Architect: G. Ernest Fairweather (1883), Andrew Cobb (renovation, 1934)
Size: 95 feet long, 52 feet wide, and 2 storeys tall (plus basement). Central tower was 70 feet high.
Style: Gothic Revival and Second Empire
Materials: Red sandstone with olive freestone trim
Cornerstone laid: 5 June 1883
Opened: 9 October 1884
Construction for Centennial Hall began in June 1883, and the official opening took place on 9 October 1884. It was the first campus building to be built of stone and was named to honour the centenary of Methodism in the Maritimes. It contained a museum, library, laboratory, and lecture rooms. In the south end of the second floor was the William Black Chapel, dedicated to the memory of Rev. William Black, founder of Methodism in the Maritime provinces.
A fire on 17 March 1933 completely gutted the building, leaving only the outside walls and tower standing. Some material and records were saved from the blaze, including the filing cabinets in the President's Office and some documents from the archives. [1] Reconstruction began that same year, and it was reopened on 6 November 1933.
Mount Allison Archives. Picture Collection, 2007.07/34. May only be reproduced with permission from the Mount Allison University Archives.
Mount Allison University Archives. Picture Collection. 2007.07/162. May only be reproduced with permission from the Mount Allison University Archives.
Mount Allison University Archives. Picture Collection, 2007.07/708. May only be reproduced with permission from the Mount Allison University Archives.
Mount Allison University Archives. Picture Collection, 2007.07/712. May only be reproduced with permission from the Mount Allison University Archives.
Dedication of the new University Chapel was held on Sunday, November 5, 1933. The Mount Allison Record published a description of its interior design:
"The University Chapel in the rebuilt Centennial Hall is on the top floor of the building in the same location that the old chapel occupied. The sloping walls and low ceilings are covered with a rough plaster surface and the windows are of cathedral glass. The chapel is furnished with simplicity and dignity in the style of the English collegiate chapels. The dark oak pews give seating accommodation for one hundred and seventy-five students. [2]
A later issue of the Record provided additional details about the reconstructed building:
"As there are several good lecture rooms in the New Science Building, it is not necessary to provide as many new rooms as would have been needed three years ago. Consequently, it was decided to take the second floor of the Centennial Hall for Physics laboratories and a lecture room. The space, therefore, that was used in the old days for the Library, the Chapel, offices, the Alpha Beta Room, and lecture rooms will now be devoted to Physics, and will provide adequate, convenient and well lighted quarters for this important part of our work. In the basement there will be five lecture rooms, laboratories and janitor's room. On the first floor, there will be three lecture rooms, and offices for the President and his Secretary, for the Alumni Secretary and the Editor of the Record and for the Registrar, six offices in all. The roof of the building will be the same shape as before, but by the omission of the tower and addition of dormer windows, the space on the third floor, previously a useless and dangerous attic, will be made into nine well-lighted offices, and a Chapel large enough to seat one hundred and fifty people. One of these offices will be used for the Argosy Weekly, and the others will be allotted to the professors of English, Education, Economics, Philosophy, Mathematics, French, Latin, and German." [3]
In the summer of 1958, the building was renovated once more. Eighteen new offices were provided. Alumni and Fund Office were moved to Tweedie House, making space for the offices of the President, Vice President, Dean of Sciences, Treasurer, Chaplain, and the departments of History and Extension. In 1965-66, the old chapel was turned into classrooms. Additional renovations in the 1960s and 1970s created more office space for administrative departments.