Tucker Park
Name: Tucker Park Complex
Other Names: Unknown
Civic Address: Saint John, New Brunswick
Sod Turning: 17 May 1966 by Governor-General Georges Vanier and Madame Vanier, using the same spade and wheelbarrow which were used in 1853 by Sir Edmund Head and his wife Anna
Cornerstone Laying: May 1968 by Lt. Governor Wallace S. Bird (cornerstone of the Ward Chipman Building, first of the three original buildings built)
Opened for Use: Summer 1969
Official Opening: 13 May 1969 by Sir Max Aitken
Architect(s): Larson and Larson; Mott, Myles and Chatwin; MMC Architects Ltd.; DFS Inc.; B+H; Sasaki; ADI Ltd.
Named for: Joseph John Tucker (1832-1914): Chief Surveyor for Lloyds for twenty years stationed in Shanghai, China; one of the chief proprietors and owners of the St. John Telegraph; lieutenant-colonel in the 62nd Battalion, Saint John Fusiliers; MP for Saint John (1896-1904); upon his death donated a 400 acre estate to the city of Saint John, part of which later became the Tucker Park campus site.
Renovations/changes/additions: Originally composed of three academic buildings (Ward Chipman Building, William Ganong Hall, Sir Douglas Hazen Hall) and a boiler plant, Tucker Park expanded again in 1975, when the G. Forbes Elliot Athletic Centre was built. August 1983 saw the construction of Annex C, a 3,100 square foot building designed to aid in engineering research. Two adjacent structures, Annexes A and B, also provided extra space, with Annex A originally home to the Nursing program, and beginning in 2004, the site of the Student Health Centre. The Tucker Park campus benefited from the 1985 Canada Summer Games held in Saint John, with the Canada Games Stadium built on the site. A year later in 1986, the Thomas J. Condon Student Centre was opened, a project which had been in development for several years. On the 25th anniversary of UNB Saint John in 1989, the Alumni Gate was officially opened as a gift from former graduates. A succession of additions in the 1990s marked the first new academic buildings since 1969, with the opening of the Philip W. Oland Hall in 1992; the first on-campus residence, Sir James Dunn Residence, opening in 1993; followed by K.C. Irving Hall (home to Engineering, Nursing, and Mathematical Sciences) in 1998. 2002 saw the building of the Modern Languages Centre (now home to Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick). Another residence, the Dr. Colin B. Mackay Residence, was added to the campus in 2003, followed by the opening of the Canadian Rivers Institute in 2006, and finally the construction of the Hans W. Klohn Commons in 2011, which provided both library services and meeting space for the university community. Tucker Park is also home to the NBCC Allied Health building which houses the health-related NBCC programs as well as provides space for collaboration between NBCC, UNB Saint John, and Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick.
Notes: The Tucker Park site was deeded to the city of Saint John in 1915 from the estate of Joseph John Tucker; when plans for an expansion of UNB at Saint John became reality in 1965, the city freely offered eighty-seven acres of the original four hundred acres bequeathment for development by UNB. During the construction of the campus in 1968, a city-wide plumbers strike halted the project for a month.
Source(s):
- UA Case 180; Section 4; File 1; UNB Saint John.
- UA Case 180; Section 4; File 3; Tucker Park Campus.
- Leroux, John. Building A University: The Architecture of UNB. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2010, p. 100-10.
- UNB Scrapbooks (UA RG 100), April - May 1966.
- UNB Scrapbooks (UA RG 100), April - June 1969.
- Parliament of Canada website: [Joseph John Tucker].
- McGahan, Peter. The Quiet Campus : A History of the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, 1959-1969. Fredericton: New Ireland Press, 1998, p. 322
- Goss, David. Saint John Curiosities: Stories and Histories. Halifax: Nimbus Pub., 2008.
- Montague, Susan. A Pictorial History of the University of New Brunswick. University of New Brunswick, 1992, p. 197-217.
© UNB Archives & Special Collections, 2014