This is not a story about McRoberts Avenue directly, and none of the key players in it are McRoberts residents, but exactly 100 years ago, the entire neighbourhood was completely swept up in preparing for and participating in local Peace Year celebrations. These peaked on August 27, 1919 with the Prince of Wales’ visit to Earlscourt.
The First World War ceased on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, but wartime was not yet over. Reconstruction was needed on an international scale, but also in every individual home and life. Recognizing the need to mark the end of four cataclysmic years of war, 1919 was declared the Year of Peace.
Here in Earlscourt, where more people had enlisted per capita than in any other area in Canada, 1919 was a year of pride as well as of peace. Just over a decade earlier, the whole area had been the focus of urgent social work to save the starving and frozen working class families who had optimistically built starter shacks on the muddy clay, only to be thrown out of work by economic conditions. Now many sturdy homes and businesses stood throughout the area, and the residents were well-organized with strong community leaders. They had all sacrificed and worked hard and had suffered great loss, yet still they had survived.
When news came that young Edward, Prince of Wales would be touring across Canada to promote the sale of Victory Bonds, there was a real hope that his visit to Toronto would include a stop in Earlscourt. A letter sent to the local British Imperial Association from Ontario’s Lieutenant-Governor suggested as much, and was reported by the Globe on July 15, 1919. That week, the neighbourhood was preparing for the upcoming Peace Day holiday to mark the signing of the Treaty.
A torch-light procession was planned along St. Clair from Dufferin to Royce Park (now Earlscourt Park), where there would be a bonfire and band music. The parkland was still privately owned, but for years it had been expected to become a public park and the Royce family did not seem to mind sharing the land for community events while the sale arrangements were negotiated with the city. That night, an effigy of German Kaiser Wilhelm was burned on the Peace Day bonfire. (The Kaiser was still a target of the neighbourhood’s wrath: For Armistice celebrations in November 1918, some Earlscourt residents had erected a wooden scaffold in an empty lot on St. Clair Avenue West and hanged the Kaiser in effigy. Globe, Nov. 12, 1918).
A week after Peace Day, 8,000 citizens gathered in Prospect Cemetery for a gentler memorial of hymns and prayers in a Sunday remembrance service for the war dead. “At the conclusion of the service loving hands gathered the huge pile of wreaths and flowers from the platform and laid them tenderly on the graves of the men who died in service,” reported the Globe on July 28.
Earlscourt was fairly confident that Prince Edward would visit. He was known to have a real affinity for the Forces and he had famously pushed his royal parents for permission to participate in the war. While he was kept in fairly safe circumstances for the duration, returned soldiers liked to tell stories of chance meetings in France with the “soldier prince,” who apparently enjoyed giving his minders the slip and getting out among the enlisted men. The Prince of Wales did know something of what the men in the trenches had endured and they felt sure he would come to a district that had given so much. An invitation was sent by the British Imperial Association and everyone waited for the news.
When a reply came on August 11, it was disappointing. The August 12 Star reported that R.M. Russell of the British Imperial Association had read the terse official letter from the Governor General’s secretary at a meeting the night before: “I beg to inform you that I regret that it will not be possible to make any additions, at this late date, to his Royal Highness’s program, which is a heavy one.”
Mr. Russell told the meeting he believed this change in the prince’s plans was due to a “fictitious story,” a “slur on the whole district” that the community was still in the pioneer stage and populated by shacks, and therefore not nice enough for the Prince. The Star answered with an editorial on August 14: “A slur! Why Earlscourt has every reason to be proud of its pioneer origin and the shack that was once its distinguishing characteristic. Ask a Canadian farmer if he is ashamed of the fact that his grandfather was a pioneer and lived in a log hut! Of course the shack has now disappeared as the log hut did, but both are enshrined in the hearts of the men of to-day as symbols of hard work and homely heroism.”
With plans for the visit already under way, Earlscourt’s leaders were not ready to give up their campaign to get the Prince. There was some movement by August 14. The Star reported that Mayor Tommy Church had announced the Prince of Wales would at least drive through Earlscourt in connection with his morning visit on August 26 to wounded veterans at the Christie Street Hospital. “An effort was made to have this plan changed,” the mayor said, “so that the district might be visited in the evening when the people are at home, but this cannot be worked out.”
Earlscourt veterans took consolation in the fact that the Prince would at least drive by, and that they would be able to see the Prince at Veterans’ Day at the Canadian National Exhibition, where every veteran would receive a pair of tickets to take a “lady friend” to the Exhibition grounds on August 27. There, Prince Edward would review the grandstand, decorate veterans, and recognize the mothers and widows of fallen soldiers.
But behind the scenes, work was still ongoing to get the Prince of Wales to Earlscourt for more than a drive-by. Expectations for his visit were modest. It was only hoped that he would come one evening when people could see him, to plant a tree at the Soldiers’ Plot in Prospect Cemetery (the cemetery’s historical site can be viewed here). The Prince’s visit, it was hoped, would comfort the families who had lost loved ones overseas as well as cheer the returned veterans. In anticipation of his visit, the Earlscourt branch of the Great War Veterans’ Association made Prince Edward an honorary member.
The Earlscourt decoration committee of the Great War Veterans’ Association and the British Imperial Association also got to work. On August 14, with less than two weeks to go before the Prince’s arrival, The Globe reported that Toronto’s thrifty Board of Control had decided in a majority vote that the city would not spend a cent on decorations. It was felt that the money was needed elsewhere, and surely Toronto’s citizens would provide ample bunting and flags to greet the Prince. Mayor Tommy Church was the only one on the Board who was disappointed by the decision. “You should have seen New York,” he reportedly grumbled, “they knew how to decorate.”
In loyal Earlscourt, the people took up the challenge to provide the decorations, by fundraising and working day and night to festoon St. Clair West and their homes in flags. Gershon “George” Wills, a British-born carpenter who lived at 34 Harvie, led a team of volunteers in the construction of a beautiful arch of evergreen boughs and flags that spanned the street at St. Clair and Dufferin. The Globe noted that it was the only arch erected in the city and praised the artistry that had gone into it.
On August 22, the Star front page carried the headline: “New Features In Visit of Prince.” With just days to go until his arrival in the city, it had been settled that the Prince would definitely visit both Earlscourt and Riverdale and it would be on Wednesday evening, his final night in the city, after Veterans’ Day ceremonies at the exhibition. Locally, Alexander MacGregor, a prominent lawyer who was President of the Earlscourt Fall Fair, along with an injured veteran and father of seven named Joe Wines who lived at 195A Earlscourt Avenue, were given credit for getting Earlscourt back on the itinerary. How they achieved this was not reported in the papers, but Joe Wines was quoted by the Star as keeping the faith: “he knew General Gunn wouldn’t turn down a district like Earlscourt.” (Daily Star, August 14, 1919)
With the Prince secured, Earlscourt went all out to prepare and by Tuesday, August 26 the finishing touches were put on the district. On Wednesday evening, flags and banners were in place and every house was decorated along the Prince’s route. The entire population of the surrounding neighbourhoods were said to be in attendance, waiting for the first glimpse of Sir John Eaton’s Rolls Royce, “The Yellow Bird,” which he and Lady Eaton had loaned to the Royal entourage for the occasion. After his long day at the Exhibition, the Prince changed into a civilian grey checked suit and soft felt hat. Out of uniform for the first time during his Toronto visit, the Prince set out to meet the people.
“I want to meet the people who did the dirty work in the war,” the Globe reported the Prince saying that day, “I want to shake hands with the people in rags and tatters and the brave men and women whose self-sacrifice saved the British Empire. Let them crowd in. Tell the police not to keep them back. I want to shake hands with them all.” (Globe, August 28, 1919).
Thousands of Torontonians hoped to do just that and turned out that evening along the route out of the Exhibition, through High Park and eventually up Lansdowne to Prospect Cemetery. The dignitaries and residents waiting in the cemetery that evening were increasingly anxious as the clock ticked later and later under threatening clouds and gusty winds. Finally, at 6:25 p.m., almost an hour later than planned, the Prince arrived at the Soldiers’ Plot. An honour guard of veterans lined the path and a massed choir of school children accompanied by the Salvation Army band greeted the Prince with the national anthem, “God Save the King.” The sun even made a brief appearance from behind a cloud. It was, however, outshone by the Prince.
“With a smile – and such a smile – beaming on everyone he strode across the lawn where he was met midway by Major G.P. Richardson, president of the Earlscourt G.W.V.A., and welcomed to Earlscourt.” Private A. Stackable, a double amputee, then presented the Prince with membership button No. 114,621 along with a morocco-bound copy of the constitution for the local branch of the Veterans’ association. The Prince “gave the soldier a hearty hand-shake of appreciation,” and signed the membership roll “like any other veteran.” He then completed the planting of a silver maple, which still stands in the cemetery a century later, and greeted as many people as he could before his aides pulled him away to continue on his neighbourhood tour. It was a day of rather unprecedented royal behaviour and the Prince broke protocol once more.
The Star reported: “’But really, I must speak to these people,’ expostulated the Prince. And he did. Mounting a little platform on which had rested the silver spade, the Prince, in ringing, sympathetic tones, made a speech which won him the heart of Earlscourt for all time. ‘I want to thank all of you for your very kind welcome which has touched me very much. I know the splendid part Earlscourt district has played in the war and of your many sacrifices. It has afforded me much pleasure to plant this tree and thus honour the memory of the valiant veterans who have departed. I am very pleased also at being made a member of the Great War Veterans’ Association. I should like to have shaken hands with you all, but that is quite impossible. I wish you all the best of luck. Again I thank you, and good-bye.’”
The Prince’s car then departed, and followed a route along Nairn, then Morrison, down Dufferin and east on St. Clair. “With Union Jacks and bunting everywhere with cheers hearty and long from every throat from block after block – waving handkerchiefs, hats in air, whistles, horns, and bugles – Earlscourt went into a delirium of joyful welcome and a fond farewell.
“The Prince seemed to catch the spirit and atmosphere that was round about him, and as the large yellow car felt its way through the district he jumped up and sat on the back of the seat in the car, where, in response to the long lane of cheering people he waved his grey fedora hat in one hand and a tiny Union Jack in the other.” (Daily Star, August 28, 1919)
The Prince departed, the joy of the evening then spilled over into a spontaneous parade led by the Salvation Army Band along Boon and Ascot, finally ending under the arch at Dufferin and St. Clair where the organizers held an impromptu community meeting to celebrate. It was almost midnight by the time the thank you speeches concluded with a closing prayer and one more national anthem.
The afterglow of the Prince’s visit carried into the second edition of the Earlscourt Fall Fair, which ran that year from September 11 to 13. A visiting American, said to be moved by Earlscourt’s hearty welcome for the Prince, had exuberantly offered to buy the much-admired evergreen arch in order to ship it across the lake to his home town. But his offer was declined in favour of preserving it long enough to be moved to Royce Park where it would serve as the St. Clair Street Entrance to the fair. Crowds of up to 15,000 people were expected at the fair, which featured a hotly contested poultry competition, awards for the healthiest babies, and tours of a 6-room model home which had been constructed nearby at 1729 Dufferin near St. Clair, featuring the latest modern amenities such as telephone service, electric heat, and kitchen cabinets.
Mayor Tommy Church, who had been a no-show at several recent Earlscourt events, now arrived to open the fair. At the opening luncheon, the mayor announced that the years of negotiation with the Royce family for the purchase of the parkland at St. Clair and Lansdowne would finally be concluded that very day. The plan, he said, was to name it the Prince of Wales Park, in honour of the royal visit – an event which would live in the neighbourhood’s memory forever. None of it quite worked out that way. Negotiations broke down again and it would be a full year – one that proved to be as hard as any of the war years for the people of Earlscourt and Toronto – before another celebration could be held on the grounds, to mark the official opening of a park the people had been asking for since the early 1910s. In the end, the park was named not in honour of the Prince, but in honour of the community that welcomed him.
McRoberts Avenue 
How incredibly touching.
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Thank you so much for reading Sharron.
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