in 1898, and in 1900 began a series of check-lists of vertebrates for the Museum, reissued as The Manual of the Vertebrates of Ontario. Mr. Nash prepared a large number of casts of fish, reptiles, etc., for the Museum and in 1908 presented his private collection of biology to the Museum. In 1910, Mr. Nash succeeded the late Dr. Brodie as Provincial Biologist. The Museum with such men as Boyle, Brodie, Nash and Maughan on the staff became the centre of information for teachers and students of natural history and the art Museum fell into neglect. Dr. Rowland B. Orr was appointed Director of the Provincial Museum in 1911, in succession to Dr. David Boyle and continued the Archaeological Reports to the thirty-sixth and last in 1928. Mr. Nash died in 1926 and in 1933 on the death of Dr. Orr, the Museum was closed, the archaeological and biological material going to the Royal Ontario Museum, and part of the art collections to the Ontario College of Art. The Department of Education took possession of the space left vacant and the Provincial Museum ceased as an entity. The Provincial Museum suffered in its later years from official neglect. The Minister of Education had moved from the building, but the Department continued to encroach on the space allotted to the Museum, the building was not fire proof, and the safety of the great archaeological collection was a matter of concern to those who had watched its growth under its founder, Dr. David Boyle. page 35: in the list of largest donations of materials to the Royal Ontario Museum of Zoology during its first 25 years, Maughan, J., Jr. - 808 birds, 9 mammals, and 6 fish. Black Guillemo - Like the last, a bird of the ocean, which occasionally has wandered up to Lake Ontario. Mr. John Maughan, Jr., has a specimen taken near Toronto, and Mr. McIlwraith mentions one taken on Burlington Bay many years ago. Dovekie - Common on some parts of the North Atlantic coast. One specimen taken by Mr. John Maughan on Lake Ontario. Least Tern - An accidental visitor. Breeds on the Atlantic coast. Mr. John Maughan has a specimen, taken at Toronto in 1897. Yellow-crowned Night Heron [Yellow-crowned Night-Heron] - One taken at Toronto by Mr. John Maughan. |