Talk:History of Hamilton, Ontario

Reference Material
In time I hope to add to the names listed here of People from Hamilton's past (prior to 1946). I Will be adding close to 300-names to this list as well as Biographies for each and everyone of them. I'll be using the following books as my main sources of reference:


 * Dictionary of Hamilton Biography (Vol I, 1791-1875); Thomas Melville Bailey (W.L. Griffin Ltd), 1981
 * Dictionary of Hamilton Biography (Vol II, 1876-1924); Thomas Melville Bailey (W.L. Griffin Ltd), 1991
 * Dictionary of Hamilton Biography (Vol III, 1925-1939): Thomas Melville Bailey (W.L. Griffin Ltd), 1992

Nhl4hamilton 05:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

...As well, information from old newspaper articles found on microfilm at local Hamilton Public Library; 3rd-floor History department. The Hamilton Spectator, The Hamilton Herald and The Hamilton Times., (back then Hamilton was a 3-newspaper town).Nhl4hamilton 01:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced merge material from Hamilton, Ontario article
Please consider using this unsourced material from the main hamilton, ontario article. Alan.ca 23:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

History to 1913
The Iroquois Confederacy of Five (later Six) Nations first occupied the land now covered by Hamilton. French explorers made transient visits to the area, but major European settlement did not begin until United Empire Loyalists arrived around the American Revolution and War of 1812. In the latter conflict, Britain defeated American invaders at the Battle of Stoney Creek in what is now Hamilton.

Immediately after the war, in 1815, George Hamilton laid out a town site in Barton Township which eventually outstripped close rivals like Dundas. Hamilton was incorporated as a police village in 1833 and as a city in 1846.

Hamilton was part of (and served as seat for) Wentworth County since its creation in 1816. By 1851, the county acquired its final composition of townships: Ancaster, Barton, Beverly, Binbrook, East Flamborough, West Flamborough, Glanford and Saltfleet.

In the second half of the 1800s, Hamilton became identified and self-identified with heavy industry, billing itself as the Ambitious City and the Birmingham of Canada. It became a hotbed of working class activism, and in 1872 the cradle of the Nine Hour Movement which urged the universal limitation of working hours to nine per day.

The easy access to limestone from the Niagara Escarpment, coal mined in Appalachia, iron ore mined from the Canadian Shield and export markets through the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system made Hamilton an important iron- and steel-producing city. Diverse steel works combined to form the Steel Company of Canada in 1910 and the Dominion Steel Casting Company in 1912.

History 1914–1945


Hamiltonians participated in the First World War as combatants, but due to Col. Sir Sam Hughes' mobilization plans for the Canadian Expeditionary Force, there were no major battles associated purely with Hamiltonians. Heavy industry boomed as the Canadian and British governments' war-driven demands for steel, arms, munitions and textiles increased. War profiteering by manufacturers dampened some of the mood, but generally Hamiltonians pulled together.

After the Great War the school-building boom continued, including Memorial School, Allenby School and Earl Kitchener School. In the Roaring Twenties hundreds of low-rise apartment buildings, of three to four stories and six to ten units, grew up across the city, especially in the east end. The Great Depression of the 1930s hit Hamilton hard, with the simultaneous and prolonged decline in domestic consumption and international trade in finished industrial goods and building supplies dried up.

When the Second World War began, Hamiltonians - like most Canadians - welcomed the spike of economic demand but not its cause. In this war, the Canadian Army mobilized its territorially recruited militia units. As a consequence, Hamilton lost hundreds of its young men on a single day in 1942, when the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry was effectively wiped out at Dieppe. Read more of The Hamilton Spectator's coverage of the war. Hamilton also gave The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise's) to the cause.

Merge with Hamilton page
Does anyone other than myself think that parts of this page should be merged into Hamilton? Blackjays 06:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)


 * My 2-cents (Canadian)...I think the way it's being set up now with the History of Hamilton having it's own section is the ideal setup. We do have the link to the History of Hamilton on the Hamilton, Ontario page.  Everyone is doing fine job with their contributions to the Hamilton, Ontario page and all the other articles/pages related to Hamilton. Nhl4hamilton 08:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I think if we could clean this page up, we could use it as a basis for the summary on the main Hamilton, Ontario article. Alan.ca 10:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Removed from Hamilton Article, consider integrating here?
I just pulled this snippet from the lead of the Hamilton article itself. Could someone consider integrating it here? Alan.ca (talk) 09:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The Erland Lee (Museum) Home (c. 1808) is a National Historic Site of Canada on the Canadian Register of Historic Places. An Ontario Historical Plaque in front of the Erland Lee Museum was erected by the province to commemorate the First Women's Institute's role in Ontario's heritage.

What was the size/area of pre-amalgamation Hamilton?
Where could one get the information? They seem to have for Old Toronto. 24.36.54.238 (talk) 04:50, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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