QUEEN’S PARK

Queen’s Park is one of Toronto’s “pre-eminent parks.” In the late 1820s, the new King’s College, the Church of England’s institution of higher learning, acquired a large campus at the north central edge of Toronto. Soon the public began using the eastern part of the campus recreationally. In 1849, the non-denominational University of Toronto (U of T) replaced King’s College and in 1859 the new university leased the eastern portion of its campus to the City of Toronto. Queen’s Park was dedicated in September 1860 and became British North America’s first public park. The City of Toronto passed a by-law forbidding untethered cattle and swine, the discharging of firearms or the setting up of gambling tables inside the park.

Previously, in 1845, the university built King’s College, a stone residence for students. In 1856 the provincial government turned it into a Lunatic Asylum and eventually it became the site of the eastern wing of today’s parliament buildings. And, as “they” say, the inmates have been running the province ever since.

Park activities have changed over the years. Games such as football were only permitted by permit. Minnie Forsyth Grant, who grew up in Sleepy Hollow on the south side of College Street, remembers football being played in the park and “on the occasion of a great game my father went out and gave the first kick.”

Baseball teams with names such as the Cigarmakers’ Union, the Broom-makers and the Park Nine also competed at Queen’s Park.

As memorials two canons from the Battle of Sebastopol were presented to Toronto in 1859 and placed in the “gun garden” at the south end of the park. The Canadian Volunteer’s Monument commemorates the battle of  June 2, 1866 between Canadian volunteers and Fenian veterans of the American Civil War. Three U of T students, members of the University Rifle Corps, were killed during this invasion.

Sunday preaching in the park was “part circus sideshow and part camp meeting.” City officials frowned upon these rowdy meetings. Preachers featured were known as “the celebrated Lord Cecil,” Mr. Hooke the Swedenborgian, Mr. Baynes of Montreal, Mr. Parker, and “many lesser lights.” Sunday preaching in Queen’s Park attracted large audiences until the early 1890s.

Although inaugurated as “The Queen’s Park,” a name generally used throughout the Victorian era, “Queen’s Park” became its common name although this name generally refers to the Parliament Buildings as versus the land itself.

For much more detail goto: “The Queen’s Park and its Avenues: Canada’s First Public Park” by David Bain in the Ontario Historical Society/Volume XCV, Number 2/Autumn 2003.

Barney