Thomas Charles Sorby

Thomas Charles Sorby FRIBA FGS^[1] (1836 – 15 November 1924) was an English-Canadian architect. Born in Wakefield, England, he emigrated to Canada in 1883, where he worked for much of the time in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia.

In England, as surveyor of Police Buildings in the Metropolitan District and in the County Courts of England and Wales, Sorby designed police stations and court houses in stone and brick, frequently in the Classical style. When working independently, he designed churches and mansions in the same materials, but often in the Gothic Revival or Arts and Crafts style. However in Canada he was employed for some years by the Canadian Pacific Railway; a client which often required chalet-style hotel and depot designs in wood,

Sorby entered a large number of design competitions for civic buildings and town plans in England and Canada. In England he invented a new type of skylight, and a remotely-controlled sash fastener, which he used in his own building designs.