Edgar Berryman

Canadian architect Edgar Berryman was born in 1839. He advertised himself as an architect, civil engineer, surveyor, and landscape gardener. He typically designed buildings in the Italianate, Gothic and French Renaissance styles.

Berryman was active in St. Catharines, Ontario from 1863 until he was appointed company architect for the Canada Southern station in St. Thomas, Ontario and several other buildings, including the car shops. He designed the station in Italianate style, one characterized by wide eaves with brackets, a heavy cornice, rounded windows, and a repeated symmetry of design.

In comparison with St. Thomas, other stations were often designed in the Romanesque Revival style (Montreal’s Windsor Station), Beaux Arts (Toronto) or Second Empire (Montreal’s first Central Station). This makes this station unique within Canadian architectural history, one of the largest built in Ontario and a testimonial to Berryman’s achievement. While in St. Thomas, he also designed a local residence for Richard Horsman. Berryman moved to Montreal in 1875. He died there in 1905.