(from Anglo-Celtic Roots, Volume 2, Nos 3 and 4, 1996)
England's largest county is well represented in the names of Canada, especially in Southern Ontario. Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe made every effort to give English names to counties, towns, townships and rivers, in order to impress on the Loyalists that there was a continuing British presence north of the lost American colonies.
In 1792 he named York County, which then embraced the present areas of the City of Toronto, York Region, the western part of Durham Region, and Peel Region. He also gave the name York Township to Dublin Township, given the previous year by surveyor Augustus Jones.
After arriving in Toronto Harbour the following spring, he decided that the rising village, protected by the harbour, should be named in honour of a victory of Prince Frederick, the Duke of York, in Flanders. Local residents were not fond of the name, especially when it was called Muddy York, and Little York, and by 1834, when it was incorporated as a city, the name Toronto was restored. As a name, York has remained well represented in the area, including the trendy Yorkville, and York University.
Elizabeth Simcoe, who arrived in Toronto Harbour ahead of her husband, admired the steep bluffs east of York, which reminded her of the cliffs near Scarborough, England. Although Jones had named the township there after Glasgow, Scotland, the lieutenant-governor renamed it Scarborough. Finding the next township east of that called Edinburgh, he called it Pickering, after a place west of Scarborough, England. The township to the east of that he called Whitby, after a town on the North Sea coast of Yorkshire.
Two rivers flow into Toronto Harbour, the Humber and the Don. The former recalls the River Humber, which separates Yorkshire from Lincolnshire, and the latter is named after a tributary of it, which rises near Sheffield, in southwest Yorkshire.
At the head of Lake Ontario, Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe named Burlington Bay, the triangular-shaped water body, inside the curving sandbar of Burlington Beach, after Bridlington, in southeastern Yorkshire. The Ontario government decided to rename it Hamilton Harbour in 1919, but locally it is still called Burlington Bay -- as witnessed in the impressive Burlington Bay Skyway, which carries the Queen Elizabeth Way, on its route from Toronto to Fort Erie. The city of Burlington was not named until 1873, having been earlier called Wellington Square.
Just west of Burlington is the town of Flamborough, established in the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth in 1974. Its area in 1792 was divided among Beverley Township, and East and West Flamborough townships, taking their names from Beverley and Flamborough in southeastern Yorkshire. Sheffield, a community in the town of Flamborough, is called after the Yorkshire city.
Burlington is not the only name given a twisted spelling after crossing the ocean. Where Lake Simcoe joins Lake Couchiching, and on the east side of Orillia, is the small community of Atherley. It was named in 1851 after Azerley, north of Leeds, Yorkshire. Alliston, now in the town of New Tecumseth, Simcoe County, was named in 1847 by William Fletcher, after his hometown in Yorkshire. There is no record of an Alliston in Yorkshire, so I have concluded he came from Allerston, west of Scarborough.
Malton, now in the city of Mississauga, the location of the Lester B. Pearson International Airport, or, as many used to call it, Malton Airport, was named in the 1830s by Richard Halliday, after his birthplace in northern Yorkshire. Sutton, in the town of Georgina, York Region, was named in 1885, likely for a place on the east side of Kingston upon Hull, in eastern Yorkshire. Bradford -- now part of the town of. Bradford West Gwillimbury in Simcoe County -- was named in 1840 by Joel Flesher Robinson, after his hometown in Yorkshire.
Castleford, at the mouth of the Bonnechere River, has one of the earliest post offices established in Renfrew County. It was named in 1832 by Lieutenant Christopher Bell, after his native Castleford, southeast of the city of Leeds. He had received a land grant there in the 1820s.
Just north of Napanee, and in Lennox and Addington County, is the small community of Selby. It had been first called Gallagher's Comers, but was renamed in 1853 by Edward Storr, after his hometown south of the city of York.
The village of Clifford is in Wellington County, south of Hanover. First known as Minto Village, it was called Clifford in 1856 by miller and innkeeper Francis Brown, after his native village northeast of the city of Leeds. The nearby village of Teeswater was also named the same year, after the Teeswater River, a tributary of the Saugeen. The river had been named by surveyors four years earlier after the River Tees, which separates Yorkshire from County Durham.
The community of Cottam, east of Windsor, was named in 1877 by Major W.E. Wagstaff. after Cottam, east of the city of York. He had spent his childhood there, before settling in Essex County in 1846.
Yorkshire names occur in other provinces in Canada, especially in Quebec. The town of Bromptonville, north of Sherbrooke, took its name from the township of Brompton, which was erected in 1801. The township was named after a place in North Yorkshire, celebrated as the site where the English led by Henry II defeated the Scots in 1158, forcing the Scottish king Malcolm IV to give up Westmorland, Cumberland, and Northumberland. The Catholic parish at Bromptonville was called Sainte-Praxède-de- Brompton in 1845, after a second-century Roman girl who gave her life for her faith. Saint-Denis-de-Brompton and Saint-François-Xavier-de-Brompton are municipal parishes west of the town.
The township of Leeds, north of Thetford Mines, was proclaimed in 1802, and named after the English city. Its main urban centre is Saint-Jacques-de-Leeds.
Several townships north of Hull bear distinctive English names. Beginning with Ripon, northeast of Buckingham, and passing west along the second rank of townships, Wakefield, Masham, Aldfield, Huddersfield, and Pontefract all trace their names to English villages and boroughs in Yorkshire.
Brighouse is a neighbourhood in the city of Richmond, British Columbia. It was named after Samuel Brighouse(1836-1913), a native of Huddersfield, Yorkshire, which is beside the borough of Brighouse. Samuel arrived in British Columbia in 1862, and two years later bought 697 acres of land in Richmond.
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