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Edwin James Adams served as Chief Penitentiary Architect for the federal Department of Justice from 1896 until 1914. Born in Ottawa, Ont. on 26 February 1861 he was the son of James Adams, Chief Trades Instructor of the provincial penitentiary at Kingston, Ont. He moved from Ottawa to Kingston with his parents in 1870 and may have acted as an assistant to his father in the 1880's, thereby gaining a broad knowledge of the design of prison facilities in Ontario. In April 1894 he was appointed as a trades instructor at the Kingston Penitentiary and later succeeded his father as Chief Trades Instructor there on 1 February 1896. When the Department of Justice became fully independent from the Department of Public Works in 1896 Adams was asked to take on the role of Penitentiary Architect for Canada and was eventually transferred to the Department headquarters in Ottawa in 1902.

The formal post of Architect to the Penitentiaries Branch was created on 1 July 1906 and Adams held this position overseeing all architectural work on penitentiary properties in Canada until his death. He prepared the plans for the enlargement of the federal prison at Edmonton, Alta. in 1906 (C.R., xvii, 8 Aug. 1906, 5), and designed the major addition to the New Westminster, B.C. prison in 1911 (C.R., xxv, 26 July 1911, 59). His death occurred at Kingston on 12 June 1914

Benjamin Dillon was an important regional architect in Eastern Ontario who practised there for over 40 years. Born in Lyndhurst, Ontario on 8 May 1871, he studied architecture and mechanical drawing with John Robb, a private tutor in Kingston, and then attended classes at the Kingston School of Art for two seasons before articling with Arthur Ellis, a prominent architect in Kingston. He opened an office in Renfrew in the Ottawa Valley in 1896 and worked there for two years, then moved permanently to Brockville in late 1898 and continued to live and work there for the next 35 years. Despite competition from architects in nearby Kingston and Ottawa, Dillon was successful at sustaining his own career, and in obtaining commissions throughout Leeds, Grenville and Lanark Counties, Dundas County, and in Lennox & Addington Counties, and his name can now be linked to over 80 projects which he completed for institutional, ecclesiastical, commercial, residential and industrial projects during the period from 1899 to 1937. These included over fifteen churches located in towns and villages, invariably designed in a bold and expressive Romanesque Revival style which he favoured for his Methodist, Presbyterian and Anglican clients. He adapted this style for institutional commissions, best seen in his design for the Town Hall in Athens, Ontario (1903-04), and for the Carnegie Library in Brockville (1903), both of which have survived and are still in use today.

His designs for churches are almost instantly recognizable for the sheer size and scale of the building, and for the asymmetrical appearance and composition of each work. His unique and outstanding ecclesiastical commissions include St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Pakenham, Ont. (1896-97), and the sprawling Methodist Church in the tiny community of Chesterville, Ont. (1907), both of which are still standing. His career was not without setbacks; in February 1916 his business office in the Harding Block in Brockville was gutted by fire (along with those of several other tenants) and he lost all of his architectural drawings and records (see the Weekly British Whig (Kingston), 10 Feb. 1916, 8). This may explain why few archival collection of his drawings have been located in Canadian institutions or local museums. Dillon died at Maitland, Ont. on 9 July 1942

R. Bruce Downey, architect, was born in Kingston in 1952. He received a B.Arch. from Carlton University in 1976 and became a member of the Ontario Association of Architects in 1981. Between 1976 and 1978, Mr, Downey was employed by Wilfred Sorensen, Architect, Kingston. He was employed by Lily Inglis from 1979 to 1981 when he established the firm of R. Bruce Downey Architect. In 1983, he rejoined Mrs. Inglis to establish the firm of Inglis and Downey Architects.

Andrew Drummond was an architect active in Kingston, Ontario from 1834 until after 1850. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 13 February 1811, he was the son of George Drummond, a successful building contractor and member of Edinburgh City Council. His early training and experience in Scotland may have been gained with an architect in Edinburgh during the period from 1830 until June of 1834 when he emigrated to Canada. His uncle was Robert Drummond (1791-1834) who was referred to as the “sole contractor and architect” of portions of the new Rideau Canal at Kingston Mills (British Whig [Kingston], 22 July 1834, 3, descrip.) and it is likely that Robert D. persuaded his nephew Andrew to emigrate from Scotland and to settle in Kingston. Just two months after arriving, his uncle died suddenly during the cholera epidemic in August 1834, and Andrew D. took a job with the Commercial Bank in Kingston, and later served as Secretary to the Board of Trustees of Queen's College.

His training and skill as an architect was called upon in July1841 by the Board of Trustees of Queen's College,, Kingston [now Queen's University] when they approached Drummond, who was then serving as the Acting Secretary to the Board, and asked him to prepared a design for a new college building in Kingston. Drummond presented his refined Georgian scheme in September, only to have this abruptly shelved in favour of an open architectural competition among architects from Canada and the United States. The initial proposal by Drummond was not built, but his original drawings have survived and are now held at Queen University Archives in Kingston. Several of these drawings are reproduced in J. Douglas Stewart & Ian Wilson, Heritage Kingston, 1973, plates 146, 147 and 148, and reveal Drummond to be a knowledgeable and competent designer, and in late 1841 he was appointed by the Board to supervise and oversee the architectural competition that was eventually won by John G. Howard of Toronto.

No references to his architectural activity after 1845 have been found, and he appears to have abandoned the architectural profession, choosing instead to return to the world of banking, becoming manager of local branches of the Bank of Montreal in Kingston, then in London, Ont., and in Ottawa from 1866 onward. Drummond died in Ottawa, Ont. on 24 August 1898

Henry Janeway Hardenbergh was an American architect, best known for his hotels and apartment buildings. Hardenbergh was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, of a Dutch family, and attended the Hasbrouck Institute in Jersey City. He apprenticed in New York from 1865 to 1870 under Detlef Lienau, and, in 1870, opened his own practice there.

He obtained his first contracts for three buildings at Rutgers College in New Brunswick, New Jersey—the expansion of Alexander Johnston Hall (1871), designing and building Geology Hall (1872) and the Kirkpatrick Chapel (1873)—through family connections. Hardenbergh's great-great grandfather, the Reverend Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh, had been the first president of Rutgers College from 1785 to 1790, when it was still called "Queen's College".

He then got the contract to design the "Vancorlear" on West 55th Street, the first apartment hotel in New York City, in 1879. The following year he was commissioned by Edward S. Clark, then head of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, to build a housing development. As part of this work, he designed the pioneering Dakota Apartments in Central Park West, novel in its location, very far north of the centre of the city.

Subsequently, Hardenbergh received commissions to build the Waldorf (1893) and the adjoining Astoria (1897) hotels for William Waldorf Astor and Mrs. Astor, respectively. The two competing hotels were later joined together as the Waldorf-Astoria, which was demolished in 1929 for the construction of the Empire State Building.

Hardenbergh lived for some time in Bernardsville, New Jersey and died at his home in Manhattan, New York City on March 13, 1918. He is buried in Woodland Cemetery, in Stamford, Connecticut.

Lily Inglis, was born in Milan, Italy in 1926. She received a Diploma in Architecture from the School of Architecture, Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1952 and became an Associate Royal Institute of British Architects that same year. In 1957 she received a Certificate in Landscape Design, University College, London University, England. Between 1962 and 1963 she did a practical training period with Kingston architect, Wilfred Sorensen before being admitted as a member of the Ontario Association of Architects in 1963.She had her own practice in Kingston between 1963 and 1965 and had an interior architectural practice in Philadelphia, P.A., U.S.A. from 1965 to 1968. Between 1968 and 1983 she was the sole principal of Lily Inglis Architect working mainly in Downtown Kingston with heritage buildings. Inglis died in 2010.