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About Lord Nelson

February 4, 2021

Lord Nelson School, situated at the corner of Redwood and McPhillips, bears the name Lord Nelson, a British naval hero.

Lord Nelson was originally called McPhillips School, located at the corner of McPhillips and Burrows. It had only five classrooms. This two-storey wooden structure sat by itself in splendid isolation at a time when north Winnipeg was just beginning to expand and grow. Former pupils of those years recall vividly the wooden sidewalks, the flooded roads and fields often making the school inaccessible, the inkwells, the straight pens and the many other trappings of that era. Most vividly remembered and with some nostalgia, however, is the “no-nonsense, strict discipline ” of those years, with the lament that they may be gone forever.

Miss Drummond and Mrs. Birch were the principals of the school during the period of 1912-1917.

In 1917, a new school was built across McPhillips Street on the west side which became known as Lord Nelson School. It consisted of five rooms plus a boiler room in a two-storey building. In 1922, a two-storey addition of four rooms was built. It now had nine classrooms which is the way it remained until 1949 when there were an additional seven classrooms and an auditorium built in two-storeys. In 1958, the annex, a low one-storey addition of eight rooms was added to the northern end of the building. Prior to the construction of the annex, from 1956-58, two portable classrooms were used. These were the first to be used in the Winnipeg School Division and cost approximately $11,000.00 each to be built.

Today, the school services the community as a Nursery to Grade 6 school and follows the curriculum as determined by Manitoba Education and Training.

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