School Name History
Location
33952 Pine Street, Abbotsford, BC
Opened
1929 opened as Sumas-Abbotsford Consolidated High School; 1936 renamed Philip Sheffield Memorial High School; 1955 converted to Philip Sheffield Elementary; 2007 closed; 2007 opened as the Abbotsford Virtual School.
Origin of the Name
When it opened in 1929, the school now called the Abbotsford Virtual School was named the Sumas-Abbotsford Consolidated High School. The name marked the amalgamation of the municipal school districts of Sumas, Matsqui and Abbotsford into one provincial school district. In 1936, it was renamed the Philip Sheffield Memorial High School in honour of the first director of education for the new district. A graduate of the University of Alberta in 1909 at age seventeen, Philip Hudson Sheffield taught in Alberta for a few years, but then became a newspaper reporter. His new career took him to cities in Washington and B.C. He returned to teaching while in B.C., and by 1923, he was appointed Inspector of Schools for the province. In 1935, he was hired as director of education for Abbotsford, the first provincial school district. He oversaw fund-raising and construction of an eight hundred-seat auditorium and trades facility on the high school grounds. Before the project was completed, he died of appendicitis in 1936. The school was renamed Philip Sheffield Memorial High School later that year at the official opening of the auditorium. In 1955, it became Philip Sheffield Elementary School.
After Philip Sheffield Elementary School closed, the building became the home of the Abbotsford Virtual School. It was now named after the community. Abbotsford was named by an early settler, John Charles Maclure. In 1888, Maclure and his business partners sold the right of way through his land to the Canadian Pacific Railway. He sold the right of way on the condition that they build a train station there. He named this place Abbottsford in honour of a family friend, Henry (Harry) Abbott. Abbott was the western superintendent of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Originally, on maps and documents, the name was spelled with two ‘t’s. In 1922, there was a petition to change the spelling to “Abbotsford,” like the name of the home of a famous Scottish writer, Sir Walter Scott. In a letter written in 1924, Maclure said the town was named after Harry Abbott, but still, the modern spelling with one ’t' links the town’s name to Sir Walter Scott’s home.
Scott named his home after a nearby river crossing or ford. The crossing was called Abbotsford because the monks of an abbey used the ford to cross the River Tweed. An abbey is a religious community whose leader is called an abbot.
The Community
For thousands of years, the Sto:lo, the People of the River, lived here in the Fraser Valley. In the 1800s, the Sto:lo were displaced as people from Britain, Europe, and other countries arrived. The gold rush of 1858 brought the first wave of people from all over the world. By the 1860s, new settlers began establishing farms on the Sumas and Matsqui Prairies. The coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1887 brought another wave of settlers. The dense forests disappeared as they were cleared for farmland and lumber mills sprang up. The village of Abbotsford was established in 1891. Abbotsford grew over the years to a town and finally to a city in 1995 when it joined with Sumas and Matsqui.
The School
The original two room school on Pine Street was built in 1909 and was called Abbotsford Elementary. Three years later, in 1912, two additional classrooms were added. In the school, there were no indoor facilities, not even a water fountain. Students used outhouses on the school property. If thirsty, students had to walk down to the corner of Essendene and Gladys Avenues to get a drink of water at the blacksmith’s shop.
In 1929, the school expanded by raising the roof and adding four classrooms on the second floor. Two of these new rooms were used as a high school and it was renamed the Sumas-Abbotsford Consolidated High School.
In 1936, under the guidance of Phillip Sheffield, improvements to the school included an auditorium for use in the community and a trades wing. This innovative school offered wood and metal shop classes for boys and textiles and foods for girls. It was by far the best high school in the Fraser Valley.
During the Second World War, a rifle range was constructed beneath the gymnasium.
By 1953, the school had grown to twenty divisions and twenty-five teachers. Abbotsford Junior Secondary was built in 1952 and Abbotsford Senior Secondary was built in 1955 to accommodate the growth happening in Abbotsford. Once these new high schools were completed, Philip Sheffield became an elementary school, grades 4-7. Abbotsford Elementary, down the hill from the school, was a K-3 school.
In September 2005, after the district’s implementation of middle schools, Philip Sheffield became a K-5 elementary school with Abbotsford Elementary closing its doors.
The provincial government made changes to school legislation in 2006. ‘Distance education’ became ‘distributed learning’ and the responsibility for providing courses came to the district level for all the school districts in the province. The main reason for this change was that it was time for online learning rather than correspondence courses using traditional pen and paper.
The virtual school program started at W. J. Mouat Secondary in 1999. By 2006, Mouat Virtual School joined with Abbotsford Electronic School which had been housed at Maple Grove School. They relocated to Philip Sheffield Elementary on the top floor. The lower floor was still a K-5 school. For one school year, both programs were in the same school, but then Philip Sheffield Elementary was closed in 2007 due to declining enrolment. The school was renamed Abbotsford Virtual School.
There were some changes to the physical plant of the school. Two classrooms and a portable were divided into office space and cubicles. A large computer lab was kept up to date with new programs and technology.
The Abbotsford Virtual School continued to support students learning at home through programs for students from K-12. Students were able to customize their learning at their own pace without the pressures of a traditional school structure.
The Abbotsford School District graciously acknowledges the Abbotsford Retired Teachers Association for collecting the histories and stories of our schools as part of their "What's in a name?" 50th-anniversary project.