The historic Mckibbin's red sandstone mansion was built in 1904 by one of Canada's most brilliant surgeons, Dr. Frank Richardson England (1862-1942) and his wife Grace Octavia Ritchie (1868-1948), the first woman to receive a degree in medicine in Quebec.
Both worked at Western Hospital, which housed the Montreal Children's Hospital until recently. Mrs. England was perhaps even more remarkable than her husband. Valedictorian of the first class of women to graduate from McGill University in 1888, she went on to study medicine at Bishop's when McGill refused to allow a woman to enter their Faculty of Medicine, which was then a strictly men only profession. She set up private practice in their mansion on Bishop Street, campaigned for women's suffrage, legal reform, compulsory education and was president of the Montreal Women's Liberal Club amongst other accomplishments.
The England House was designed by Robert Findlay, the same renowned architect responsible for the Dr. David Fraser Gurd Residence next door at 1424 Bishop, as well as many other prestigious mansions in The Golden Square Mile, as the area was known. "The front is of tastefully carved red sandstone. Inside the finish is of the finest, and the house is an exceedingly comfortable one," reported the Montreal Herald. "The study and the patient's waiting room are well fitted up."
