This dissertation analyzes the dynamics of local government in six communities Brockville, Hamilton, Kingston, Ottawa, St. Catharines and Toronto. Traditional politico-constitutional histories were obsessed with tracing the steady growth of participatory democracy at the local level. In contrast, this study adopts a more critical perspective, documenting the manner in which local elites utilized municipal government to shape the development of the province's urban communities. Among the relevant issues examined are the incorporation of towns and cities, the regulation of the public market, the expansion of municipal services, the subsidization of internal improvement projects, and the struggle to preserve public order and morality. By means of quantitative analysis, the author considers the essential characteristics of the men elected to civic office. Merchants and other businessmen who identified their interests with the community-at-large dominated the local councils. These individuals were committed to the growth of the towns and cities they represented, and they implemented measures designed to facilitate commercial expansion and urban development. At the same time, however, fearing the negative consequences of massive socio-economic change, they utilized municipal government as a means to ensure that order and stability prevailed in the changing urban environment. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis examines the role of the legal profession in Upper Canada from 1791 to 1867. In particular it focuses on whether or not the legal profession became the elite that they were set up to be. It examines the reasons behind choosing the legal profession as the elite. Between the creation of Upper Canada and Confederation there were several political and economic changes and I examine how these changes impacted the legal profession and the role that they had to play in the legal profession. I argue that while the legal profession failed to become the aristocratic elite that the early Upper Canadian leaders hoped for, it did become distinctively Upper Canadian.

This thesis examines the role of the legal profession in Upper Canada from 1791 to 1867. In particular it focuses on whether or not the legal profession became the elite that they were set up to be. It examines the reasons behind choosing the legal profession as the elite. Between the creation of Upper Canada and Confederation there were several political and economic changes and I examine how these changes impacted the legal profession and the role that they had to play in the legal profession. I argue that while the legal profession failed to become the aristocratic elite that the early Upper Canadian leaders hoped for, it did become distinctively Upper Canadian.

In nineteenth-century Upper Canada (Ontario), professional work was a primary means by which men could improve their social status and class position. As increasing numbers of men sought entry into these learned occupations, current practitioners sought new ways of securing prominent positions in their chosen professions and asserting themselves as having expertise. This dissertation studies the activities and experiences of the five physicians who, as the first medical superintendents (head physicians) at the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, Toronto from 1840 to 1865, sought such enhanced professional status. Opened in January 1841 as a public welfare institution, the Toronto asylum was housed initially in a former jail; in 1850 it was relocated to a permanent building on Queen Street West. During the asylum’s first twenty-five years of operation physicians Drs. William Rees, Walter Telfer, George Hamilton Park, John Scott, and Joseph Workman successively held the position of medical superintendent at the institution. Given the often insecure status of physicians working in private practice, these doctors hoped that government employment at the asylum would bring greater stability and prestige by establishing them as experts in the treatment of insanity. Yet professional growth in Upper Canada during the Union period (1840-1867) occurred within the context of the colony’s rapidly changing socio-political culture and processes of state development, factors that contributed to the ability of these doctors to “professionalize” as medical superintendents. Rees, Telfer, Park, and Scott would never realize enhanced status largely due to the constraints of Upper Canada’s Georgian social culture in the 1840s and early 1850s. During the 1850s, however, demographic, political, and religious changes in the colony brought about a cultural transition, introducing social values that were more characteristically Victorian. For Joseph Workman, whose beliefs more reflected the new Victorian culture, this cultural shift initially involved him in professional conflicts brought about by the social tensions occurring as part of the transition. Nevertheless, by the 1860s, changes in government led to the development of new legislation and departmentalization of welfare and the public service that led him to gain recognition as a medical expert in a unique field.

In nineteenth-century Upper Canada (Ontario), professional work was a primary means by which men could improve their social status and class position. As increasing numbers of men sought entry into these learned occupations, current practitioners sought new ways of securing prominent positions in their chosen professions and asserting themselves as having expertise. This dissertation studies the activities and experiences of the five physicians who, as the first medical superintendents (head physicians) at the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, Toronto from 1840 to 1865, sought such enhanced professional status. Opened in January 1841 as a public welfare institution, the Toronto asylum was housed initially in a former jail; in 1850 it was relocated to a permanent building on Queen Street West. During the asylum’s first twenty-five years of operation physicians Drs. William Rees, Walter Telfer, George Hamilton Park, John Scott, and Joseph Workman successively held the position of medical superintendent at the institution. Given the often insecure status of physicians working in private practice, these doctors hoped that government employment at the asylum would bring greater stability and prestige by establishing them as experts in the treatment of insanity. Yet professional growth in Upper Canada during the Union period (1840-1867) occurred within the context of the colony’s rapidly changing socio-political culture and processes of state development, factors that contributed to the ability of these doctors to “professionalize” as medical superintendents. Rees, Telfer, Park, and Scott would never realize enhanced status largely due to the constraints of Upper Canada’s Georgian social culture in the 1840s and early 1850s. During the 1850s, however, demographic, political, and religious changes in the colony brought about a cultural transition, introducing social values that were more characteristically Victorian. For Joseph Workman, whose beliefs more reflected the new Victorian culture, this cultural shift initially involved him in professional conflicts brought about by the social tensions occurring as part of the transition. Nevertheless, by the 1860s, changes in government led to the development of new legislation and departmentalization of welfare and the public service that led him to gain recognition as a medical expert in a unique field.

The purpose of the dissertation is to argue that John Strachan’s involvement in politics and education stemmed from his belief that a generally Christian and particularly Anglican Tory British culture would provide the healthiest form of society in Upper Canada. The project provides a counterbalancing view to the common narrative that Strachan was an ambitious and greedy theological turncoat who stifled the political, educational, and religious development of Upper Canada in the first half of the nineteenth century. It argues instead that Strachan was consistent with the thoughts and beliefs of an eighteenth-century Anglican Tory. Chapters 1 to 3 detail the key political and religious events of the eighteenth century in Britain and North America, as well as Strachan’s early life and personal influences. These chapters show that Strachan’s worldview was shaped by the events of the eighteenth century, and that it is difficult to understand his beliefs and actions without recognising the formative power of those occurrences. Chapters 4 to 6 detail Strachan's theological beliefs in the three central areas of church, education, and politics, emphasising the firm and unchanging nature of these beliefs, and their defining role in his life and actions. Chapters 7 to 9 illustrate how he put those theological beliefs into practice in the three instances of the Clergy Reserves, King’s College, and the battle over Responsible Government. Compromise was unthinkable for Strachan, and caused his defeat in each of the three engagements, a fact that dispels the idea that he was motivated solely or mainly by personal ambition. Instead, Strachan is shown to be an Anglican Tory, theologically motivated and consistent in his support for the established church, Christian university education, and the need to preserve the “Glorious Constitution.” / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p> "A Worthy Cause" brings to life a topic never before researched on the nineteenth-century Regular Baptist position surrounding the preservation of the Lord's Day (also known as Sabbatarianism) in Upper Canada. Within nineteenth-century Evangelicalism in the province the crusade for the protection of the Lord's Day was preeminent among social reform initiatives. Canadian Regular Baptists in Upper Canada viewed the observance and celebration of the Lord's Day as vital and of paramount significance in the quest for social reform and religious piety. Viewing this topic through the lens of various newspapers that made up the Regular Baptist press, this thesis demonstrates why the Lord's Day was considered to be one of the most worthy causes among nineteenth-century Upper Canadian Regular Baptists. The thesis contends that Baptist support for the Lord's Day was rooted in a number of interrelated convictions: its scriptural, doctrinal and confessional significance, its observation strengthened personal holiness and the family unit, its desecration was harmful to society, and lastly, its observance would bring a blessing to the nation. The Baptist approach was especially unique in that Baptists, champions of the separation of Church and State and religious liberty, deviated from their evangelical counterparts when it came to the legal enforcement of the Lord's Day. The thesis is an original contribution to the social and intellectual history of Baptists and the province at large.</p> / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

The focus of this work is on how the educational elements that made up the institution called the British public school developed to form an "imperial mentality" among its students, and how these elements were transported, albeit with some modification, to the periphery of Empire. The existence of a broad and varied curriculum worked to form an imperial mentality that supported the aims of the British Empire from the mid-eighteenth century through the First World War. The use of a case study featuring Upper Canada College, one of the oldest Canadian "public" schools, further illuminates the influence and legacy of the public school model. Throughout the research, references to Upper Canada College will serve to focus the attention of the reader to the manner in which the British public school shaped the curriculum and the ethos of the College.

No description available.

For Anglicans and Presbyterians, the Revolutionary War had proven the "faithless" character of the American nation. The American Methodist focus on individualism, exciting and loud worship, lack of educated clergy, enthusiasm, and perceived adherence to the Republican ideas dominant in the culture of the United States were viewed as antithetical to the more British focus on social responsibility, sober teaching, and adherence to the British king and constitution. With the 1812 declaration of war, the churches with stronger transatlantic connections were presented with powerful proof that their suspicions were based in reality and that the need to expel the faithless national foe of America from British soil coincided with the clerical need to expel the faithless doctrines of the Methodists as well. Whether critiquing the United States or the frontier religion that was deemed too similar in its teachings and practice, the Anglicans, Presbyterians and- to a lesser extent-Wesleyan Methodists were constructing a ignore British version of British North American culture in order to combat what they perceived to be the growing threat of faithless, American values. These arguments found their impetus in the mixed composition of colonial inhabitants, the dubious loyalties of the American-born farmers in Upper Canada, and the events of the War of 1812. In order to unite such disparate peoples, the clergy defined and celebrated England's Christian character to demonstrate to that fragmented and diverse collection of inhabitants the benefits of being loyal subjects of God's empire rather than foolish citizens of a faithless nation. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)