Friday, February 09, 2007
Toronto the Wild & Corrupt
Posted by: Glen Stone
The Toronto Board of Trade is celebrating its 162nd birthday, having been founded by an act of Parliament back on February 10, 1845.
You might expect that a lot of things have changed in this city in 162 years, but many Torontonians may not know just how wild this place was back in 1845.
The Toronto of that day was a dangerous and corrupt place, with no real police force (the few constables were directly employed by City Aldermen, who used them to help retain their political power).
The city was only a dozen years old and had just 15,000 inhabitants, but it boasted more than 140 taverns -- nearly one for every hundred people!
The crime rate was high and some areas of the city, such as the Market Block off King Street East, were highly dangerous. One of the big stories of 1845 was the discovery of a murdered man, found with a hole in his heart, standing up in one of the notorious Market Block alleyways. The murder was never solved ...
Even more dangerous were the religious and political tensions in 1845 Toronto. Upper and Lower Canada had just been forced into partnership as 'United Canada', with what is now Ontario known as 'Western Canada'. The new idea of responsible government was not going down well with Toronto's power brokers.
It had been less than a decade since the 1837 Rebellions and the Catholic vs. Protestant, Tory vs. Reformer, resident vs. immigrant violence was frequent and bloody. There were street fights, violent protests, murders and out-and-out riots.
One incident of political violence, witnessed by Charles Dickens, visiting the city in 1842, led to new restrictions on the licensing of Toronto's taverns, which were hotbeds of political intrigue, violence and bribery. The tough new rules, followed over the decades to come with crackdowns on law-breaking and corruption, were the start of our reputation as 'Toronto the Good'.
Despite these problems, and the frequent fires that kept destroying much of what is now downtown Toronto (1832, 1834, 1849, 1854, 1866, etc. 1849 was particularly bad), and the typhus and cholera outbreaks ... Toronto was beginning to grow and thrive. We were becoming a major trading point, shipping grain and other goods to Britain and other destinations.
In 1845, the city had just introduced gas street lamps, built its first City Hall (you can find a bit of it in the southern building at St. Lawrence Market), introduced a public water system with 12 fire hydrants and upgraded Yonge Street to a gravel road.
Prominent business leader George Percival Ridout, whose hardware store later became Aikendhead's, pushed to have the city's informal business association (started in 1834) formally recognized by Parliament, the House of Assembly in Montreal. Ridout became the first Chairman of the Toronto Board of Trade. One of our meeting rooms is still named in his honour.
As Toronto has changed and grown, so has the Board of Trade; from 46 original members to more than ten thousand businesses and individuals, making us the largest local chamber of commerce in Canada.
One thing that hasn't changed, though, is the spirit of our original 1845 mandate: "to foster the economic and social welfare of the City of Toronto". Or, as we put it these days, to help business in Toronto to succeed, and to help build a better city.
Happy birthday to us!
Glen Stone is Public Affairs Manager for the Toronto Board of Trade
The Toronto Board of Trade is celebrating its 162nd birthday, having been founded by an act of Parliament back on February 10, 1845.
You might expect that a lot of things have changed in this city in 162 years, but many Torontonians may not know just how wild this place was back in 1845.
The Toronto of that day was a dangerous and corrupt place, with no real police force (the few constables were directly employed by City Aldermen, who used them to help retain their political power).
The city was only a dozen years old and had just 15,000 inhabitants, but it boasted more than 140 taverns -- nearly one for every hundred people!
The crime rate was high and some areas of the city, such as the Market Block off King Street East, were highly dangerous. One of the big stories of 1845 was the discovery of a murdered man, found with a hole in his heart, standing up in one of the notorious Market Block alleyways. The murder was never solved ...
Even more dangerous were the religious and political tensions in 1845 Toronto. Upper and Lower Canada had just been forced into partnership as 'United Canada', with what is now Ontario known as 'Western Canada'. The new idea of responsible government was not going down well with Toronto's power brokers.
It had been less than a decade since the 1837 Rebellions and the Catholic vs. Protestant, Tory vs. Reformer, resident vs. immigrant violence was frequent and bloody. There were street fights, violent protests, murders and out-and-out riots.
One incident of political violence, witnessed by Charles Dickens, visiting the city in 1842, led to new restrictions on the licensing of Toronto's taverns, which were hotbeds of political intrigue, violence and bribery. The tough new rules, followed over the decades to come with crackdowns on law-breaking and corruption, were the start of our reputation as 'Toronto the Good'.
Despite these problems, and the frequent fires that kept destroying much of what is now downtown Toronto (1832, 1834, 1849, 1854, 1866, etc. 1849 was particularly bad), and the typhus and cholera outbreaks ... Toronto was beginning to grow and thrive. We were becoming a major trading point, shipping grain and other goods to Britain and other destinations.
In 1845, the city had just introduced gas street lamps, built its first City Hall (you can find a bit of it in the southern building at St. Lawrence Market), introduced a public water system with 12 fire hydrants and upgraded Yonge Street to a gravel road.
Prominent business leader George Percival Ridout, whose hardware store later became Aikendhead's, pushed to have the city's informal business association (started in 1834) formally recognized by Parliament, the House of Assembly in Montreal. Ridout became the first Chairman of the Toronto Board of Trade. One of our meeting rooms is still named in his honour.
As Toronto has changed and grown, so has the Board of Trade; from 46 original members to more than ten thousand businesses and individuals, making us the largest local chamber of commerce in Canada.
One thing that hasn't changed, though, is the spirit of our original 1845 mandate: "to foster the economic and social welfare of the City of Toronto". Or, as we put it these days, to help business in Toronto to succeed, and to help build a better city.
Happy birthday to us!
Glen Stone is Public Affairs Manager for the Toronto Board of Trade
// posted by Toronto Board of Trade @ 9:08 AM 
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