Upcoming Lectures
“Anna and the Art School: Anna Leonowens and the Founding of Halifax’s Victoria School of Art and Design, 1887-1897, Part 2,” by Lois Yorke
Wednesday, April 15th, 2026, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Lindsay Children’s Room on the 2nd floor at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here for the Zoom link.
A graduate of Dalhousie University, Lois Yorke is the former Provincial Archivist and Director of the Nova Scotia Archives. She has spent over forty years as an archivist, editor, researcher and consultant in cultural heritage. Her long-standing involvement in women’s history has produced various articles on ‘interesting’ women from Nova Scotia’s past. These back-to-back lectures on the founding of Halifax’s
Abstract:
In October 1887, just as the new Victoria School of Art and Design prepared to open, and despite its early acceptance, even popularity, the seeds of decline were already present. The initial leadership remained, including Leonowens, but the world was changing around them, and their ability to react quickly and decisively was being eroded. Across a long decade, and again based on primary sources and Halifax newspapers, the second part of this story explores how two departures, one return, a death, and the waning of the old century all combined to threaten the school’s survival.
Lois Yorke
A graduate of Dalhousie University, Lois Yorke is the former Provincial Archivist and Director of the Nova Scotia Archives. She has spent over forty years as an archivist, editor, researcher and consultant in cultural heritage. Her long-standing involvement in women’s history has produced various articles on ‘interesting’ women from Nova Scotia’s past. These back-to-back lectures on the founding of Halifax’s Victoria School of Art and Design are drawn from a much larger project – the first biography to explore fully the life and times of Anna Harriette Leonowens, ‘The English Governess at the Siamese Court’ – possibly the most interesting woman of them all.
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