Shirreff Hall - History

History

Shirreff Hall was built in response to a looming housing crisis for female students of Dalhousie University. In the early 1920s, female students accounted for over twenty percent of the university's population. There were no university residences, and landlords in the Halifax area tended to prefer male tenants. Plans for a female-only residence hall were drafted, but no finances were available due to the construction of the Science Building and the Macdonald Memorial Library.

Jennie Shirreff Eddy, a former nurse and wealthy widow, donated $300,000 for the development and construction of a residence hall to be named in memory of her parents. At the time, it would be the largest donation ever given to Dalhousie.

The hall was designed by Frank Darling of Toronto and Andrew R. Cobb of Halifax, the primary architects who had already designed the other buildings on the Studley campus. Because the use of ironstone in buildings was beginning to be questioned (as the mortar proved to crumble with time), Darling found a new and promising type of stone, a pinkish quartzite from New Minas, Nova Scotia.

Shirreff Hall opened in 1923, with a load of 86 female tenants. A strict policy was set in place, insisting that any female student enrolled at Dalhousie who did not live in the Halifax area must live on campus at Shirreff. This policy would later be revoked in the face of another housing crisis pending the expansion of the residence hall in 1962.

Extensive research into other women's dormitories allowed Darling and Cobb to design a hall which would be praised by guests and tenants alike for its generous study spaces and aura of closeness and warmth. Current and past residents of Shirreff maintain that the building has the greatest sense of community of all the residences, although that claim is open to debate.

Shirreff Hall opened the Old and New Eddy houses for co-ed by floor living arrangements in the start of the 2005-06 academic year. As of 2006, Newcombe house is currently still female-only, and The Annex has only 14 tenants during the traditional school year.