THE BANK OF UPPER CANADA
The Bank of Upper Canada building on the NE corner of George and Adelaide is the oldest Bank building in Canada and if it weren’t for the plaque that tells you a bit of its history, its existence is as a reminder that Toronto’s heritage needs a lot of help in getting its story out.
The Bank that still stands there today is a crumbling shell of its former power.
Built in 1825-27 by Dr. W.W. Baldwin a rich and powerful man with the help of engineer Thomas Hall it’s the only building that still stands in the original boundaries of the Town of York (1793-1797) George, Adelaide, Front and Berkeley Sts. It would be in 1797 that Peter Russell expanded the town’s boundary’s out to Peter Street in the west and Queen Street, then called Lot St. to the north.
The bank was built by the powerful elite of early York known as the Family Compact, a group of men who’s power and influence in a time before democracy reached our shores were unstoppable.
They could and did whatever they felt was for the best interests of others including themselves.
These men ran not only the town of York but the rest of the province thus naming their new venture the Bank of Upper Canada says it all.
The bank started out in one of those early family Compact founder’s William Allen (Allen Gardens) shop on the NE corner of Frederick and King in 1822.
In 1825 it was decided that a grand and imposing structure should be built on the then northern boundary of York on Duke and George (until the 1950’s Adelaide east of Jarvis was named Duke Street) so that all who saw it firmly planted there would be intimidated much like the great banks still do to this day as they reach higher into the sky.
The banks of early 19th century Canada were not a place for the average citizen to deposit their meager earnings or open a RRSP, far from it.
Banks were chartered and built mainly to handle Government deposits and payouts and to provide mortgages on land grants to the wealthy elite of the province.
It was this kind of I-am-better-than-you-cause the-King-told-me-and-God-told-the-King thinking that got the Reformists under the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie all steamed up.
An average citizen wouldn’t even dream of walking up those cement stairs that are still in place today.
In 1833 just a few yards east of the bank, postmaster John Scott Howard bought a piece of land and with the permission of William Allen was allowed to build a ‘reputable’ brick building with the idea that he would run the new post office.
That post office, York’s Fourth, built by architect John Howard (no relation) was to be known after incorporation in 1834 as Toronto’s First.
In 1836 Sir Francis Bond Head a handsome, accomplished, adventuresome, former cavalry officer who had fought beside Wellington at Waterloo despite the fact he was just over five feet tall was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada.
At first Sir Francis, who lived in the Governors mansion on the site of present day Roy Thompson Hall, was willing to listen to reformers like William Lyon Mackenzie and they in turn were happy to have Sir Francis as Lt. Governor because his predecessor Sir John Colborne was a member of the reviled Family Compact.
However, Sir Francis stopped listening to the reformers and started to side with the Family C. after realizing it was they who could give him what he really wanted; POWER.
Soon whispers of a rebellion began to seep out from the taverns, hotels, theaters and coffee shops that once lined our streets with the loudest murmur coming from inside the Mackenzie camp.
Newspaperman Mackenzie a few years earlier had his printing press thrown into the lake by the son’s of the Family C. when he wrote some unflattering remarks about their fathers.
This event known as the Types Riot of 1826 is remember today in a plaque that is completely hidden from view behind a column of brick on the NW corner of Front and Frederick.
Yet that small plaque and the one on the corner of Toronto and Court Streets are the only reminders that a Rebellion ever took place in the downtown core.
On the Morning of December 5, 1837 a force of 36 uniformed government guards made its way to the corner of Duke and George Streets to stand watch against an all out assault on the Bank of Upper Canada.
That same night the infamous government-backed fighting force known as the McGraw troupe road en mass down Church Street to the Francis Bond Head Inn that once stood in the parking lot on the SW corner of King and Church, downed a few pints, made their plans for the following day and went to bed.
The next morning December 6th 1837 the troupe galloped down Colborne Street and went on to meet up with Sir Francis and his 1000 volunteers.
With their Union Jacks billowing in the wind and their fife and drum band reverberating patriotic tunes they headed up Yonge Street to squash Mackenzie's men.
The two armies met about a half a mile below present day Eglinton Ave. where Sir Francis set off his booming cannons, which sent Mackenzie and his 150 men running back to their headquarters at Montgomery Tavern just north of Eglinton on Yonge.
Mackenzie knowing all was lost escaped to the United States.
Twelve of his of his supporters, the most famous being Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, were hanged on the scaffold erected on the NE corner of King and Toronto Streets.
The men of Upper Canada may have died but the Bank prevailed.
The Government force of uniformed guards stayed at the Bank of Upper Canada at the corner of George and Duke Sts until January 1839.
In reality the people did eventually win when in 1848 fellow reformer Robert Baldwin (who as born on the NW corner of Frederick and Front Sts in the same house that Mackenzie would later have his printing press) successfully introduced Responsible Government.
For those who don't know Robert Baldwin is the Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather of CPMF member walktowater
Time healed a bit of the old wounds and the bank building itself underwent a major renovation in 1843 with the introduction of the stone portico (replacing a earlier wooden one) that appears today.
In 1851 architect Fredrick Cumberland (built the present St. James Cathedral that same year) and as much a part of the ruling elite of Toronto as Baldwin had been added a three story wing on the north side of the original bank with an entrance on George St. and lived there with his family in the spacious apartments above.
In 1861 after 35 plus years the Bank of Upper Canada moved its offices from Duke and George to Yonge and Colborne Sts to be closer to the new financial district.
In 1866 the once all powerful Bank of Upper Canada collapsed after ill advised mortgages granted on worthless land deals.
In 1870 The Christian Brothers bought the old bank building and turned it into De la Salle College. In 1873 they expanded to take in the post office next door to be used as gymnasium. In 1876 the Brothers hired in my opinion the greatest architect Toronto ever knew Henry Langley (The General Post Office at Adelaide and Toronto Sts -1872-1960) to build a wing connecting the two followed by the construction of a huge mansard roof (still in place) that would attach Howard’s former post office to the bank thus giving the appearance of one large building.
The new building concealed the original square outline of the former bank forever and maybe just maybe it was this all consuming transformation that saved Baldwin’s original 1825 bank from the wreckers ball.
By the 1940’s the entire building was taken over by the United Co-operatives of Ontario and added an addition to the north end of Cumberland’s 1850 wing.
An irony to this former bastion to the Family Compact was the fact that the United Farmers of Ontario, a radical political party, was also now housed in the former bank.
The years rolled by and by the 1960’s the building was now being used as an egg grading station then artists studios. Farmers and artists! The graves of the founding fathers were now spinning out of control.
On June 30, 1978 a fire broke out that gutted the top floors and even though the oldest bank building in Canada was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1975 it was on the verge of being demolished.
It sat there an empty shell boarded up and forgotten even though it was now declared a National Historic site in 1979.
In 1980 the building that encompassed two centuries of the political, economic and social history of Toronto not to mention the work of our city’s greatest architects was rescued by now legendary developers Sheldon and Judy Godfrey. Bless them.
During their extensive renovation John Scott Howard’s 1833 Post Office was rediscovered, refurbished and was put back in operation and remains so to this day.
But the historic bank like the equally historic Hollinger’s headquarters at number 10 Toronto Street, (the former 7th Post Office-1851 Frederick Cumberland) was placed in private hands and is now off limits to curious history nuts like myself who are just dying to take a peek inside. Just like the Family Compact wanted it to be in the first place.
Story by Bruce Bell - Toronto Historian
The stairs in the right side of the photo leading up to the 3 story portion if the complex is known today as 256 Adelaide E
