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21 votes
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0 votes
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GWEN
commented
Why not celebrate the cutting through of the Governor's Road in the fall of 1793, as recorded in "Mrs. Simcoe's Diary", a decision by her husband that put future settlement of London town on the maps ? The name is not unknown even today, and links us to the history of other settlements on the way.
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7 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
Perhaps we could import that American State's year 'round good weather.
Less talk of "celebrating" our local heritage - whatever that's supposed to mean - and more public education on what buildings and streetscapes embody the best of the past. How about a mass demonstration of interest in it by a Flash Heritage Walk of Old London. Must be someone around who can work out a plan. Maybe congregate at the 1st remaining public building, much-altered London District Court House, then up to the 1st remaining private house, much-altered Eldon House, with handout reproductions of them in their settler years appearance.. Then to the Ridout Restoration group, maybe to church at St. Paul's..etc etc. "Collecting" the Federal and Provincial plaques that identify people, places and events and any local Library ones... -
10 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
Wasn't there a streetcar line out to Springbank years ago ? Unlikely taxpayers still own the rail line property...
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17 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
Let us wait until the Provincial election to see if there is an Councillor Branscombe to speak to issue. Any successor would be the voice of our ward.
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
What could be done to expand City Hall, using the square behind it ?
Seems to us this design of 40 years ago never really took off, but taxpayers do own a good piece of land there -
10 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
To "restore" the old courthouse to it original late 1820's form would mean tearing down the Ridout St. entrance porch, the south 1911 addition, the entire c1878 east half, demolishing the 1845 jail addition, so a retangular building looks down hill to the river forks. Check the Museum London website and see if you can pick up an early military officer painting of it. Re the interior you would have to undo the glamourizing c 1982, and return it to the lawyer-hated dark environment, and the prisoner-hated basement jail. Corfield and a photographer did a final book on it called 'Towers of London 'or similiar - LPL catalogue will show it. This building is fascinating in it architectural life story so if you go, look carefully around it, study the pictures on the lobby walls and ask questions. Remember the Judge sat opposite where County Council sits, look up and see where the original east wall was. And ponder the loss of the brooding jail wall about 25 years ago...
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21 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
Our pre-history with the creation of Upper Canada and the anglicization effect, was 1n 1792 July 16, Lt. Governor Simcoe, from Kingston, renamed much of this area by Proclamation. There wasn't anyone settled at this middle fork with the oral history native name and the mapped French one to object - or even to know his grandiose scheme. The change says "...on the river La Tranche (to be called the Thames...". And there certainly wasn't and London settlement here - that wouldn't happen until the next century, focussed on the creation of the London District Court House in the late1820s. When talking about local history we have to remember that people from other places can read too, so myths are soon exploded. JGS cleared out after a few years, along with his vision, dying in England in 1806. Much of his renaming was undone, but this site, as yet undeveloped remained on the speculative maps of his wife.
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81 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
No suggestion of forcing use. Just thinking about how shopping actually works. One goes empty handed, but needs to get home with purchases.
This needs to be analyzed. Some people may never have experienced shopping without a car. Response was really to this wishful thinking Comment -- "As a single person living alone in downtown London, I would LOVE it if there was a grocery store that I could walk to. I'm pretty sure I could manage carrying three bags." Of what? How far? How often? In Winter? Prospective merchants would look at this sort of thing and Londoners need to examine their personal shopping patterns and any unmet needs. And the variety of stores these days that provide general merchandise.
Gave up the Market years, just couldn't carry enough on the bus make it worth it to north London, and paying a taxi eliminated any saving. Have also shopped by bike and again, one can only safely carry so much. What do a variety of downtown merchants say about how their customers deal with this? Some of us even order by phone, and have a courier to the pickup.An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
Steph - of course the downtown "neighbourhood" needs a place to buy food beyond what the Market provides. Where it's not necessary also to provide car park land, just bicyle racks. But until some entrepreneur decides to create one, it is necessary for us all to analyse what we buy in person, and how we get our parcels back to our homes. Unfortunately the reporter did not do a walk through on what basics can be carried for a distance or hauled in a bundle buggy or on a bike, depending on the number of people in the household, regular shopping pattern and and shopper's own physical condition. Shopping for one no children underfoot is quite a different experience even from your grandparents' situation.
We assume anyone considering going into business there will do a study of the needs, but so do potential grocery customers. Is it sustainable? Another option is a citizen-organized facility like the old food co-op where members help manage it.An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
"Everyone" can't Walk to their local grocery, and many more can't carry the week's food home by foot. Or even by bike. How does the Pedro family handle this basic household need? Do you even let your children if old enough yet, go to the corner store for forgotten bread ?
Consider how often media cast their stories re We and Everybody without
consider the diversity of personal situations in a healthy community. -
12 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
Actually a community named "London" did not exist to beat Muddy York out for the role capital of Upper Canada in 1793, succeeding Niagara, the Crown Reserved site was unhabitated. We can blame amateur mapmaker Mrs. Simcoe at Niagara that this English name hung around past their time here, to be picked up for other jurisdiction purposes. Trevor is to be congratulated on being a PlaqueWatcher with #1 in OHF series, the "Founding of London" on the grounds of the old London District courthouse at the foot of Dundas, aka the Governor's Road. (Seen the companion one down at the lake, Vittoria Courts?)
This wilderness site was merely his empire building vision, laughed at by such as Kingston's Cartwright - "How would you get there, by balloon? " and vetoed by his boss Lord Dorchester in Lower Canada.
Many of those early London Township immigrant farming family members became settlers at this Forks to provide needed commerce and industry to complement the justice functions - some Surnames still in the phonebook. today as well as out in the country. Interesting Land grant lists re the Talbot Settlers of 1818 and '19 can be found online, and in Rosser's book re London Township pioneers.
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58 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
The Forks ? - try Winnipeg. Lots of rivers have "forks" and settlement often begins there. The Thames runs along the spine of sw Ontario and a number of communities formed along its banks, and a number were originally planned.. Joe - look at the map today at historical ones by Bellin, Mrs. Simcoe, Brigley, etc., to see what the Founder thought he waterway would do to anchof his vision of a wilderness Capital of the Canadas - inland transportation. Wrong. Portage to York?? And sticking this old world city name on the maps stuck us with the London parva personality, whereas those who came in to populate it were really not from England, let alone its capital.
While the District Courthouse had a legitimate reason to be built there 1829+, the imposition of the Moriyama building in 1980 doomed this area, blocking off the view and complicating further access to the flats. Mind you the police station was there for years near the jail. Unfortunately the river is irrelevant to many in the now-vast geography of London today. Most suggestions are to tart the Forks up more, rather than having a protected natural area in the heart of the city - think of walking parks in the other London.. (The idea some have that this community was an extension of a native settlement is hilarious - our first citizen was a Scot, his Westminster Township wife, a business woman, and they ran a hotel and a drinking establishment..) Would paths all along the river branches help for the less athletic to enjoy this asset too?
Can you be encouraged to publish the little description of the founding, the 1793 Littlehales' Journal, so we all have the understanding of our siting? Well out of copyright. -
16 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
Take a picnic.
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108 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
Greg - look back at the origins of any permanent community at this inland riverside location. When this middle Forks site was Reserved by Lt. Gov. Simcoe for his fantasy of a Capital City rising in the wilderness, he thought the river was navigable, and safe from American agression. The place was finally settled when the Courts were move inland from Lake Erie, to the site, more central for the agricultural settlement in the townships. Read the Founding of London provincial plaque and the Vittoria one for a quick history fix. Not much can be done about it now, so we must capitalize on the foresight of his legacy of a connecting Governor's Road (now Dundas St.) and the coming of the railroad. Back some decades, London was more Roman Catholic than the various protestant dominations as we recall it..
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
Do media people today expect too much interest in them, as "celebrities"?
That went out with the mythic fedora and PRESS card image years ago.
There was a day when a newspaper person in the neighbourhood would be the centre of the action. Ideas, information and sometimes help, using professional leverage. Interaction with some of you online suggests you are not all rthe knowledgeable or gracious people to whom old, young and family class residents would look to for leadership in a crisis.
Yes, London has a staid past which made it a comfortable place to raise a family. Where everybody pretty well knew everybody making us self-sufficient. And it does need to be gingered up to compete in the larger world.
Start with the City Hall website where our "Creativity" side is portrayed with a woman of colour painted up and singing and dancing about. Sexist, racist and just ethnic Arts, not intellectual adventurousness..
One "loser" image of London enabled by media in a hospital-dominated community is people always shoving their personal health problems in everyone else's faces and demanding money. Lots of us have challenges and deal with them privately.
Good luck in this endeavour, a brilliant use of New Media resources. Hope we will from churches and schools about their role in creating and nurturing their geographic neighbourhoods. -
41 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
It isn't necessary to "celebrate" aspects of the community - that overused media favourite is a real turn off. We need to understand them and be able to communicate them to others and discuss them. That said, didn't the
"Forest City" - first used in the LFP in the 1870s or thereabouts ? - come from the original amused reference to "a London in the Bush" when the idea of creating from scratch a capital of All Canada (UC+LC) in the empty wilderness was floated in 1793 by Lt. Gov. JG Simcoe ? (Like Brasilia of later era..) appears in print about the Courthouse construction era, no official settlement yet, The Forks one name for location. (Huge building rising in the wilderness...a welcome sight for weary travellers...)There's a booklet at London Room, done for a Centennial Museum (RIP) exhibit at EPW Library property (RIP) about 1977 titled "LONDON IN THE BUSH". Factcheck by D Brock, composed by volunteer Vi Cunningham.
Heartily support the move to get rid of the tiresome trivializing tree logo which replaced our Victoriana "Coat of Arms" (adopted 1840 if you ask Mayor's office, 1855 re City Incorporation if you check a history book..
.Even worse is the menopausal purple Dove of the Holy Spirit or something used elsewhere. Giving us the bird... -
16 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment GWEN
commented
Not sure what former name GVM wants to revert to, so perhaps we could review how this community came to its location and got its UK referential name. As for Kitchener, its war hero personality-based name replaced Berlin for obvious Great War reasons, nothing to do with earlier overseas battle memorialized by Waterloo. Thunder Bay was chosen when the two municipalities amalgamated.
Do you know how the Thames got its name ? There was no one here/To give two damns/When Simcoe renamed/This river the Thames.
On July 16 1792, buried in a Proclamation issued from Kingston Ontario.
Not even sure where the river ran...
A fair number of Canadian municipalities are named by emigrants to recall their origins. "London", however was just dropped on the land and we are stuck with it. Other secondary Londons have a modifer. Since we also got the river name, how about London Parva ??