By Michel Rossignol
On July 21, 1921, John Boyd went for a walk in the ByWard Market and took a photograph which perfectly captured the marketing experience a century ago. The photo, now in the collection of Library and Archives Canada (PA-084637), shows customers examining the many displays of fruits and vegetables on tables and in baskets along the sidewalk.
A woman holding a bag and the man standing to her right are carefully framed at the centre of the image. In the hazy background stands the ByWard Market Hall, sometimes called the Lowertown Market Building. Designed by James Mather, this landmark building stood from 1876 to 1926, when it was destroyed by fire and replaced by the current ByWard Market Building. Looking closely, there is a sign on the York Street side of the building for a Market store, , Lapointe Fish, just above the woman’s head. , So the photo must have been taken on ByWard Market Square Street between Clarence and York.
By 1921, Mr. Boyd (1865-1941) was a very experienced amateur photographer who knew how to take a good picture. Known as John Boyd Senior (his son John was also a photographer), he was born in Ireland in 1865, but at a young age, emigrated with his parents to Canada, where Toronto was his hometown. While photography was his passion–he made his first camera and wrote many articles–, he earned his living working for various railroad companies. In his travels across Canada, Mr. Boyd was a frequent visitor to Ottawa. During visits in 1914, he photographed the Chateau Laurier Hotel and other Lowertown buildings. He happened to be in Ottawa on February 3, 1916, when a fire broke out in the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings. He photographed the fire in the evening and the ruins the following day.
However, the numerous photos Mr. Boyd took in the ByWard Market are perhaps his most important contribution to Ottawa’s photo archives. In March 1914, he photographed the sale of wood and horses in the Market. While he took his 1921 photo in ideal summer weather, he also photographed the Market in the cold of winter. The photos taken on February 21, 1918 showing the sale of firewood and numerous wagons full of hay remind us that the ByWard Market was an important source of wood and other supplies besides food for local residents and farmers in the early 1900s. We are very lucky that Mr. Boyd kept an eye on the Market.