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Authority record
Maritime Home for Girls
Maritime Home for Girls · Corporate body · 1914 - 1985

The Maritime Home for Girls was established on 1 September 1914 by the Protestant Churches of the Maritime Provinces as a reformatory home and training school for girls under the age of 16 who were homeless, neglected, or considered to be delinquents. In addition to a regular public school curriculum, the girls were taught home economics and religion. The Home began as a singular building, with the addition of a cottage in 1917, and another two in the 1920s. The grounds consisted of 240 acres of land, 64 of which were being cultivated in the 1940s. They also kept Holstein cows and chickens on the farm which helped to finance the Home’s operation. The centre of the campus was Ross Hall. The Home partnered with the Local Council of Women for special events, such as flower shows. After encountering financial difficulties, responsibility for the Home was taken over by the Department of Public Welfare on 1 April 1967 and it was renamed to the Nova Scotia School for Girls. The school was converted to the Nova Scotia Residential Centre, a co-educational facility for emotionally disturbed children in February 1985, resulting in the closure of the Nova Scotia School for Girls.

Person · 1826 - 1891

The Mulholland family were natives of County Down, Ireland. William R. Mulholland came to Nova Scotia in 1849 as “Second Master” under his older brother Rev. John Geison Mulholland, principal of Kings Collegiate School in Windsor. The following year, W. R. was appointed mathematics teacher at Pictou Academy and chaired Nova Scotia’s first “teachers’ institute” held at Pictou, 20 December 1850. In 1855, Mulholland joined the faculty of the Provincial Normal School. His lectures dealt with a spectrum of mathematical topics ranging from elementary arithmetic through traditional algebra and geometry to practical mathematics, especially surveying and bookkeeping. In addition, he taught physical science, use of globes, and technical drawing.
When planning a Model School to serve as an adjunct to the Normal School, educational authorities asked Mulholland to design the building and oversee construction. As the Normal School became well-known around Nova Scotia, Mulholland attracted paying students anxious to specialize in bookkeeping, surveying or navigation.
The School Act of 1864 brought new architectural opportunities for Mulholland. Demand for teachers increased attendance at the Normal School and Mulholland was asked to draw up plans and supervise construction of an extension. He was also requested to provide school-house plans for distribution to local trustees and commissioners. These plans, contained in “one of the first architectural pattern books to be published in Canada,” became his legacy to Nova Scotia. For the next one hundred years, the Province’s rural areas were served by school houses built to Mulholland’s plans.
At forty-six years of age, he remarried and started a second family. Professionally, he maintained a meteorological station in Truro, supervised several editions of his Nova Scotia Arithmetic, published The Arithmetical Table Book, for the use of Schools and Counting Houses, and began accepting architectural commissions. Truro was experiencing a mini-building boom and Mulholland advertised that he would provide plans for private residences, although no examples are known to have survived. In contrast, his adaptation of plans for St. John’s Anglican Church and his very attractive design for the YMCA building in Truro brought him public acclaim. The last official recognition of his building experience was his appointment as Government Inspector of the construction of the elaborate new Normal School, built in 1878.
Three years later, during a hiatus in Truro’s residential construction, Mulholland removed to Kansas City, Missouri, where he was employed in an architect’s firm. He died in Omaha, Nebraska, and his body was brought back to Truro to be buried with his family in St. John’s Anglican Church Cemetery.

This abbreviated biography from,
The Provincial Normal School, Truro, Nova Scotia, A Biographical Record 1855 – 1869
by Carol Campbell and James F. Smith, 2018. ISBN 978-0-9739436-7-2