On the sixteenth of March, in the seventh year of the reign of George the Fourth – that is, in 1826 – John Strachan left the town of York, later called Toronto, for England. His principal mission was to obtain a charter for a proposed university for Upper Canada. The result of his trip was a royal charter, and twenty-five years of intense conflict on the question of the place of an established church in higher education in the colony.

Strachan was part of the so-called Family Compact that ran the colony of Upper Canada for much of the first half of...

The building of King’s College – for reasons that will be discussed shortly – in fact was not begun until fifteen years after the charter had been obtained in 1827. The cornerstone for the college was laid by the governor general, Sir Charles Bagot, in an impressive ceremony on April 23, 1842, a brilliantly sunny, cloudless spring day. A civic holiday was observed in the City of Toronto, whose increasingly affluent population had now grown to about 6,000 from the 2,000 or so in the town of York when Maitland left in 1828.

This was Bagot’s first visit to Toronto since coming...

On April 3rd, 1849, Robert Baldwin introduced a bill into the parliament of the province of Canada to convert King’s College into the University of Toronto. It would completely secularize the university, eliminating any publicly funded chairs of divinity and all religious tests for any member of the university, whether student or professor. Queen’s and Victoria and other denominational colleges could affiliate with the university ‘with some vague status, perhaps as divinity halls,’ without assured government funding or the power to grant degrees, except in divinity. If passed, the bill would represent, in the words of historian J.M.S. Careless, ‘an...

When the University of Toronto officially came into existence on January 1, 1850, the King’s College faculty, with the exception of the professor of divinity but including the professors of law and medicine, automatically became professors in the University of Toronto. In spite of his opposition to its founding, the Reverend Dr John McCaul continued as professor of classics and president of the new university, where he would remain as a loyal member of the academic community for the next thirty years. He also continued his ‘high scholarship,’ publishing a volume on Britanno-Roman inscriptions in 1863 and one on Christian...

Additional staff for University College arrived in the fall of 1853. Two years earlier, advertisements had been placed in the British literary and scientific journal theAthenaeumfor five new chairs for the University at £350 a year. Whereas a decade earlier Bagot had had difficulty recruiting faculty members, this time there were many first-rate applications from which to choose. Toronto was now a wealthy city of about 40,000 persons and was growing rapidly. The question is whether the University chose the best of the applicants.

There is no doubt that Daniel Wilson, one of those who arrived in 1853,...

The foundation stone for University College was laid without fanfare or publicity or any of the grand ceremony that had accompanied the laying of the stone for the ill-fated King’s College. The governor general was not there, and the stone itself was unmarked. As far as anyone now knows, no documents or other objects were inserted in it. Only three people attended the October 4, 1856 event: John Langton, the vice-chancellor of the University, and Professors Croft and Wilson. Wilson later remarked that ‘they laid the stone secretly as if engaged in a deed of shame, full of hope, but...

With the opening of a grand new building, the number of students began to increase significantly. Moreover, tuition fees were modest, and the University provided many prizes and scholarships. Whereas in 1855 there had been only 35 full-time students, by 1860 the number had increased to more than 100. The college was in a semi-rural retreat, somewhat removed from the city. Many of the full-time students were in residence. The college gardens provided food for the kitchens, and the fields provided pasture for the cows, which supplied milk. Students and professors spent the afternoons taking walks. ‘No professor,’ claimed William...

In 1871, the 79-year-old professor of natural science, William Hincks, died suddenly. In the same year, the 70-year-old professor of philosophy, James Beaven, was forced to retire. These anti-Darwinians had had an inhibiting effect on science at the University. In the 1870s, new appointments and ideas would create a framework for the future of science and technology.

George Paxton Young, the new professor of philosophy, was an Edinburgh-trained Presbyterian minister who had most recently been the professor of philosophy at Knox College. Unlike Beaven, he exhibited an open-minded approach to such questions as the logical proof of the existence of...

‘The question of the co-education of the sexes in Colleges,’ stated an article on the front page of the inaugural issue of theVarsityin 1880, ‘is still a vexed one and some time must elapse before it can be regarded as finally disposed of.’ TheVarsity– ‘A Weekly Review of Education, University Politics and Events’ – which was run by both graduates and undergraduates, played an important role in shaping opinion in the debate on the admission of women. The aforementioned article, strongly in favour of co-education, was written by William Houston, an 1872 graduate who had been a reporter...

In 1883, the University of Toronto’s vice-chancellor, William Mulock, gave a commencement address that once again opened up the question of the relationship between the denominational colleges and the University. The part of the speech that attracted the most attention was a request by the University of Toronto for government assistance. Other universities, Mulock said, have their religious denominations to rely on, but the University of Toronto does not. It is ‘our right,’ he concluded, ‘to lean on our only prop, the State; for this University and it alone, of all similar institutions, is the only one in this province...

Following federation, there were, as anticipated, a number of additions to the teaching staff of the University and of University College. Enrolment was increasing. In 1887, the University conferred 117 degrees; in 1891, not counting Victoria College, more than 200 degrees; and in 1904, more than 400. It had been expected that the government would help pay for the new staff – the appointments, of course, were all to be made by the government – but as Daniel Wilson wrote in his journal, the University did not ‘see the colour of the government’s money.’ The funding for two of the positions, one...

The 1887 Act permitted the establishment of a ‘teaching faculty’ of medicine at the University. A few months after its passage, the new faculty came into being. Two decades later, it was recognized as one of the best medical schools on the continent.

After the closing of the medical school in 1853, the University had continued to set examinations and grant medical degrees, even though it no longer offered a teaching program. The teaching was left to the proprietary schools in the city. These schools did not have the power to grant degrees, and those of their students who wanted...

The government approved the re-establishment of a ‘teaching faculty’ of law in 1889, as the 1887 Act had contemplated. An earlier faculty of law, along with a faculty of medicine, had been closed in 1853. The University continued to conduct examinations and offer degrees in law, but very few students took the optional LLB degree because they would still have to pass all the Law Society examinations and article with a lawyer for three years in order to practise law.

Over the years, there had been considerable dissatisfaction with the failure of the University to offer instruction in law and...

On Friday evening, February 14, 1890 – Valentine’s Day – much of University College was destroyed by fire. The news was immediately telegraphed to Edward Blake, the University’s chancellor, in Ottawa. Blake received the report while addressing parliament. ‘The great institution,’ he interrupted his speech to tell the House, ‘the crown and glory, I may be permitted to say, of the educational institutions of our country is at the moment in flames; and ... is now, so far as its material fabric goes, a ruin tottering to the ground.’ President Wilson wrote in his diary the next day: ‘A frightful calamity. Last...

On Friday afternoon, February 15, 1895, the ‘largest mass meeting in the history of the University’ was held in Wardell’s Hall, since then demolished, a large hall on the west side of Spadina Avenue, half a block south of College Street. The hall was often used for religious and political meetings. A large sign greeted those entering the building: Gentlemen Will Please Not Spit on the Floor. Seven hundred students attended, including a hundred women. The immediate cause of the demonstration was the dismissal by the government of the popular University College professor of Latin, William Dale, which had been...

Despite the difficulties encountered by President Loudon throughout his administration, he could claim success on one important front: the introduction of the PhD degree in 1897. Loudon had proposed such a degree fifteen years earlier, and though it had been accepted by the senate, no regulations implementing it had been established. In 1896, however, a motion by A.B. Macallum of physiology, seconded by W.J. Alexander of English, was passed to set up a committee to study the feasibility of offering the degree – the earlier senate approval had never been revoked. A year later, regulations were approved by the senate, again...

TheVarsityexpressed a mood of optimism as Canada entered the twentieth century. In its last issue of 1900, the paper predicted that the year would be ‘the beginning of what is likely to prove a new era in the history of the University.’ No official New Year’s celebrations took place at the University – it was, after all, the Christmas vacation – though it is likely the bells of St Basil’s, and perhaps the bells of Knox and Wycliffe, were rung, as were most church bells in the city. Celebrations, however, took place at the recently opened Toronto City Hall. After...

On May 17, 1905, a few months after he was sworn in as premier, James Whitney introduced a bill that removed the existing university deficit and generously provided for future funding. The bill, he said to prolonged applause in the legislature, would ‘remove for the future the possibility and probability of any of those annual deficits which have been the cause of a great deal of worry, anxiety, and annoyance to the Government and the Legislature, and also to those in control of the University.’ Whitney repeated the words he had used as leader of the opposition in 1901, that...

On April 25, 1907, Robert Falconer was asked by the new board of governors to be the fourth president of the University of Toronto. He was not their first choice, but he was an excellent one as things turned out. He remained in office until his retirement in 1932.

The search had begun at least a year earlier. Many wanted the 58-year-old Canadian doctor William Osler, then a professor at Oxford, to become president. During the summer, Premier Whitney had asked Osler if he would be interested. He could not officially offer him the position because the 1906 Act had...

Falconer’s inauguration was a great success. ‘Yesterday’s most important event in Canadian life,’ aGlobeeditorial said the next day, opened ‘a new era in the history of a great University.’ That era commenced the day after the installation with the formal opening of the new physics building. The former president, James Loudon, observing that the University’s ‘Golden Age’ had just begun, described the growth of physics in the University, and John McLennan, the head of the department, gave a lantern-slide presentation on how the building would be used. The new facility, said the head of physics at McGill, was...

The Canadian economy was flourishing. ‘From the turn of the century until the outbreak of the First World War,’ states a standard history of the period, ‘Canada experienced the greatest economic boom in its history.’ In the pre-war years, with the help of provincial capital grants, several important new structures were built on or close to the campus.

Engineering continued to expand as a result of the growing need for engineers. The country needs ‘leaders,’ Falconer wrote, ‘in opening up new country by railways, in constructing large works, in developing mines.’ Many of these leaders would come out of engineering....

On August 4, 1914, the Great War began. President Falconer was still on a visit to Europe. When he and his wife finally were able to find passage back to Canada in early September, he was interviewed by aGlobereporter. ‘There was not even a whisper of war,’ he stated, ‘everything seemed to be going on in a normal way, even in Hamburg.’ The outbreak of war may have caught Falconer by surprise, but the potential for war clearly had been there. In his inaugural address in 1907, for example, Falconer had warned that there were ‘here and there...

On Armistice Day, 1919, one year after the end of the war, the foundation stone for a memorial tower was laid at the official opening of Hart House. The planning by the Alumni Association for a memorial honouring those who had served, and particularly those who had given their lives, had begun immediately after the end of the war. A tall Gothic tower visible from any point on the campus was to be constructed. A site immediately north of the main library on King’s College Circle was selected, but the board of governors wanted to keep the land for the...

In early 1922, two important events took place at the University of Toronto: the discovery of insulin and the creation of the School of Graduate Studies. The former established Toronto’s international reputation, and some would argue that the combination of the two was the turning point in Toronto’s becoming the leading university in Canada. In any event, the University was now in contention with McGill for that honour.

The first successful injection of insulin was administered to an emaciated 14-year-old charity patient, Leonard Thompson, at the Toronto General Hospital on January 23, 1922. The full story of what led up...

The second half of the 1920s brought good years to the University of Toronto. Premier Howard Ferguson’s Conservatives treated the University well. The situation was helped by the fact that Canon Cody, the chairman of the board of governors, had very close relations with the government. Cody’s good friend and college roommate, Ferguson, had appointed him to the position in 1923, after Sir Edmund Walker stepped down. Some thought Cody’s influence with the provincial government was greater than that of any cabinet minister. The economy was performing well – between 1926 and 1929 the gross national product increased by 20 per...

In January 1931, 68 University of Toronto professors sent a public letter to the press, protesting against the action of the Toronto police commission in preventing a group called the Fellowship of Reconciliation from holding a public meeting. The police alleged that the organization was a communist front, a proposition theCanadian Forumsaid was ‘so manifestly absurd that it will not be accepted by anyone of average intelligence.’ The letter had been drafted by historian Frank Underhill and classicist Eric Havelock, and was signed by other leading members of the academic community, including Vincent Bladen, George Brett, Donald Creighton,...

Canada entered the war on September 10, 1939. ‘Last year we began the year under the shadow of a threatening war,’ President Cody told the incoming class. ‘For the time the cloud was lifted, a respite was given. Today the storm has broken upon us.’ In early September – a week after Britain had declared war – Cody demanded that Canada join her, stating that ‘our gratitude to the Motherland from whom we sprang demands it.’ The strong attachment to Great Britain had been evident at the University the previous May, when the King and Queen had visited the campus. Twelve thousand...

Enrolment in universities soared at the end of the war. The federal government, reversing the position it had taken after the First World War, took responsibility for the post-secondary education of veterans. An announcement to this effect had been made as early as 1941, so the universities were not caught by surprise. All who had served were promised free tuition and a living allowance – $60 a month for single and $80 for married persons, with a further allowance for dependants. In addition, universities were given $150 a year for each veteran. At the end of the war, enrolment at the...

It was good to be a student in the 1950s. By 1950, almost all the veterans had graduated, and overcrowding was no longer a serious problem. It would be more than a dozen years before the first wave of baby boomers would appear on campus. The economy was strong, and there was relatively little unemployment. Employers were desperate for university graduates, particularly if they were men. Anyone could go on to law school, with whatever marks. Moreover, the public expected that the ‘good times’ would continue. There was neither the seriousness of the post-war veterans, nor the intensity of the...

By 1955, it was clear that the number of students attending university would increase dramatically. The ‘baby boom’ would hit the universities at the end of the decade. Edward Sheffield of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics presented a paper at the annual meeting of the National Conference of Canadian Universities in 1955, predicting at least ‘a doubling of enrolment in Canada from the present total of approximately 67,000 within ten years.’ The Ontario government’s predictions coincided with Sheffield’s. In 1956, the NCCU set up a committee under Claude Bissell, who had recently become president of Carleton University in Ottawa, to...

About two weeks after Sidney Smith left office, Eric Phillips, the chairman of the board, telephoned Claude Bissell, the president of Carleton University, and asked whether he would let his name stand for the presidency. Phillips obviously favoured Bissell over the acting president, Moffat Woodside, or another serious contender, Edgar Steacie, the president of the National Research Council. The board had appointed a committee from among its own members to select Smith’s successor. Phillips, according to Bissell’s recollection, told him that ‘at the proper time I shall take your name to the committee, I will get unanimous support and the...

In the fall of 1960, York University – which initially was affiliated with the University of Toronto – admitted its first class of about 75 students. An agreement had been worked out between Toronto and the York board for an affiliation that would last not less than four years and not more than eight. During this period, students would have to meet Toronto’s admission standards for the general course and write Toronto examinations. Faculty appointments had to be approved by the president of the University of Toronto. Toronto gave York the temporary use of Falconer Hall, $500,000 from its campaign funds, and...

The year 1962 was particularly important in the history of the University. It was the year the foundations were put in place for the future growth of graduate studies. In the spring, the cornerstone of Massey College was laid, the University’s first, and still its only, graduate college. The year also saw the promise by the provincial government of extensive scholarships for graduate work, the acceptance of the millionth book for the library, and the determination to build a new humanities and social science library. It was also the year that Ernest Sirluck, who shared Claude Bissell’s ideas about the...

The 1960s would see the creation of numerous multidisciplinary centres and institutes, especially in the humanities and social sciences. They were a means of integrating knowledge among the established disciplines. Such an approach was designed to assist in the understanding of the past and in the shedding of light on specific societal problems. The barriers between disciplines were slowly coming down, but owing to jealousy on the part of the traditional academic departments, their removal initially took place in the graduate school.

The decade would also see the rapid expansion of the activities of the University of Toronto Press, particularly...

The year 1966 saw the demolition of the old engineering building and the start of construction of the new Medical Sciences Building. Both acts were significant statements that the two largest professional faculties were entering new phases in their development. The old engineering building, completed in 1878 – a symbol of the past – was no longer physically useful for scientific work. Moreover, engineering had recently acquired the former physics building – to be renamed the Sandford Fleming Building – connected to the Galbraith Building, which had opened in 1961. In the same year that the engineering building was torn down, the faculty dropped...

Unlike the apolitical ‘silent generation’ of students of the 1950s, students in the 1960s on the whole were vocal, active, and involved in a wide range of issues. Student leaders such as Bob Rae, a member of the Commission on University Government, established in 1968, and later the premier of Ontario, and Steven Langdon, the president of the Students’ Administrative Council and later an NDP member of parliament, wanted to reform the University of Toronto in particular and universities generally. Others, such as Andrew Wernick, a member of the far-left Toronto-based New Left Caucus and now a professor of sociology...

On July 23, 1971, Acting President Jack Sword sent a telegram to Claude Bissell, who was vacationing in Nova Scotia. ‘Your thirteen year effort endorsed today,’ it stated. ‘Legislature approved third reading stop fifty member governing council twelve staff eight students stop warmest congratulations stop all well here.’ The new act, which was to come into force on July 1, 1972, had adopted a unicameral system of one governing body, eliminating both the senate and the board of governors. It was the first – and is still the only – major English-speaking university in North America to do so.

Bissell had resigned...

In 1975, the salary and benefits committee of the University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) demanded that salaries be increased by 25 per cent. Inflation had reduced the value of salaries, and the faculty was becoming more militant. They had seen the gains made by student activism in the 1960s. Moreover, most members of the faculty felt they had been effectively and unfairly cut out of their previous dominant role in the governance of the academic affairs of the University. UTFA, stated Bill Nelson in his history of the association, ‘became the only major repository of faculty influence and very...

Financial constraint continued – even intensified – after Evans left office. Federal transfer payments to the provinces were no longer legally required to be devoted to higher education. Ontario continued to rank last in provincial expenditure per student. By 1980, funding per student was 25 per cent below the average of all the provinces. The new president, James Ham, spent much of his five years in office cutting budgets. Drastic reductions were made to the budgets for library staff and acquisitions, for secretarial services, and for other administrative staff, as well as for equipment and supplies. Owing to these cuts, excellent faculty...

A turning point in the fortunes of the University was reached on Wednesday, October 15, 1986. This was the day the announcement was made that the 57-year-old John Polanyi had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work done at the University of Toronto thirty years earlier. He had been awakened early in the morning by a wire service telling him the unexpected news. Polanyi had obtained his PhD from Manchester University, where his father, Michael Polanyi – a refugee from Nazi oppression – was a well-known professor of chemistry and philosopher of science. In 1956, after two years at the National...

In the spring of 1994, President Prichard would complete the assembly of his own personally selected team of four vice-presidents. Connell had had six. Prichard’s would remain with him throughout his tenure and into that of the next president, Robert Birgeneau. It would prove to be an effective team. Prichard, with his characteristic enthusiasm, would describe them as ‘the best vice-presidents in Canada.’

Michael Finlayson became vice-president for administration and human resources in 1994, expanding his existing portfolio of human resources, which he had taken on in 1991. He had previously been chair of history, but, more important, earlier he...

In 1997, a particularly significant change in government funding took place that greatly assisted the University of Toronto. Both the Ontario and the federal government began to invest large sums of money for research and development in the universities. The University of Toronto, with the strongest research base in Canada, received a substantial share of these new funds. Provincial formula funding, which had tended to homogenize the Ontario universities, would no longer determine the fate of the University of Toronto.

In earlier periods, the Ontario government had provided about 85 per cent of Toronto’s basic operating funds through formula funding,...