The Mysterious Mr. Raffles Helps Win The War
Plus: bank robbers & bandits, the city's Victorian underworld, and more...
A huge crowd was gathered at the corner of Queen & Bay, thousands of people braving the autumn chill on an October night in 1918. Their attention was trained on a slender figure standing on the steps of Old City Hall. He was lit up by three spotlights, a small man in a white undershirt, his hair slicked back, his body wrapped in leather restraints. He was an escape artist known as the Mysterious Mr. Raffles — and he was about to be hoisted two hundred feet into the air above downtown Toronto, dangling from the clock tower as he struggled to free himself from his bonds. And he was doing it all in the name of winning the First World War.
The story behind the Mysterious Mr. Raffles is itself a bit of a mystery. The man standing on the steps of Old City Hall that night was far from the only person to use that title. The name was shared by a variety of performers in the early 1900s as a part of a strange series of Edwardian publicity stunts. They seem to have been inspired by the books of E.W. Hornung, the brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Hurnung's most famous character was a gentleman thief by the name of A.J. Raffles, whose clever burglaries bankrolled a life of luxury in turn-of-the-century London. The character became one of the most popular literary figures of the age and helped inspire the creation of the fictional French thief Arsène Lupin (who you might know from the Netflix series).
A.J. Raffles also seems to have inspired some newspaper sales departments. At the same time Hurnung's books were being devoured by voracious readers, papers across North America began to organize contests aimed at increasing their own readership. The competitions tended to follow the same format each time, beginning with a local newspaper announcing that the Mysterious Mr. Raffles had come to town. Readers were invited to track him down; the first person to find him would win a cash prize. It was something of an Edwardian precursor to the "alternate reality games" of the twenty-first century. The newspaper would then begin to publish clues — Mr. Raffles' height, weight, other physical characteristics, places he was expected to appear — as a way of encouraging people to subscribe and follow along as they tried to find him. They were given a phrase with which to approach him, often mentioning the name of the paper for a bit of extra publicity. Some versions of the game even required the contest winner to be holding a copy of that day's newspaper when they caught him in order to qualify for the prize.
The contests became a sensation. When The Montreal Standard announced that the Mysterious Mr. Raffles would be hanging out on the street outside their office one afternoon, three thousand people showed up. "The whole city," the paper boasted, "join[ed] in the merry hunt." Some businesses would even pay to have Mr. Raffles make an appearance, knowing he would attract a horde of amateur sleuths to their store. And with so many people in those throngs, the mystery man was unlikely to be discovered. That day in Montreal, he moved through the crowd undetected. The next day, The Standard published his taunts. "Three thousand people… all seemingly intent on my capture, and yet not one man, woman or child in the entire gathering with nerve sufficient to hand me the proper salutation."
Sometimes, things threatened to get out of hand. The Montreal Standard called in the police to control their crowd. And when a theatre in Portland organized their own version of the game, amateur detectives began harassing ordinary citizens they mistook for Mr. Raffles. "If I had had a revolver," one of their targets complained, "I would have shot and perhaps killed someone."
In Toronto, on the other hand, it was the Mysterious Mr. Raffles himself who would be placed in danger. Our city seems to have come up with its own twist on the genre, inventing a fresh take in service of the war effort.
By the autumn of 1918, the First World War had been raging for four long years. The cost was staggering. More than sixty thousand Canadians died; more than 170,000 were wounded. And beyond that, there was the financial toll. The federal budget quadrupled. So did the debt. Billions of dollars needed to be raised. And so, several times over the course of the war, the federal government turned to its own citizens, asking ordinary people to lend them whatever money they could. Those fundraising drives became known as Victory Loans. Canadians lent the federal government billions of dollars through war bonds they could later redeem with interest. The bonds were so popular, some businesses even accepted them in lieu of cash.
By October 1918, the end of the war was finally drawing near. But the Allies were in the midst of one last push. So, the government asked for help once again, launching another Victory Loan drive. And that's when someone in Toronto seems to have had the idea to harness the power of the Mysterious Mr. Raffles to help.
The drive officially got underway on a stormy Monday morning. When the clock struck nine, the city roared to life; as thunder rolled overhead, factories blew their whistles and fire engines rang their bells to announce the launch of the campaign. Hundreds of salespeople fanned out across the city, selling bonds everywhere they went; even boy scout troops were used as a volunteer sales force. Streetcars and fire trucks were draped in promotional banners. Shop windows were filled with patriotic displays supporting the drive. And the Mysterious Mr. Raffles would be called upon, too.
In Toronto, Mr. Raffles wouldn't be a shadowy figure tracked down by newspaper readers. Instead, he was an escape artist who would give a big public performance in support of the Victory Loan drive. And he was quite mysterious indeed. The person playing the role seems to have generally varied from city to city. It wasn't one single performer, but whoever was willing to take on the job — sometimes a newspaper employee. And so far, I'm not entirely sure who the Torontonian Mr. Raffles really was. Was that slender man standing on the front steps of Old City Hall a travelling magician who always used it as a stage name? Was he a local escape artist asked to perform as Mr. Raffles for this one event as a way to drum up interest? I have yet to find any clue as to his real identity. What we do know, however, is that if the name was chosen to draw a crowd, it worked.
The Mysterious Mr. Raffles was originally scheduled to appear that morning as part of a big kickoff event at Old City Hall, held outdoors because the Spanish Flu pandemic was at its deadly height in our city. But with the stormy weather, his stunt was pushed to the evening instead. And by the time he finally did appear, more than ten thousand people were said to be waiting for him.
The event began with a soldier stepping out in front of the crowd. Sergeant Dan Moncur had lost a son to the war and fought on the front lines in France himself, wounded so badly he was now forced to wear an "iron back." Moncur called on Torontonians to support the drive, echoing the xenophobic propaganda of the time. "You are asked to lend money to the government to thrash the Hun," the soldier told his audience, "and to free the world from the beastly Hohenzollerns of Berlin" — a reference to the Kaiser's dynastic family. The crowd roared its approval.
And then came the Mysterious Mr. Raffles. He arrived onto the front steps of Old City Hall to begin his performance a little after eight o'clock. He was handcuffed and bound in what the press described as "a German torture jacket;" a series of leather straps designed to cut off circulation to certain parts of the body, according to The Toronto Daily Star. Members of the crowd were invited to test the restraints and make sure they were secure. Then Mr. Raffles began his ascent.
He was hoisted high into the sky above Queen Street with a system of pulleys until he was halfway up the clock tower — maybe seven or eight storeys over the sidewalk — dangling upside down. The crowd below watched as he squirmed and struggled against his bonds, slipping out of them one by one, letting the straps fall to the ground below. Within a few minutes, he was free of them, clambering up the rope to safety, where a Victory Bond was waiting so he could grab it and then sell it to someone in the crowd. Far below, the thousands of Torontonians who had gathered to witness the spectacle burst into cheers and applause.
The Victory Loan drive of 1918 would prove to be a resounding success. More than $2 million dollars were raised in Toronto on that first day alone — $40 million in today's money. And the campaign would carry on for another three weeks. Everyone was called upon to lend whatever they could, while war relics — including a German artillery gun and a French tank damaged at the Battle of the Somme — were put on public display as a reminder of the horrors of the war. An enormous thermometer was erected at Old City Hall to track the sales. Lists of the Torontonians who invested the most were printed in the newspaper. Communities and businesses who made particularly significant contributions were awarded with honour flags to fly with pride. The most prized of the flags was the one given to the city with the greatest sales. Toronto had been asked to raise $80 million. In the end, the city nearly doubled that goal. Torontonians bought $144 million worth, just enough to beat out Montreal for the big prize.
It was exactly two weeks into the campaign that a Victory Loan parade was planned for University Avenue. It would be filled with veterans of the war marching alongside cadets and motorcars carrying wounded soldiers. But that parade would never happen. Instead, that Monday morning the city woke to the news they'd been waiting four years to hear. Suddenly, throngs of people filled the streets outside Old City Hall once again, just as they had for the Mysterious Mr. Raffles, but this time it was in an outburst of celebration. It was November 11, 1918. The day that would become known as Armistice Day. The fighting was finally over.
The next time a Victory Loan campaign was launched, it wasn't to pay for tanks and shells; it was raising money to bring Canadians soldiers home to their families.
There's another strange little footnote to this story. His escape above Queen Street wasn't the only way the Mysterious Mr. Raffles raised support for the campaign. He also issued a challenge to anyone in Toronto who thought they could best him. People were invited to come down to Old City Hall that night with their own rope. If they could tie him up so tight he couldn't escape, they'd win a $50 bond of their own. An old sailor took him up on the offer, but in the end the whole thing devolved into an argument over whether Mr. Raffles would be allowed to wear his torture jacket underneath the ropes. The Victory Loan committee decided to distance themselves from the kerfuffle and allow Mr. Raffles to accept it as a private bet if he liked. There doesn’t seem to be any record of how the showdown ended.
If you’d like to read more about that Victory Loan drive, Jamie Bradburn wrote about it for TVO here. And if you’d like more about Armistice Day in Toronto, Katie Daubs has you covered here.
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Toronto’s Most Notorious: Bank Robbers & Bandits
I’m giving a whole new series of lectures for the Toronto Public Library — four monthly talks about some of the most notorious criminals and crimes from our city’s history. And the next one is coming up on June 27!
Toronto's Most Notorious explores the shadowy underbelly of Toronto's past with true crime and mystery stories about the scoundrels, rogues, killers and crooks whose crimes have shocked and fascinated our city for generations. I’ll be sharing wicked tales of vice and villainy and how they've shaped the history of the place we call home.
Next up is…
TORONTO’S MOST NOTORIOUS: BANK ROBBERS & BANDITS
Friday, June 27 — Noon — Online
Toronto has been the stage for countless dramatic scenes of criminality: wild shoot-outs, brazen stick-ups and daring heists. From the shadowy Victorian bandits who once terrorized the Don Valley to the bank robbers who made audacious escapes from the Don Jail, storyteller and historian Adam Bunch will introduce us to some of the most infamous outlaws in our city's history, felons whose exploits landed them on the front page as often as they landed them behind bars.
And you’ll find the links for the final lecture in the series– “Bootleggers & Smugglers,” which is coming up in July — here.
Talking Duels & Victorian Criminals at the MOTIVE Festival
Toronto’s big crime and mystery festival is coming up at the end of the month, and I’ll be giving two free talks as part of it! The MOTIVE festival is organized by the Toronto International Festival of Authors and has a new home this year at Victoria College.
You can learn more about the festival here and here’s some more information about my talks:
EXPLORING TORONTO’S VICTORIAN UNDERWORLD
Saturday, June 28 — 11am – Victoria College at the University of Toronto
It was in the late 1800s that our city was given the nickname "Toronto The Good," but in truth it was often anything but. In this talk by author Adam Bunch, we'll head into the shadows where Victorian vice reigned and meet the notorious criminals who once terrorized our town. From con artists to kidnappers, we'll explore the days when our city was a hard-drinking outpost on the edge of the British Empire filled with brothels, pickpockets, and thieves. [Note: this one will include most of the same stories as the “Toronto’s Most Notorious: Con Artists & Kidnappers” talk I gave for the Toronto Public Library in May.]
Free!
A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANADIAN DUELS
Sunday, June 29 — 12pm – Victoria College at the University of Toronto
From sword fights in New France to gun battles in Upper Canada, duels were once a familiar part of life in our country. Even though they were illegal, they were still seen by many people as the most honourable way to settle a passionate dispute. Trying to kill each other at close range was thought to be an entirely reasonable reaction to scandalous love affairs, political rivalries, and personal grudges. In this talk, author Adam Bunch will explore that dramatic history through the stories of some of Canada's most extraordinary showdowns.
Free!
QUICK LINKS
The best of everything new in Toronto’s past…
OUTISDE THE BOX NEWS — Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue outside Queen’s Park has been kept inside a protective, rodent-infested box for the last five years as the provincial government tried to decide what to do with it. The statue had been splattered with paint and grafitti, and children’s shoes placed at its base, as part of the Every Child Matters protests in 2020, as we learned more about the unmarked graves of Indigenous children who died in the residential school system. The box has now been removed and the statue is back on full view in its place of honour outside the provincial legislature. The CBC wrote about the decision, while quoting the only First Nations MPP at Queen’s Park — the NDP’s Sol Mamakwa, who is himself a survivor of the residential school system — on what he thinks of the momument. "It's not just a statue. It's a statue of oppression. It is a statue of colonialism. It is a statue of Indian residential schools." The statue now seems to be under close watch by Queen’s Park security. Read more.
GREEK MAP NEWS — A new project is mapping the history of Toronto’s Greek businesses thanks to Alexandros Balasis, a PhD candidate at York University. Check it out here. Filio Kontrafouri wrote about it for The Greek Reporter. Read more.
PHILATELIST PRIDE NEWS — Hanlan’s Point Beach, “one of the oldest surviving LGBTQ2S+ places in the world,” is being recognized with a cool new stamp. Read more.
GHOST SIGN NEWS — Katherine Taylor recently popped up on Breakfast Television talking about Toronto’s ghost signs. Watch it.
ROLLER SKATE NEWS — Heritage Toronto has posted a new project created by students in the University of Toronto’s Master’s of Museum Studies program, which dives into the history of Toronto roller sports. Read more.
GEORGIAN NEWS — Eric Sehr has another new entry in his project exploring the history of Brockton Village. This one looks at land petitions written more than 200 years ago. Read more.
BYE BYE BAY NEWS — Jamie Bradburn paid a visit to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Queen Street store on its final day and wrote a bit about the history of the place on his Tales of Toronto blog. Read more.
TORONTO HISTORY EVENTS
TORONTO’S HOME COMERS FESTIVAL
June 23 — 7:30pm — Online — Toronto Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society
“In the summer of 1903, Toronto had a party—a four-day blowout over the Dominion Day long weekend. The organizers invited well over 4,000 former Torontonians to ‘come home’ from all across Canada, the United States, and wherever they could find them. The handwritten invitation list, with addresses from Skagway, Alaska to Sydney, Australia, survives. This manuscript, along with records from the Toronto Board of Trade, city council, and the numerous businesses and organizations roped into showing the visitors a good time—helped reconstruct this nearly forgotten extravaganza. The records also revealed the network of expats who kept connected with Toronto from afar in ‘old boys’ and similar clubs. Whether or not your relatives ‘came home’ in 1903, this presentation will provide insight into migration patterns, communication methods, and the values that enticed the Home Comers to make their journeys.”
Free, I believe!
UPRISING & UPSETS: WALKING TOUR
June 27 at 10:30am; July 11 at 7pm; August 8 at 10:30am — Town of York Historical Society
“In this walking tour, join us as we explore some of the major riots, uprisings, and upsets that occurred in the Town of York and the early City of Toronto throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and the outcomes that led to lasting societal and political changes.”
$17.31
VIOLENCE & SCANDAL IN MUDDY YORK: WALKING TOUR
June 27 at 7pm; July 25 at 7pm; August 22 at 10:30am — Town of York Historical Society
“In this walking tour, explore the scandalous side of Little Muddy York as we walk through the surviving built environment of the original 10 blocks of Toronto and learn about the intriguing stories that would have been the gossip of the day. Invasions, epidemics, and hangings, oh my!”
$17.31
QUEER TORONTO AND THE AUSTINS: LAYERS OF HISTORY IN THE 1920s AND '30s AT SPADINA MUSEUM
Until June 29 — Spadina Museum
“Ever wanted to know more about Queer Toronto history? During Pride month, Spadina Museum is enriching their free guided tours with 2SLGBTQIA+ histories. Telling the story of the Austin family in the 1920s and 30s who lived in the magnificent house atop the hill, Spadina Museum’s tours will also showcase the lives of Queer people who lived in Toronto during the same period. A showcase of dresses and artefacts from Michelle DuBarry, one of Canada’s oldest drag queens, will be on display as part of the tour.”
Free!
GROUP OF SEVEN DAY: POSTCARD FROM THE WOODS
July 7 — 10:30am to 4pm — Art Gallery of Ontario
“The Group of Seven imagined in paint a Canada of ancient lakes and woods, Arctic vistas, and the magic of the northern lights. We’re bringing Algonquin Park and Algoma to Walker Court for Ontario's first-ever Group of Seven Day. With more than 200 works by the Group of Seven on view, immerse yourself in their art and ambition and try your hand at still life painting in Walker Court. We’ll give you the art-making materials, the inspiration, and a postcard to write home about it—we’ll even provide the canoe!”
Free with general admission!
NEWSGIRLS: GUTSY PIONEERS IN CANADA’S NEWSROOMS
July 8 — 6pm — Runnymede Library
“Join Donna Jean Mackinnon, Toronto author, freelance writer and former Toronto Star reporter, as she documents the lives of 10 leading female reporters who started their careers during newspaper's Golden Age. Presentation includes a slew of vintage photos and intimate anecdotes.”
Free!
WAR & TERROR IN THE TOWN: WALKING TOUR
July 11 at 10:30am; August 8 at 7pm — Town of York Historical Society
“In this walking tour, join us as we explore the beginnings of the area that would become the Town of York, the events leading up to the War of 1812, the Battle of York, its aftermath, and everyday living conditions while we walk the original 10 blocks of the early city.”
$17.31
HOME GAME: TORONTO LOVES BASKETBALL
Until October 12 — Wednesdays to Sundays — Harbourfront Centre — Museum of Toronto
“Home Game: Toronto Loves Basketball chronicles the love story between a city and a sport. Even before the Toronto Raptors and the rallying cry “We the North”, basketball in Toronto was deeply rooted in the evolving social and cultural conditions of our city and its people. From the Canadian invention of basketball to the early women’s game in 1895, to the first professional game played by the Toronto Huskies in 1946, and the recent creation of the Toronto Tempo WNBA team, these milestones chart the development of the sport in our city. This exhibition, along with a series of profiles on fellow Torontonians, explores how the relationship between basketball and Toronto is unlike any other in the world.”
Free! (Donation suggested.)
HERITAGE TORONTO WALKING TOURS
Until Autumn — Various dates and times — Heritage Toronto
“Through our events, including tours, community discussions, the Heritage Toronto Awards, and more, Heritage Toronto engages the public to reflect on the city’s heritage.”
Usually $9.85.
AT HOME IN TORONTO
Until November 30 — Wed to Sun, 11am–5pm — The Market Gallery
“What does home mean to you? Discover rarely seen artifacts from the City’s collections and items from community members, the exhibition invites you to explore the many ways we define, create, and carry home with us. From a World War One soldier’s return ticket home to a precious family object stewarded by multiple generations, you’ll encounter belongings, voices, and stories of Toronto artists, makers, entrepreneurs, and community leaders as they share their unique perspectives on belonging, identity, and place. These powerful objects offer fresh, heartfelt perspectives on what it means to find, make, or remember home.”
Free!
THE 52: STORIES OF WOMEN WHO TRANSFORMED TORONTO
Until December 20 — Wednesday to Saturday, 12pm to 6pm — Museum of Toronto
“Did you know that 52% of Torontonians are women? Join Museum of Toronto as we bring their stories to life. The 52 is a project that celebrates the impact that women have had on our city, the world, and beyond. Building on a multi-year research project, our newest exhibition will celebrate the lives of 52 women who have shaped Toronto as we know it. Spanning from the 1800s until today, this exhibition shines a spotlight on the change-makers, rebels, and revolutionaries within Toronto’s 52%. While some of these women’s stories are well known, others have gone relatively untold until today. See how many names you are familiar to you — step into their shoes, learn their stories and discover the ways they have transformed Toronto.”
Free! Donation suggested.