History of Glebe St. James

History of Glebe-St.James

Present day Glebe-St.James is located on part of the 1837 Crown grant of 178 acres made out of Clergy Reserve lands to be “a Glebe to the Clergymen of the Church of Scotland”. Indeed, Glebe means land set aside in support of the Church. The Glebe Trustees of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church were responsible for these lands. 

In 1894 the congregation of St. Andrew’s authorized a Glebe mission which started serving the next year with a Sunday School, located on Third Avenue. By 1905 the present building, at 650 Lyon St. S., was occupied with St. Andrew’s providing the new site and half the cost of construction; this was the beginning of St. James Presbyterian church.  The women's auxilliary fundraised to have a pipe organ installed by the Casavant Brothers in 1929. In 2013 a short video of the Casavant in action was produced by journalism student Tom Hall.  In 2022 the Casavant organ was decommissioned (due to maintenance costs) and a new Phoenix Digital Organ was installed. 

J.W.H. Watts was the architect. In 1898 he had designed the first St. Matthew’s Anglican Church, an attractive wooden structure which stood on First Avenue until demolished in 1930. 

St. Pauls Methodist church also began with a Sunday School, held in 1908 and 1909 in Moreland’s Hall on Bank Street near Fifth Avenue. A permanent church home, at 175 Third Ave at Lyon, was commenced in 1913 and the basement occupied in 1915. Due to problems associated with the World War, the structure was not completed until 1924. The finely proportioned neoclassic building, designed by Col. Clarence Burritt, is now the Glebe Community Centre.

Zion United Church, founded as a mission of First Congregational Church (now First United) about 1896, built its church home at 91 Fourth Avenue. This congregation was disbanded in 1941 and most of the members joined Glebe or St. James. The Society of Friends now occupies part of the much-renovated Zion building.

On June 10, 1925 the United Church of Canada was born and Glebe Presbyterian became Glebe United Church and St. Pauls Methodist became St. James United Church (the St. Pauls congregation could not keep that name as a United Church because that name was already taken so the new church became St. James).  

In 1971, Glebe United and St. James United, joined together choosing the Glebe building to house the new congregation. Various furnishings and memorials from St. James may be found in the present sanctuary including 4 bronze panels that were part of the communion table and 4 wood carvings that were part of the pulpit/lecturn and were carved by the renouned Eleanor Milne (in 2010, Eleanor Milne, the former Dominion Sculptor of Canada, was interviewed at Glebe St James about the interpretation and techniques behind her carvings). 

In 2002, the Glebe Montessori School undertook extensive renovations to the lower level of the church building. The church’s meeting and Christian Education facilities on the upper level were also updated.

Today The Glebe is regarded as one of Ottawa’s 'classic' neighborhoods which has retained its historical charm. Glebe-St. James stands in the center of this community, a place of solace and service, worship and witness. As such, Glebe-St. James acknowledges that the location of its building on the traditional, un-ceded territories of the Algonquin nation. 
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