Toronto's Most Terrifying Guy Fawkes Night
Plus, the fight over Ontario Place, the origins of Maple Leafs Gardens and more...
On this night 159 years ago, an armed mob gathered at Queen's Park. It was still an ordinary public park back then, not yet home to the provincial legislature, but already a focal point for political unrest. And on that dark November night in 1864, more than five hundred Torontonians had gathered, prepared for violence. They carried guns, swords, pistols and pikes — and they were willing to use them. It was Guy Fawkes Night in Toronto and our city's Irish Catholics were ready to fight.
Toronto was an incredibly Irish place back then. In the middle of the 1800s, a third of the people who lived here had been born in Ireland or were of Irish descendent — the highest proportion on the continent, a greater percentage than you'd find even in Boston or New York. But while Irish Catholics tended to move to the United States in order to get out from under British rule, it was Irish Protestants who often came to Toronto, which was still a deeply British town. Three quarters of the city's residents were Protestant in the late 1800s. And many of them were passionately anti-Catholic, dedicated members of an organization known as the Orange Order.
The fraternal society was founded by Protestants in northern Ireland back in the late 1700s. It's still a major force there today; Orangemen are die-hard supporters of British rule with a history of ties to the Protestant paramilitary groups that fought against the IRA during the Troubles. And with so many Irish immigrants coming to the Canadian colonies in the 1800s, the Orange Lodge became a major force here, too. Especially in Toronto.
Orangemen ruled our city for more than a century. Nearly every mayor of Toronto for 120 years was a member of the Orange Lodge. They dominated the police force, the fire services, the TTC, school boards, basically any public job at all. The big Orange parade on July 12th every year — celebrating the victory of the Protestant King William of Orange over Irish Catholics back in 1690 — was attended by tens of thousands of people every year, essentially a public holiday.
Toronto became known as "The Belfast of Canada." And many of northern Ireland's problems became our problems, too — including decades of sectarian violence. Our city's Orangemen could often be found fighting in the streets, riots sparked by everything from parades to elections to a vicious feud with a travelling circus. But Catholics were by far the Orange Order's most common targets. There were dozens of riots in Toronto between Orangemen and Irish Catholics during the late 1800s. And since City Hall, the courts and the police force were all dominated by the Orange Lodge, the rioters almost always escaped justice.
1864 would prove to be a particularly uneasy year. That spring, the Orange Order attacked a Catholic procession marking the feast of Corpus Christi. And when news arrived from Belfast that summer, of eleven Catholics killed by Orangemen there, tensions here grew even higher. By the time autumn arrived, things seemed ready to boil over.
And then came the fifth of November.
Guy Fawkes Night is still a big holiday in Britain today, an occasion filled with bonfires and fireworks. It commemorates the events of the Gunpowder Plot, when an attempt to blow up parliament and assassinate the king was foiled. The attempted revolution was launched by a group of Catholic conspirators back in 1605, after suffering decades of brutal religious percussion in England. They hoped to set off a massive explosion that would kill the Protestant King James, as well as the members of his parliament, so a Catholic monarch could take over. But the plan was uncovered just in time. One of the conspirators, Guy Fawkes, was discovered hiding beneath the House of Lords with thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. That night, the Protestants of England celebrated. And ever since, the night of November 5th has been marked by bonfires and fireworks, effigies of Fawkes going up in flames, and the recitation of a famous children's nursery rhyme:
Remember, remember, the 5th of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Gay Fawkes Night used to be a big holiday in Toronto, too, since it was such an anti-Catholic city so eager to celebrate its British Protestant heritage. Torontonians burned Fawkes in effigy for many years. But Guy Fawkes Day in 1864 would prove to be particularly dramatic.
In the lead up to the holiday that year, rumours began to spread. The Orange Order, it seems, was planning to burn more than just Guy Fawkes in effigy. They would also set fire to dolls representing the Pope and the celebrated old Catholic mayor of Dublin. "This was a deliberate and unequivocal insult to Irish Catholics," historian Michael Cottrell explains, "since it suggested that their most sacred icons could be humiliated with impunity."
But that insult wouldn't pass without resistance.
The Orange Order wasn't the only radical religious group in our city. Years earlier, the St. Patrick's Day Parade had been attacked by Orangemen. It ended with an Irish Catholic stable hand murdered with a pitchfork during a scuffle in an alleyway just off King East. In the wake of that bloodshed, a new Catholic organization was formed in response to the Orange violence. The Hibernian Benevolent Society of Canada would act as a charity supporting local Irish Catholics, but they secretly had a much more radical mandate, too. The Hibernians were a paramilitary group with strong ties to the Fenian Brotherhood, a U.S.-based organization dedicated to Irish independence and the violent overthrow of British rule.
Guy Fawkes Night was a perfect opportunity for the new Canadian organization to prove its worth. As Cottrell puts it, "The Hibernians insisted that the pride of the Catholic community was at stake, and declared their intention of not only preventing the planned celebration, by force if necessary, but of mounting a counter-demonstration of their own."
The prospect of a bloody Guy Fawkes Day loomed, and city leaders on both sides of the religious divide tried to calm things down. The Mayor of Toronto, Francis Medcalf, joined with other Orange leaders to convince their supporters to cancel the burning of the effigies. Meanwhile, the Catholic church tried to soothe the Hibernians, but the radicals refused to back down. One of the priests who attempted to negotiate with them reported back to Toronto's Catholic bishop: "We called upon the leading Hibernians, and used every argument we could think of to dissuade them from making any demonstration on that night, but all our arguments were lost on them; for go they would and go they did, armed to the teeth with guns and pikes."
And so, the angry mob gathered at Queen's Park on that November night prepared for battle. They marched out into the city after dusk looking for trouble, ready to crack down on any anti-Catholic celebrations they found. They patrolled the streets long into the night, "terrorizing the inhabitants" until two in the morning. The Globe newspaper denounced them as "irresponsible and bloody-thirsty bigots" who sent the city into "a state of excitement such as it seldom before saw." At the end of their intimidating display, the Hibernians fired their guns into the air and headed home, satisfied that they'd stood up to the Orange Order and successfully defended Catholic pride for at least one night.
In the wake of that tense Guy Fawkes Day, Hibernians would be arrested and put on trial. Headlines denounced their actions. And while many Irish Catholics never supported the radical organization, the city found itself even more deeply polarized — with much more bloodshed ahead.
In the years to come, the Fenian Brotherhood in the United States decided to launch a series of raids against the Canadian colonies, with armies and war parties slipping across the border. Some Toronto Hibernians even tried to join the invasion, but were arrested on their way there. An Irish-Canadian Father of Confederation, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, would soon be gunned down in the streets of Ottawa, with a suspected Fenian hanged for the crime. And the St. Patrick's Day Parade would eventually be banned in Toronto for more than a hundred years.
Our city would continue to be a fiercely Protestant and deeply anti-Catholic place for decades to come. It wasn't until the 1950s, as more new Canadians poured inro Toronto from countries outside the British Isles, that the Orange stranglehold on power would finally be broken. Guy Fawkes Night had been celebrated here well into the 1900s. But tonight, on this November 5th, our city rests quiet. There are no fireworks, no bonfires, no Gunpowder plotters burned in effigy. And the days when Protestants and Catholics battled in our streets seem a very distant memory.
Michael Cottrell wrote an article about the Guy Fawkes Day of 1864 back in 1993 — it’s where I first learned about the story and was my central source for this piece. You can find it on JSTOR here.
In a post last year, I wrote more about the sectarian violence that once plagued our city and why the St. Patrick's Day Parade was banned. You can check that out here. I've also written about the attack on the travelling circus for Spacing Magazine here. And we filmed a whole episode of our Canadiana documentary series about the assassination of Thomas D’Arcy McGee, which you can watch for free here.
If you want to learn more about the Orange Order in Toronto, I highly recommend William J. Smythe’s book, “Toronto, The Beflast of Canada: The Orange Order and the Shaping of Municipal Culture.” You’ll find more about it here.
There's a whole chapter in my Toronto Book of the Dead about the Irish Catholics who arrived in our city as refugees during the Great Hunger. You can learn about that book, or buy it, here (as well as finding it for sale in all the usual places).
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QUICK LINKS
The best of everything else that’s new in Toronto’s past…
DOUG FORD IS IN TROUBLE AGAIN NEWS — Some hopeful news in the fight to save Ontario Place from Ford’s plan to hand much of the public park over to a private spa: “The province's auditor general is moving ahead with a value-for-money audit of the Ford government's controversial Ontario Place redevelopment.” Read more.
ORIGINS OF ONTARIO PLACE — Meanwhile, landscape architect and urban designer Walter Kehm, whose work helped shape the original plans for Ontario Place back in the late 1960s, shares that story with Spacing. Read more.
CYBER ATTACK NEWS — My Guy Fawkes Night piece was more difficult to research than it should have been because the Toronto Public Library has been the target of a ransomware attack. Read more.
MAPLE LEAFS GARDENS NEWS — Jamie Bradburns takes the opening of the NHL season as a chance to dive into the origins of Maple Leaf Gardens. Read more.
MAROONED LIGHTHOUSE NEWS — CBC News dives into the history of the Queen's Wharf Lighthouse. “You may have seen the small lighthouse, built in 1861, sandwiched between Lake Shore and Fleet Street and wondered: Why's it so far from the water?” Read more.
MAPLE LEAF STADIUM VIDEO — Victor Caratun shared a mesmerizing video of a game at Maple Leaf Stadium in the 1950s, the focal point for baseball in our city in the days before the Blue Jays. Watch it.
SHOE NEWS — The Bata Shoe Museum is opening a new exhibit that will see it “transformed into a 1980s-inspired shopping mall, taking you back to the era of neon, power suits, and, of course, iconic footwear.” Read more.
HIDDEN BRICK NEWS — Oliver Moore caught a glimpse of the hidden history of Harbord Village and shared it on Twitter:
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TORONTO HISTORY EVENTS
HOW YORKVILLE INSPIRED A MYSTERY NOVEL
November 7 — 6:30pm — Toronto Reference Library
“Join author Dianne Scott as she vividly describes the scenes in her mystery LOST AND FOUND, set in 1960s Yorkville. Discover Yorkville's past, from its indigenous roots to its bricks and beer industries and evolution into a counterculture mecca. See the streets and music clubs where fictional officer Christine Lane goes undercover to navigate a world of gangs, bikers, and drug dealers.”
Free!
“RIVERSTORYZ” BY CHRIS HIGGINS
November 9 — 7:30pm — Heritage York
“Join author Chris Higgins for stories about human impact and social history on the Humber River since the founding of York.”
CHINATOWN / KENSINGTON MARKET WALKING TOUR
November 12 —1pm — Meet at Lilian H. Smith Library
“This free community walking tour will focus on the history of Chinatown and Kensington Market. The tour will begin at Lillian Smith Library (239 College Street) and end at Scadding Court Community Centre. It will last 1½ to 2 hours. All are welcome to join!”
Free!
ANNUAL FALL AUTHOR SERIES: LORNA POPLAK
November 16 — 7pm — Toronto’s First Post Office — Town of York Historical Society
“Lorna Poplak will present on her publication "The Don Jail " as she investigates the origins and evolution of Toronto’s most infamous jail, presenting a in-depth exploration of the jail from its inception through jailbreaks and overcrowding to its eventual closure and rebirth.”
$17.31 for members; $22.26 for non-members
LAYING THE TRACK TO VICTORY: SERGEANT BIGGS AND THE CANADIAN RAILWAY TROOPS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR
November 16 — 7pm — Online — Toronto Railway Museum
“Did you know that Canada during the 1910s had the best and most experienced trainmen in the world? These Canadian railway professionals were recruited to build & maintain thousands of kilometers of tracks on the Western Front – their great contribution is rarely discussed and is certainly a neglected part of history. Learn about the Canadian Railway Troops of WWI that enabled the Allies to win the war with Ryan Goldsworthy of the Royal Canadian Military Institute. This lecture will be illuminated by several original artifacts related to the Canadian Railway Troops of 1914-1919, including the rare medal set and uniform of Canadian Sergeant William Thomas Biggs.”
Free with registration!
FOUR FAMILIES, ONE HOME
November 16 — 7:30pm — Online & At Montgomery’s Inn — Etobicoke Historical Society
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Free for members; annual memberships are $25
GROWING UP IN A NORTH TORONTO CHINESE LAUNDRY
November 29 — 7pm — Northern District Library — North Toronto Historical Society
“An illustrated presentation by Harvey Low, NTHS member and long-time resident of North Toronto. Harvey grew up in North Toronto, going to John Fisher PS, Glenview, then North Toronto Collegiate. His family has been in the community since the 1920s and earlier in Toronto since the 1890s. His grandfather opened a Chinese Laundry at 2616 Yonge Street in 1923. Harvey will provide a combination of family slides and verbal memories of what it was like growing up in a Chinese Laundry - the focus being the personal experiences of balancing life between old and new customs.”
ANNUAL FALL AUTHOR SERIES: DR. IAN RADFORTH
December 7 — 7pm — Toronto’s First Post Office — Town of York Historical Society
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$17.31 for members; $22.26 for non-members