William Allan

Few Toronto families have suffered as much personal loss as the Allan family, formerly of a vast estate once called Moss Park. However it was from their great misfortunes together with the enormous riches they amassed over the years that would give our city an enduring legacy.

Patriarch William Allan arrived here in York in 1795 as a wholesaler from Montreal via Scotland and began selling his wares out at Fort York.

As his reputation grew William Allan opened a shop on the east side of Frederick Street at King. In 1821, along with other wealthy citizens of York, he established the First Bank of Upper Canada the first branch of which was to be in his store.

In 1825 the Bank of Upper Canada moved to the northeast corner of George and Adelaide where it still stands today and William Allan’s old bank building at King and Frederick became William Gambles Wholesale store, then later a small brewery, a boot store, and was ultimately demolished in 1914.

The building that stands there now on the southeast corner of King and Frederick, built in 1915 as the A. Muirhead Company Paint Factory, was once home to Pasquale Bros Foods during the 1980s and now has undergone a stunning transformation into George Brown College’s Chef School and restaurant.

In 1826 William builds Moss Park, a huge manor home that once stood at Sherbourne and Queen on 200 acres of land stretching all the way up to present-day Bloor Street.

In William Allan’s time when the population of York was only around 2,000, citizens’ diseases such as cholera, diphtheria and scarlet fever were the cause of many deaths amongst all levels of society.

For all their wealth, success and envied lifestyle, William and his wife Leah would suffer more than most.

Of the 12 children who were born to them, only one survived to adulthood: a son named George born in 1822.

Needless to say George, being the only son of the town’s richest man, grew up in a life of privilege.

In 1846 George, like most men of his class, undertook the prerequisite “Grand Tour” of Europe. However his also included side trips to Turkey, Sudan, Greece, a jaunt up the Nile River, and a visit to the Holy Land in a time when excursions to these countries were extremely treacherous under the best of circumstances.

Upon his return home George married Louisa Maud Robinson and his father gave the couple part of his own estate (the northwest corner of Wellesley and Sherbourne), and built them a house they called Homewood, hence the name of the street in that area today. The Homewood estate becomes the first Wellesley Hospital in 1912 and was demolished in 1964.

In 1853 patriarch William Allan died at the age of 81 and in 1858 his son George Allan, after the death of his first wife Louisa, married Adelaide Schreiber and together they raised seven children.

That same year George Allan, now himself a prominent and wealthy cultural leader, decided to donate to the Toronto Horticultural Society a 5-acre tract of land bounded by Carlton, Sherbourne and Jarvis streets, another part of his family’s enormous Moss Park estate.

After his death in 1901 and as a tribute to George Allan, the City of Toronto changed the name of the Horticultural Gardens to Allan Gardens and has been known as such ever since.

But perhaps the greatest legacy of George Allan, besides serving as Toronto’s 11th mayor in 1855, was his benevolence shown to Toronto’s street children.

In 19th-century Toronto it wasn’t uncommon to walk the streets having to step over the sleeping bodies of abandoned children, some as young as 3 and 4.

In 1870 George Allan donated land he owned on the east side of Fredrick Street just north of Front (where the present Parcel Bus terminal stands) and built the Newsboys’ Home, an early health care and residential facility for young street children nicknamed “newsboys” for selling newspapers on street corners.

The Newsboy Home was the beginnings of Toronto the Good and for almost 25 years the home that stood on the northeast corner of Frederick and Front became a model for future charitable institutions that would eventually lead to the founding of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto in 1891.

Join me Saturday Sept. 13th or Sunday Sept 14th @10am at St. Lawrence Market in the West Mezzanine for a walking tour of Old Town Toronto and including the site of the Newsboy’s Home and finishing up at the historic and picturesque Gooderham and Worts Distillery complex.

Tickets for each tour are $50 with the proceeds going to the latch key kid’s charity The Homework Club of the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood.

Then on Sunday Sept. 21 at 10am meet me in front of St Lawrence Hall 157 King Street for a walking tour of historic theatre sites in Toronto, past and present ending with a private guided tour of the famed Elgin/Wintergarden Theatre. Tickets are $10 with proceeds going to the Playwrights Guild of Canada.

Reservations for any of these tours contact me at 647-393-8687 or email bruce.bell2@sympatico.ca. For more info visit www.brucebelltours.ca