John Lorinc - The Ward: The Life and Loss of Torontoâ€TMs First Immigrant Neighbourhood

John Lorinc dedicates this book to Jeff Preyra and Matt Blackett.
Michael McClelland dedicates this book to Alex.
Ellen Scheinberg dedicates this book to her husband, Jack, and sons Cory and Mitchell.
Tatum Taylor dedicates this book to Mekhala.

Essays copyright their individual authors, 2015
Collection copyright Coach House Books, 2015

first edition

Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

The editors and publisher would like to thank the Metcalf Foundation, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal, and the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario for their generous support of this project.

The views expressed by the contributors to The Ward do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Coach House Books or the foundations that supported the project.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

The Ward : the life and loss of Torontos first immigrant neighbourhood / edited by John Lorinc, Michael McClelland, Ellen Scheinberg and Tatum Taylor.

Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-55245-311-7 (pbk.)

1. Ward (Toronto, Ont.)--History. 2. Neighborhoods--Ontario--Toronto--History. 3. Immigrants--Ontario--Toronto--History. I. Lorinc, John, 1963-, author, editor II. McClelland, Michael, 1951-, author, editor III. Scheinberg, Ellen, 1964-, author, editor IV. Taylor, Tatum, author, editor

FC3097.52.W27 2015 971.3541 C2015-902035-2

Immigrants arriving in Toronto, ca. 1910.

Ice Wagon on Elizabeth Street, September 16, 1916.

1842 Cane Topographical Plan of the City and Liberties of Toronto. Macaulaytown, Torontos first suburb, is shown, running from Yonge Street to University and from Queen to College.

JOHN LORINC

T HE MONEY COULD scarcely have arrived at a more opportune moment.

In late 1845, John Strachan, the first Anglican bishop of Toronto, learned his financially struggling diocese had received an anonymous 5,000 bequest from England. The funds were to be used to build and sustain a new Gothic-style church that would serve the citys poor. In contrast to most churches, which charged congregants for the use of the pews, in this church, the donors will specified, the seats must be free and un-appropriated forever.

Strachan, a Tory legislator and educator, was a key figure in the Family Compact that controlled Upper Canada. Yet after the 1837 rebellion, he faced criticism over his affluent lifestyle, as well as his political challenges to the Anglican Churchs dominance. Strachan was also battling with his superiors in London to ensure he had funds to pay priests and spread the gospel.

With this new tranche of cash, Strachan hired Henry Bowyer Lane to design the church, to be located on the site of the Terauley Cottage a country estate located west of Yonge Street, a few hundred yards north of Queen. The land had been donated by an old Upper Canadian family, the Macaulays, who owned much of the swampy, forested real estate extending northwest of Queen and Yonge. The English-raised Lane enjoyed a reputation as the citys go-to architect. Hed completed Little Trinity Anglican Church, on King Street East, as well as the new city hall, the city market (later St. Lawrence) and additions to Osgoode Hall.

Almost fifty years later, it was revealed that the mystery donation came from a young British woman named Mary Lambert Swale. Born to a family of wealthy bankers and lawyers, she married Hogarth Swale, a Yorkshire Anglican priest. Though they never visited Canada, the couple learned about Toronto from Strachans articles in a journal published by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, an Anglican missionary network. Swale died after giving birth, in May 1845, at the age of twenty-five. The bequest had been part of her will, as was a similar gift to establish a place of worship for convicts on an Australian island.

None of that back story was known immediately after her death because Reverend Swale wanted the gift to remain a secret. When builders finished the Church of the Holy Trinity in 1847, writes Eric Arthur in