Thomas Fuller

Thomas Fuller

  Thomas Fuller, architect (b at Bath, Eng 8 Mar 1823; d at Ottawa 28 Sept 1898). In 1857 Fuller left England to set up practice in Toronto with Chilion Jones. The firm, with Fuller responsible for design, specialized in Anglican church architecture in a Gothic revival style and won 2 important competitions, the first for the PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS in Ottawa in 1859, and the second for the New York State Capitol in Albany in 1867. In 1881 Fuller was appointed Dominion chief architect and during his 15-year tenure supervised the design of over 140 buildings across the country.

Perhaps more than any other architect, he was responsible for defining the character of federal architecture in Canada. His small post offices, executed in a blend of Gothic and Romanesque forms and characterized by their picturesque massing, and accented by stone gables and tall clock towers, provided immediately recognizable symbols of the federal government and established a design that endured into the 1930s.