Four years ago, Leaside Life publisher Lorna Krawchuk introduced readers to a Leasider dedicated to honouring the memory of the man behind Simcoe Day. Here he refreshes our knowledge of Ontario history.
The Government of Ontario made Simcoe Day, celebrated on the first Monday in August, official in 1987. Many naysayers, convinced that John Graves Simcoe was a classic British aristocrat (aka ‘toff’), a symbol of our colonial past, and a figure unworthy of commemoration, were strongly opposed. History tells us: they were wrong.
Simcoe, named the first Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Upper Canada (now Ontario) by King George III, filled the appointment from 1791 to 1796.
But he was never an aristocrat. His grandfather was the rector of a small Church of England parish in the County of Northumberland in England, living in a modest abode named “Leeside House,” which is still standing today. His father was a distinguished Royal Navy Captain who died aboard his warship sailing up the St. Lawrence Seaway to fight the French. Lake Simcoe is named after him.
In 1782, Simcoe married Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim, who was an only daughter and heiress. They were both devout Christians.
Simcoe never had a title or personally owned land. Both were a requirement to join the roughly 1,200 titled aristocratic families that ruled England in the Georgian era. After his father’s death, his godfather, Admiral Graves, looked after young John’s education, and Simcoe was able to attend Exeter Grammar School, Eton and Oxford University. After this fine education, at the age of 19, he obtained a commission in the British Army and gained valuable experience and distinction during four years of fighting for the British during the American Revolutionary War. He commanded the Queen’s Rangers, a famous regiment (awarded the title ‘First Americans’ by King George III), which at the end of the war surrendered, with honour, as it never lost a battle. Many of the officers and men migrated to Canada to be reunited with the new Governor when Simcoe reestablished his Queen’s Rangers in Upper Canada.
A new life in a new land
With his military background and classical education, Simcoe had a clear vision for the new province, which would be modelled on the British democratic system of institutions of government and law. Before sailing for Canada for his new appointment, Simcoe served a term as a member of the British parliament – a valuable experience as the Canada Act was made into law at this time.
His wife, Elizabeth Gwillim, a talented and cultured person with a high sense of duty, was well qualified to meet the challenges and hardships of the future in Canada.
A Royal Navy frigate took the Simcoes to Quebec. Through rough, storms, gales, the sailing took 46 days. Those were troubled times for England in the aftermath of the French Revolution, with its massive bloodshed. The recent loss of American states resulted in a hostile country to the south of Upper Canada and the need for defensive outposts on the border, which included the French settlement of Detroit.
The British were engaged in winning a long and expensive series of Napoleonic wars, and at the same time facing difficulties in administering distant possession in India, Australia and Ceylon. There was restlessness in Quebec and increasing pressure for social reforms in England. The Prime Minister at the time was an extremely good administrator who selected Simcoe because of his reputation as a man of the highest integrity.
The Simcoes eventually arrived in Niagara-on-the-Lake and set up their tents alongside the few wooden navy buildings set to be the home of the new government. The budget for his small staff was 6,500 pounds, of which 2,000 pounds was Simcoe’s salary. The budget allocation for the whole Upper Canada operation paid by the British government was 30,000 pounds for the first year.
The new province was surveyed and counties and township boundaries laid out. Land grants went to new settlers who had a very tough start with limited means. The early pioneers depended greatly on government food, blanket handouts, and support from the Indigenous people in the area. The settlers built roads and started saw and grist mills, and the Queen’s Rangers implemented a strategy of defences against possible invasion from the south. In 1793, Simcoe moved to York (now Toronto) and again, still living in a tent, launched the new capital from a setting surrounded by nothing but trees and a good harbour.
A system of democratic parliamentary government, with a code based on British law and the administration to implement it, took hold. Churches and schools opened slowly, and a road system developed.
What Simcoe started in the Canadian wilderness from nothing 230-plus years ago has taken us to where we are today. We still celebrate his basic beliefs – peace, law, order and good government. Let’s raise a glass to John Graves Simcoe on the first Monday in August and perhaps place a wreath on his statue outside the Parliament buildings at Queen’s Park, Toronto. Simcoe’s ‘Rangers’ today are located at Fort York Armouries, Toronto.
This article was guest contributed by Michael Stevenson, a former Commanding Officer of the Queen’s York Rangers (1st Americans) R.C.A.C.