Events
From our great Speaker's Nights featuring experts on local and national history to specialty event programming, our goal is to entertain and educate. Here is a sample of some of the events being held in the coming months. Come join us!
NOTE: OUR SPEAKER's NIGHT SERIES IS AN EXCLUSIVE EVENT FOR MEMBERS OF THE ETOBICOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND AS SUCH, THERE IS LIMITED SEATING. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BECOMING A MEMBER, PLEASE CLICK HERE.
NOTE: OUR SPEAKER's NIGHT SERIES IS AN EXCLUSIVE EVENT FOR MEMBERS OF THE ETOBICOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND AS SUCH, THERE IS LIMITED SEATING. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BECOMING A MEMBER, PLEASE CLICK HERE.
Thursday, April 18, 2019 - Speaker's Night: Battle of the Humber and Canadian Cyclists
Author and professor Ted Glenn will share the little known story of Canadian Cyclists and how they prepared for their unique role in the Great War. Professor Glenn will speak about the Cyclists’ early training in and around Toronto. He will draw on personal diaries, memoirs, and newspaper accounts, as well as an amazing collection of photographs, some never before published. As are part of their training, regular exercises were carried out in simulated battle manoeuvres in the Humber Valley involving the Cyclists and hundreds of men from other divisions.
Ted Glenn is a professor at Humber College and writes about Canadian government and military history at home and abroad. He lives and cycles in Toronto. He had the honour of giving this presentation for the 2018 Toronto History Lecture co-sponsored by the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society and the City of Toronto Archives. His book Riding Into Battle: Canadian Cyclists in the Great War (2018, Dundurn Press) is a culmination of years of Ted’s on-going research into the Cyclist’s history.
Location: Montgomery's Inn, 4709 Dundas St W, Etobicoke, ON M9A 1A8
Time: 7:30pm (Refreshments served from 7pm onward)
Author and professor Ted Glenn will share the little known story of Canadian Cyclists and how they prepared for their unique role in the Great War. Professor Glenn will speak about the Cyclists’ early training in and around Toronto. He will draw on personal diaries, memoirs, and newspaper accounts, as well as an amazing collection of photographs, some never before published. As are part of their training, regular exercises were carried out in simulated battle manoeuvres in the Humber Valley involving the Cyclists and hundreds of men from other divisions.
Ted Glenn is a professor at Humber College and writes about Canadian government and military history at home and abroad. He lives and cycles in Toronto. He had the honour of giving this presentation for the 2018 Toronto History Lecture co-sponsored by the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society and the City of Toronto Archives. His book Riding Into Battle: Canadian Cyclists in the Great War (2018, Dundurn Press) is a culmination of years of Ted’s on-going research into the Cyclist’s history.
Location: Montgomery's Inn, 4709 Dundas St W, Etobicoke, ON M9A 1A8
Time: 7:30pm (Refreshments served from 7pm onward)
Thursday, May 16, 2019 - Speaker's Night: The Life and Times of John White, Upper Canada's First Attorney-General
John White was an English barrister who was appointed as Upper Canada’s first Attorney-General. He confronted the conflicts of the early parliament pushing through a bill abolishing the import of slaves—long before Britain or America—and fought to give Aboriginals justice in white man’s courts. In Newark (now Niagara-On-The-Lake), he helped establish the Law Society of Upper Canada (still in existence today as the Law Society of Ontario). Author and educator Ann Birch will draw on her research of John White from her historical novel Duelling in a New World to reveal how White’s life came to a tragic end in one of Canada’s most famous duels.
An award-winning educator, Ann Birch was Head of English in several Toronto high schools and an associate professor in the teacher-training programs at York University and the University of Toronto. She holds a post-graduate degree in CanLit and is currently a fiction writer, editor, historical researcher, and workshop facilitator. Duelling in a New World is her third novel. Ann is also a member of several local historical societies including eight years as a member of EHS.
Location: Montgomery's Inn, 4709 Dundas St W, Etobicoke, ON M9A 1A8
Time: 7:30pm (Refreshments served from 7pm onward)
John White was an English barrister who was appointed as Upper Canada’s first Attorney-General. He confronted the conflicts of the early parliament pushing through a bill abolishing the import of slaves—long before Britain or America—and fought to give Aboriginals justice in white man’s courts. In Newark (now Niagara-On-The-Lake), he helped establish the Law Society of Upper Canada (still in existence today as the Law Society of Ontario). Author and educator Ann Birch will draw on her research of John White from her historical novel Duelling in a New World to reveal how White’s life came to a tragic end in one of Canada’s most famous duels.
An award-winning educator, Ann Birch was Head of English in several Toronto high schools and an associate professor in the teacher-training programs at York University and the University of Toronto. She holds a post-graduate degree in CanLit and is currently a fiction writer, editor, historical researcher, and workshop facilitator. Duelling in a New World is her third novel. Ann is also a member of several local historical societies including eight years as a member of EHS.
Location: Montgomery's Inn, 4709 Dundas St W, Etobicoke, ON M9A 1A8
Time: 7:30pm (Refreshments served from 7pm onward)
Thursday, September 19, 2019 - Speaker's Night: Accidents, Illnesses, and Sirens - The History of Toronto's Ambulance Services.
Bruce Newton wanted to preserve the history of Toronto’s ambulance services. The retired paramedic compiled years of personal research resulting in the publishing of his first book in August 2017: Accidents, Illness and Sirens: The History of Toronto's Ambulance Services. Bruce will tell the story of the different ambulance services that have operated in Toronto since 1832, when the first organized form of ambulance transportation (known as the carter) was established during the deadly cholera outbreak. Over the next more than a century ambulance service continued to be provided by many different independent operators throughout the City. It wasn’t until 1975 that the private, provincial and municipal ambulances services in Toronto were amalgamated.
Bruce Newton is a 45-year Veteran of Toronto's Ambulance Service after having retired in 2017. He grew up in Etobicoke and, in 1972, enrolled in Humber College’s emergency and casualty attendant program (the first pilot community college program for paramedics in Ontario). A year later, he was hired as an ambulance driver attendant by the Metropolitan Toronto Department of Emergency Services and advanced to the position of Paramedic Superintendent before his retirement.
Location: Montgomery's Inn, 4709 Dundas St W, Etobicoke, ON M9A 1A8
Time: 7:30pm (Refreshments served from 7pm onward)
Bruce Newton wanted to preserve the history of Toronto’s ambulance services. The retired paramedic compiled years of personal research resulting in the publishing of his first book in August 2017: Accidents, Illness and Sirens: The History of Toronto's Ambulance Services. Bruce will tell the story of the different ambulance services that have operated in Toronto since 1832, when the first organized form of ambulance transportation (known as the carter) was established during the deadly cholera outbreak. Over the next more than a century ambulance service continued to be provided by many different independent operators throughout the City. It wasn’t until 1975 that the private, provincial and municipal ambulances services in Toronto were amalgamated.
Bruce Newton is a 45-year Veteran of Toronto's Ambulance Service after having retired in 2017. He grew up in Etobicoke and, in 1972, enrolled in Humber College’s emergency and casualty attendant program (the first pilot community college program for paramedics in Ontario). A year later, he was hired as an ambulance driver attendant by the Metropolitan Toronto Department of Emergency Services and advanced to the position of Paramedic Superintendent before his retirement.
Location: Montgomery's Inn, 4709 Dundas St W, Etobicoke, ON M9A 1A8
Time: 7:30pm (Refreshments served from 7pm onward)
Thursday, October 17, 2019 - Speaker's Night: Hurricane Hazel and its Legacy.
2019 marks the 65th anniversary of Hurricane Hazel, the most deadly natural disaster in recorded history to hit southern Ontario. An entire neighbourhood in the Humber River valley was washed away and the storm left in its wake many deaths and displaced people.
Richard Jordan is an EHS Board Member, having previously served as a Director from 1980 to 1996, including a two-year term as President. He also served two terms as a citizen member of the Etobicoke Historical Board in the 1980s.
Richard grew up in North York and studied Geography and Environmental Studies at York University before relocating to Etobicoke. Now retired from the City of Mississauga, where he was a Geographic Information Systems Specialist, Richard contributed a local heritage column in the Toronto Star from 1984 to 1991 as well as feature articles in a number of genealogy and history magazines.
Richard’s family genealogy book, Beyond the Great Pine Ridge, was published in 2004 and he is now working on a book about Irish Protestants in Canada. He has recently produced a mini-documentary about a true incident from his family’s past entitled Murder in the Family Tree. Richard is well known for his speaking engagements with historical societies and seniors groups.
Location: Montgomery's Inn, 4709 Dundas St W, Etobicoke, ON M9A 1A8
Time: 7:30pm (Refreshments served from 7pm onward)
2019 marks the 65th anniversary of Hurricane Hazel, the most deadly natural disaster in recorded history to hit southern Ontario. An entire neighbourhood in the Humber River valley was washed away and the storm left in its wake many deaths and displaced people.
Richard Jordan is an EHS Board Member, having previously served as a Director from 1980 to 1996, including a two-year term as President. He also served two terms as a citizen member of the Etobicoke Historical Board in the 1980s.
Richard grew up in North York and studied Geography and Environmental Studies at York University before relocating to Etobicoke. Now retired from the City of Mississauga, where he was a Geographic Information Systems Specialist, Richard contributed a local heritage column in the Toronto Star from 1984 to 1991 as well as feature articles in a number of genealogy and history magazines.
Richard’s family genealogy book, Beyond the Great Pine Ridge, was published in 2004 and he is now working on a book about Irish Protestants in Canada. He has recently produced a mini-documentary about a true incident from his family’s past entitled Murder in the Family Tree. Richard is well known for his speaking engagements with historical societies and seniors groups.
Location: Montgomery's Inn, 4709 Dundas St W, Etobicoke, ON M9A 1A8
Time: 7:30pm (Refreshments served from 7pm onward)
Thursday, November 21, 2019 - Speaker's Night: Canada's World Wonders.
Take a journey with Ron Brown across Canada to visit our world-renowned natural and historic landmarks. You'll visit our country’s natural parks, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Indigenous cultural sites including the locations of ancient inuksuit. You'll travel through the world’s longest and deepest railway tunnel, cruise the Trans-Canada Highway, explore the Grosse Îsle and Pier 21 immigration memorials, tour the graves of the failed Franklin Expedition, and visit the Vimy Ridge War Memorial, all with Ron Brown’s engaging historical commentary.
Ron Brown is a geographer and heritage writer. He has authored more than twenty books, including Rails Over the Mountains and The Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore. A past chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada, he also conducts tours along Ontario’s back roads. Ron has been a frequent EHS Speaker having given many memorable and enjoyable presentations over the years.
Location: Montgomery's Inn, 4709 Dundas St W, Etobicoke, ON M9A 1A8
Time: 7:30pm (Refreshments served from 7pm onward)
Take a journey with Ron Brown across Canada to visit our world-renowned natural and historic landmarks. You'll visit our country’s natural parks, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Indigenous cultural sites including the locations of ancient inuksuit. You'll travel through the world’s longest and deepest railway tunnel, cruise the Trans-Canada Highway, explore the Grosse Îsle and Pier 21 immigration memorials, tour the graves of the failed Franklin Expedition, and visit the Vimy Ridge War Memorial, all with Ron Brown’s engaging historical commentary.
Ron Brown is a geographer and heritage writer. He has authored more than twenty books, including Rails Over the Mountains and The Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore. A past chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada, he also conducts tours along Ontario’s back roads. Ron has been a frequent EHS Speaker having given many memorable and enjoyable presentations over the years.
Location: Montgomery's Inn, 4709 Dundas St W, Etobicoke, ON M9A 1A8
Time: 7:30pm (Refreshments served from 7pm onward)