St. James-Bond Church (Toronto)

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St. James-Bond United Church, 1066 Avenue Road, Toronto, Ontario, was a United Church of Canada Congregation from 1928 to 2005, when it merged with Fairlawn Heights United Church (now Fairlawn Avenue United Church) in the Yonge Street and Lawrence Avenue area.

Prior to the 1928 merger, these were downtown congregations of the Presbyterian and Congregationalist traditions. The St. James-Bond building was vacated on February 28, 2006. The building was torn down in the summer of 2006 and it has been reported that the site will be used for a senior's centre.

Contents 1 Bond Street Congregationalist Church 2 St. James Square Presbyterian Church 3 St. James-Bond United Church 4 Trivia 5 External links

Bond Street Congregationalist Church

Located east of Yonge Street on Dundas Street, moved uptown in 1927, to a growing suburban development north of Eglinton Avenue. The Bond Street building was acquired by a pentecostal Church, Evangel Temple. The building was destroyed by fire after Evangel Temple moved to the Hoggs Hollow area, near Yonge and York Mills in the 1990s.

St. James Square Presbyterian Church

Located on Gerrard Street, just east of Yonge, on the present site of Ryerson University's St. James Square Campus, this was the third building of the Second United Presbyterian Church of Toronto. It was built in 1879, replacing a much smaller building on nearby Gould Street.

The United Presbyterian Church's Canadian Synod approved the division of their Toronto, Canada West Bay Street United Presbyterian Church congregation in 1853 to assist in the move of their Divinity Hall from London, Ontario to Toronto. In 1861, the merger of the UPC to the Free Church, saw the Divinty School merge with Knox College, and Gould Street Church grew under the leadership of:

• Professor John Taylor (1853-1861), who returned to Scotland; his son, Sir Thomas Wardlaw Taylor remained in Canada, and was later Chief Justice of Manitoba.
• Rev. Robert Burns (1861-1863), a Knox College professor, formerly of Knox Free Church,
• John Mark King (1863-1883), later the Principal of Manitoba College in Winnipeg,
• S. H. Kellogg (1885-1892), a former missionary to India), who returned there,
• Louis Jordan (1894-1900),
• Alfred Gandier (1901-1908), later Principal of both Knox (1909-1925) and Emmanuel College (1925-1932).
• Andrew Robertson(1910-1916),
• D. N. Morden (1917-1926).

St. James-Bond United Church

Both congregations joined the United Church of Canada in 1925. Each had declined as Toronto grew, and parishioners joined congregations closer to their homes; some started by the respective congregations.

St James Square was the "parent" of:

• College Street United Church,
• St John's Presbyterian Church, Toronto.

Bond Street was the parent of:

• Birchcliff Church in Scarborough Township (now Birchcliff Bluffs United Church).

Bond Street was the first to move into a new area, joined by their former downtown neighbour a year later.

Trivia

The church's name has often been linked with the origin of the name of the character James Bond; Author Ian Fleming (d. 1964) had told people he spent time in the Toronto area during World War II, although claims of Camp X have been denied, the Church was adjacent to a former Canadian Forces building at 1107 (doube-oh-seven) Avenue Road (now a Catholic High School) where Fleming could have stayed.

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