Ontario. Inspector of Asylums, Prisons and Public Charities

• Office of the Inspector of Prisons and Public Charities

• Ontario. Office of the Inspector of Public Institutions

• Ontario. Inspector of Asylums and Prisons

The first example of central administrative control of public institutions in Ontario was the Board of Inspectors of Asylums and Prisons. Appointed in 1859 by provisions of 22 Victoria, Chapter 110, the Board was charged with general superintendence of the United Provinces' (i.e. Canada East/Quebec and Canada West/Ontario) 61 public institutions. These included 52 common gaols, the largest single type of institution, 4 lunatic asylums, 2 hospitals, 2 reformatory prisons, and one large penitentiary. Five inspectors were appointed and each one assigned an inspection district. Quarterly meetings of the full Board were supplemented by frequent meetings of its five permanent committees. Each committee was charged with specific duties such as accounts, correspondence and records, hospitals and asylums, penitentiaries and prisons, and statistics.

In conformity with section 91 of the British North America Act, institutions formerly supervised by the central Board of the United Provinces were placed under authority of their respective provincial legislatures. Chapter 110 of the Consolidated Statutes of the Province of Canada was repealed by an act of the Ontario legislature on 28 February 1868 (31 Victoria, Chapter 7). On 4 March 1868, the Prisons and Asylums Inspection Act (31 Victoria, Chapter 21) was passed vesting control of all the above type of institutions located in Ontario, 49 in total, in the Office of the Inspector of Prisons and Asylums. On 20 June 1868, J.W. Langmuir was appointed first incumbent of the office.

From 1868 to 1935, the Office of the Inspector passed through four distinct phases. The first phase saw the addition of statutory responsibilities to the office. This resulted in the gradual increase of staff and the subsequent differentiation of their duties to meet new requirements. Eventually this enlarged administrative unit separated into functionally distinct branches. Ultimately, the office as a separate administrative unit was eclipsed. Branches of the Inspector's Office were split up, regrouped with other units on a purely functional basis, and absorbed into the evolving permanent civil service department structure. With the administrative office gone, only the inspectorial functions remained, gradually being assigned to officers within new government departments as they took responsibility for various branches of the old inspectorate.

Throughout this period the Inspector reported alternatively to the Treasurer of Ontario and the Provincial Secretary, the final administrative resting place being the Provincial Secretary's Department (orders-in-council 5/10, 23/150, 33/449, 5/532, 7/183, 16/308 and 35/466). In actuality, the Inspector exercised almost complete autonomy, maintaining many separate record series. Over the years the office acquired increased statutory responsibilities. The Prisons and Asylums Inspection Act (31 Victoria, Chapter 21) laid down the Inspector's basic duties. He was responsible for inspecting and supervising all public institutions in the Province of Ontario as well as exercising direct administrative control over those institutions wholly owned and operated by the province. His responsibility for the "... peace, welfare and good government ..." of these institutions was accomplished by framing by-laws, making twice-yearly visits to inspect registers, books and conditions, and making a full and accurate report on the condition and management of these institutions suggesting improvements "... as he may deem necessary and expedient" (31 Victoria, Chapter 21). His first report was presented in October 1868.

Additional duties and responsibilities were added almost immediately. In 1870 the Inspector prepared his first statutory report on the operations of Ontario's publicly funded charities. He was to inspect and report annually upon his examination of their books and operations. This was the beginning of the Inspector's long association with hospitals, houses of refuge and orphanages. Three acts in 1871 further added to the statutory responsibilities of the Inspector. Section 6 of an Act to Provide For the Establishment of a Central Prison for the Province of Ontario (34 Victoria, Chapter 17) appointed the Inspector ... under the first clause of the 'Prison and Asylum Inspection Act, 1868' ... by virtue of his office (as) Inspector of the Prison to be erected ...". In 1873 the Inspector became responsible for the newly constructed Belleville Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, The Brantford Institution for the Blind, and for the newly authorized Asylum for Inebriates to be erected in Hamilton. This institution opened in 1876 as an Asylum for the Insane. By 1876 Inspector Langmuir had two official assistant clerks to whom he delegated certain duties and in that year the name of the Office was officially changed to the Inspector of Prisons and Public Charities (39 Victoria, Chapter 8) signifying the broad division of his duties into these two types of custodial institutions (asylums and hospitals being considered types of charitable institutions).

In the Report of 1874, the Inspector summarized his duties to illustrate the growth and variation in the responsibilities attached to his office since its inception in 1868.

"I must inspect and report upon every institution receiving government aid from one to four times a year, ... audit ... their accounts and /regulate/ their organization and discipline and I am in addition the official medium between them and the government. These institutions number seventy-seven, the aggregate expenditure of which is close upon half a million dollars per annum, which is subject to audit in my office. Besides these general duties I exercise special superintendence over the domestic management of ... lunatic asylums, Central Prison and provincial reformatory and the institutions for the education of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind, purchasing many of the supplies and making all the contracts for maintenance. I am by law the trustee of estates of all lunatics committed to asylums, where committees have not been appointed by the Court of Chancery, and am charged with the management of the same. The plans for construction of all sanitary and penal institutions entitled to public aid are subject to my revision and approval, and the repairs and alterations to Public Institutions are carried on under my supervision. I am also deputed to warrant and superintend the transfer of all prisoners from Common Gaols to the various asylums of the Province." (Annual Report of the Inspector of Asylums and Prisons, 1874, pp. 3-4)

With few alterations these duties remained the main functions of the Inspector until 1925.

Over the years, the Inspector's Office grew, responding to the increase in the number of Institutions in the Inspector's charge and to the growing sophistication of administrative management. In 1880, Dr. W. T. O'Reilly, formerly Inspector of Insurance, was attached to the Office of the Inspector of Prisons and Public Charities (order-in-council 15/443) and in April 1881 he was appointed Inspector with special responsibilities for hospitals and charitable institutions (order-in-council 15/344). J. W. Langmuir resigned his office in 1882 and in that same year Robert Christie was appointed to "... perform the duties of an Inspector" (order-in-council 15/343). In 1883 An Act Respecting the Office of the Inspector of Prisons and Public Charities gave statutory authority for two Inspectors with the one holding the senior appointment being the senior inspector for legal purposes. The fifteenth Annual Report was published in two sections, a separate one each for sanitary and penal institutions marking the separation of responsibilities between the two inspectors and mirroring official administrative philosophy of the time. A third inspector was appointed in 1893.

By 1910 the division of the Office into specialized sections had begun. Each section was responsible for specific functions such as tendering, supplies, audit, and maintenance. In 1912 a Farm Director and Accountant were appointed. They were joined by a special Inspector for the Feeble Minded in 1913, a Medical Director, an Architect, and an Auditor in 1920. By that date the Inspector's Office staff was differentiated into well-defined sections related directly to the administration of multi-facetted public institutions.

The growing specialization and professionalization of the Inspector's staff was encouraged, in part, by new statutory responsibilities and in part resulted from a growth in the number of institutions under his supervision. Enactments in 1895, 1900 and 1912 conferred upon the Inspector superintendence of neglected children and altered charity aid arrangements to encourage and later compel counties to undertake specific welfare responsibilities. The Hospitals Act of 1912 regularized the Inspector's supervision of hospital construction and services in the province. New asylums, officially called Hospitals for the Insane after 1919, were added in Mimico (1890), Brockville (1894), and Woodstock (1906). The refurbished Penetanguishene Reformatory was opened as an asylum for the insane in 1904 and in 1914 a psychiatric reception hospital was opened in Toronto. The last major institution to be added to the roster was a psychiatric hospital in Whitby, in 1919. By 1925 the Inspector and his staff were responsible for superintending 380 institutions.

By 1915, specialization along the lines of administrative responsibility was well underway. The administrative structure reflected three broad groupings of institutions; prisons, reformatories and other custodial punitive institutions; asylums, hospitals and other types of health care institutions; orphanages, rest homes and other eleemosynary institutions.

Continuing differentiation along these lines eventually led to a fracturing of the administrative structure under the Inspector's authority. In 1919 responsibility for the inspection of public institutions was assigned to a Deputy Provincial Secretary and in January 1925 H.M. Robbins was appointed to the position (order-in-council 142/213). The formal rendering of the Office of the Inspector of Prisons and Public Charities began in earnest in 1925 when W.W. Dunlop, a senior Inspector, and F.C. Williams, a junior inspector, were convicted in county judges' criminal court for stealing public money and sentenced to terms in Kingston Penitentiary. Both were dismissed prior to their convictions (order-in-council 144/311, 30 April 1925).

In the next five years a series of statutory changes and executive fiats completed the rearrangement of functions along completely new departmental lines and reduced the inspectorial function to just one of many in a modern administrative unit. Responsibility for estates of insane patients where no legal committee existed was removed from the Inspector and assigned to the Public Trustee in 1927 (17 George V, Chapter 35, Section 2). The Public Institutions Inspection Act of 1931 (Chapter 80) repealed the Prisons and Public Charities Inspection Act of 1927 (17 George V, Chapter 36) and vested executive control of these institutions in the Deputy Minister of the "appropriate department". The Charitable Institutions Act of 1931 (21 George V, Chapter 79) formally placed them under the newly created Department of Public Welfare, confirming the informal administrative shift of September 1930. In October of that year responsibility for hospitals and sanatoria were transferred to the Department of Health with H.M. Robbins becoming Deputy Minister of the Department and B.T. McGhie Director of Hospital Services (orders-in-council 188/190, 188/98). The Hospitals Branch of the Department of Health was formally established by order-in-council 188/190. Subsequent acts confirmed the administrative fact (21 George V, Chapter 77, 1931; 21 George V, Chapter 78, 1931).

In 1935 the Mental Hospitals Acts confirmed the transfer of that responsibility to the Deputy Minister of Health. Under each act Inspectors could be appointed or designated among departmental employees by an order-in-council. In 1934, B.T. McGhie became Deputy Minister of Health and Chief Medical Officer of health personifying the merger of the Provincial Board of Health and the Inspector of Prisons and Public Charities into a uniform health administration. In 1934 the former Inspection Branch of the Provincial Secretary's Department became the Reformatory and Prisons Branch, the only Branch from the former Inspectorate to remain in the Provincial Secretary's Department. The position of Inspector of Prisons and Public Charities became a civil service job classification being allocated to the class of Inspector of Sanatoria (order-in-council 193/286).

The Inspector of Prisons and Public Charities was responsible for inspecting and supervising all public institutions in the Province of Ontario as well as exercising direct administrative control over those institutions wholly owned and operated by the province.

Activities of the Inspector included: visiting and inspecting the various reformatories, prisons, correction centres, asylums, and hospitals in the Province of Ontario; reporting to the Lieutenant Governor on the condition and management of these institutions; and developing, altering, amending or rescinding rules and regulations for the administration of jails.

The Prisons and Asylums Inspection Act, Statutes of Ontario 1868, Chap. 21

Act respecting Administrative matters therein mentioned, Statutes of Ontario 1876, Chap. 8

RAD: Rules for Archival Description, 2nd edn (2008)

2026-11-16: migrated to AtoM

Bishop, Olga. Publications of the Government of Ontario, 1867-1900 (1976)

Canadian Almanac, 1868-1900

MacTaggart, Hazel. Publications for the Government of Ontario, 1901-1955 (1964)

Public Accounts, 1868-1934

Note: the years given for the controlling agencies for this Office may not be completely accurate. The Public Accounts, Canadian Almanac and the reports of the Inspectors are not conclusive, and often contradictory, with respect to who the Office reported to. The dates shown and their respective controlling agencies were taken from the Canadian Almanac.Agency not found in Canadiana Name Authorities, 1996-12-24

Archivist(s):
Robert Anger, McIlroy