Courts were held in this building commencing in the year 1804 until it was appropriated for the use of prisoners during the war of 1812.

The Vittoria Court House, 1815-1826.

In 1815 an act was passed which provided that the courts of general quarter sessions for the district of London should be held at Charlotteville. The Magistrates were ordered to make a choice of the most convenient place, and a meeting was accordingly held at the house of Thomas Finch on the 13th June, 1815. John Backhouse, Thomas Talbot and Robert Finch were appointed Commissioners to superintend the building, and a brick court house and gaol was erected at Vittoria at an expense of £9,000. During the erection of the building, courts were held in the houses of Thomas Finch, Francis Beaupre and Mathias Steel. The first meeting of the sessions was held in the new court house on 8th April, 1817, and it was used until 1826, when it was partially destroyed by fire.

The London Court Houses, 1826-1853.

An Act was then passed to establish a District town in a more central place, and courts were ordered to be held in some part of the reservation made for the site of a town near the forks of the River Thames. This was at London where four acres were set apart for the purposes of the jail and court house. The commissioners appointed for the purpose of erecting the building, Thomas Talbot, Mahlon Burwell, James Hamilton, Charles Ingersoll and John Matthews, held their first meeting in St. Thomas. During the erection of the court house at London, courts were held in a private house at Vittoria, and afterwards at St. Thomas. Dr. C. Hodgins, in his History of Education of Upper Canada, states that on one occasion the Court of King's Bench, with Judge Sherwood presiding and the late Sir John Beverley Robinson in attendance as King's Attorney, was held in an upper room of a building used by Mr. Stephen Randal as a grammar school. This building was afterwards removed to the school lot near the present residence of Judge Ermatinger, and was known as the "Talbot Seminary."

THE LONDON COURT HOUSE.
From "Illustrated London," copyrighted. By permission London Printing and Lithographing Co. (Limited.)

The first court house in London was constructed of flat logs, and on the ground floor was a log partition to separate the jail from the jailer's room. The court room above was reached by stairs outside. This was followed by the erection of a two story frame building upon the same square where the present court house stands, but closer to the street. In one end of the first floor were placed two cells, which were rendered more secure by being surrounded with logs, from which the building acquired the distinctive title of "The Old Log Court House." Courts were first held there in 1828.

In 1838 a new jail was proposed, and in the years 1843 and 1844 the present jail and court house in London was completed at a cost of £8,500. The latter resembles the castle of Malahide near Dublin, the birth place of Col. Talbot.

The Elgin Court House, 1853-1898.

The County of Elgin was established by an Act of the Legislature passed in August, 1851, and formed a union with Middlesex until County Buildings were erected. The provisional County Council held its first meeting in the Town Hall, St. Thomas, on April 15th, 1852. The first business was to erect a jail and Court House. Offers of building sites were received from Messrs. Curtis and Lawrence and Benjamin Drake. The Curtis sites were north of Talbot Street and West of East Street. The Lawrence site, two acres, included the lot on which the Post Office now stands. The Drake site appears to have been considered suitable before the county was formed as a deed from Benjamin Drake to Queen Victoria, dated the 25th of October, 1848, and registered the 30th of October, 1851, conveys the Jail and Court House Block to Her Majesty for public buildings for county and district purposes only. A resolution of the County Council shows that the final acceptance of this site depended on obtaining water at fifteen feet, failing this a new site was to be chosen. The location for the building on lot selected was next considered.

Petitions to front the buildings on Stanley Street were presented, but they were ordered to face north so as to stand parallel with the Talbot Road in front of Queen Street.

Plans were received from architects Thomas and Tully, of Toronto, and John Turner of Brantford.

The plans submitted by Mr. Turner were the same as for the Court House at Brantford, which he was building. These were adopted with some changes suggested by other plans before the council.

The contract was awarded to Garner Ellwood for £4,580, on the 19th June, 1852. The jail, jailor's house, etc., to be completed by the 15th September following, and the Court House on the 1st August, 1853.

The Building Committee consisted of the whole council, of which Messrs. Clark and Locker of Malahide, Ganson of Yarmouth, Skinner of Bayham, Munro of Southwold and Parish of St. Thomas, were the most active. Thomas Cheeseman was the architect's superintendent in charge of the work.

WARDEN LOCKER, 1852-1855

The jail was not completed until the spring of 1853, and on the 23rd of March Mr. Ellwood gave up the contract, £2,764 having been expended. The Warden was then authorized to proceed with the work which, with the exception of minor contracts, was completed by day labor, with Thomas Fraser, builder, of London, as superintendent. The Gaol as at first erected was not satisfactory, the plan being defective. This increased the cost and when the buildings were completed and furnished in 1854, the total expenditure was £11,405. Mr. Ellwood in tendering for the buildings was guided by the figures supplied by Architect Turner who was then erecting a court house at Brantford. In a subsequent report to the council Mr. Turner states that in the erection of the Brantford building he ruined himself, and that he could not have erected the Elgin buildings at a less price than they cost the county.

A Special Committee reported on completion of the work: "That after taking into consideration the advance in price of material and labor—that the buildings have been erected in as judicious and economical a manner as the circumstances would admit, and that the beautiful workmanship and design is not surpassed by any building in Canada west."

THE ELGIN COURTHOUSE, 1860.

The Royal Arms Rampant, which is very much admired, on the front of the Court House, is in size twelve feet by six feet, and cost £93. They were supplied by Messrs. Cochranes and Pollock of Toronto, from a sketch drawn by Mr. John M. Walthew who also painted the picture placed in the court room, the beauty of which the council acknowledged by special resolution in January 1855. Sculptured faces were placed in the east and west gables of the building. That in the west resembles Lord Elgin, after whom the county was named, and the other may be architect Turner but at present no one seems to know definitely who they were intended to represent.

In 1853 the Town Hall of the