Rousing moment in a brilliant talk by John Raulston Saul at AGO on Wednesday: "Gerald McMaster and his team have managed to finally put a stake through the heart of this man!" (William Henry Boulton, owner of The Grange) (smattering of audience applause and wide-spread jaw-gaping...I was doing both.)
The lecture is going to be podcast at some point. I'll keep ya posted.
Do they still have that historical/interpretative stuff on the main floor? Reading that alone made me hate William Henry Boulton.
A raving Tory, a member of the Family Compact, what's not to love?
Don't you appreciate the legacy of colonial wannabee ankle-lickers that built our grand Canadian institutions?
excerpt from an essay I wrote for school a couple of years ago:
John Lownsbrough’s book about the Boulton family, The Priviledged Few, reads in parts like a Monty Python skit about upper class twits. The first Boulton on record is an English landowner named Henry Boulton of Moulton. He had two sons — D’Arcy, who emigrated to Upper Canada in the late 18th century, and Henry, who succeeded his father as the second Henry Boulton of Moulton. The industrial revolution was making it difficult for English gentlemen without titles to maintain a life of idle priviledge. D’Arcy had hopes to be a lawyer, but before he was able to pass the bar his wife, Elizabeth Forster became pregnant and he needed money. D’Arcy opened a the Woollen Yarn Company which shortly went bankrupt. On the advice of a friend he decided to seek his fortune in the New World. D’Arcy Boulton’s social status did not open many doors for him in the United States and so he and his family made their way to Upper Canada where British class structures ensured him entitlement to an eminent social position.
When a ship sank in 1804, carrying the Solicitor General Robert Gray, Boulton was promoted into his position. Ironically, the death of Robert Gray also meant that his land was available for purchase by D’Arcy’s son, D’Arcy Boulton Junior, in 1808. It was here that D’Arcy Boulton Junior built The Grange.
The Boultons had close ties to other influential families. D’Arcy Junior married Sarah Anne Robinson, sister of John Beverly Robinson who became the Chief Justice of Upper Canada. The Boultons and Robinsons also had close ties with the older and influential John Strachan, who was the first Anglican Bishop of Toronto. While each of the Boultons achieved a degree of prominence, they were not well-respected by their peers, and their pretentions were fraught with embarrassing mishaps, rumours, petty crimes, angry creditors and conflicts of interest. One of the strangest stories, about which there is frustratingly little information, is that D’Arcy Junior’s brother, Charles, died as a young boy after being struck by a servant. One can’t help but wonder what kinds of pressures this servant had been suffering.
York’s administration was comprised of a small group of bumbling artistocrats who pleaded and connived their way into stations of influence. The generations of Boultons travelled periodically back and forth to England in the hopes of elevating their positions, while back in Upper Canada they fumbled and clung to whatever shreds of respect they could muster. As Lownsbrough explains,
“York was a jumpy place. Delicate sensibilities remained particularly alert to offence, and one’s honour in a state of constant peril.”
The Family Compact also suffered under the constant teasing of William Lyon Mackenzie, a reformer with a newspaper who never missed a chance to embarrass the Boultons and their peers.
As the years went by, the powers of this small elite diminished. More and more immigrants came to York, all with varying degrees of education. By 1834, when the city became Toronto and William Lyon Mackenzie became its mayor, there was a middle class developing that eroded the status of the Family Compact. Governing powers shifted. D’Arcy Boulton Junior’s position as Auditor General of Land Patents was made redundant and his pleas to England fell on deaf ears.
After D’Arcy died, his son, William Boulton, lived with his mother, Sarah Anne Robinson. William married a rich American, Harriette Mann Dixon, and brought her to join them at the Grange. William’s career was as volatile as the other Boultons. With the support of the Orange Order, he served as mayor of Toronto for several years, but as an emblem of fading Tory power he was far from universally respected. Reformer George Brown wrote about Boulton,
“His manner of speaking is boyish — the kind of half-joking half-doubting style which a priviledged, petted young man is apt to adopt among his seniors.”
William Boulton was also in money trouble with his law firm. Much of the land surrounding the Grange was sold off, or deeded to creditors. William died in 1874. Harriette, now the sole owner of the Grange, remarried the following year to an American, Goldwin Smith.
In 1902 Edmund Walker, a banker and champion of the arts, approached Harriette and Goldwin to ask if they would will The Grange to the Art Gallery of Ontario (then called the Art Museum of Toronto), and they agreed. In 1911 the AGO took posession of the Grange, and bought the land north of it, to Dundas, knocked down houses and started building a gallery that would attach to back of the old building. They opened their first exhibition in the Grange in 1913, and held the inaugural exhibition in their new expanded space in 1926.
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The lecture is going to be podcast at some point. I'll keep ya posted.
- sally mckay 10-30-2009 3:00 pm
Do they still have that historical/interpretative stuff on the main floor? Reading that alone made me hate William Henry Boulton.
- M.Jean 10-30-2009 8:52 pm
A raving Tory, a member of the Family Compact, what's not to love?
Don't you appreciate the legacy of colonial wannabee ankle-lickers that built our grand Canadian institutions?
- L.M. 10-30-2009 9:37 pm
excerpt from an essay I wrote for school a couple of years ago:
The Family Compact also suffered under the constant teasing of William Lyon Mackenzie, a reformer with a newspaper who never missed a chance to embarrass the Boultons and their peers.John Lownsbrough’s book about the Boulton family, The Priviledged Few, reads in parts like a Monty Python skit about upper class twits. The first Boulton on record is an English landowner named Henry Boulton of Moulton. He had two sons — D’Arcy, who emigrated to Upper Canada in the late 18th century, and Henry, who succeeded his father as the second Henry Boulton of Moulton. The industrial revolution was making it difficult for English gentlemen without titles to maintain a life of idle priviledge. D’Arcy had hopes to be a lawyer, but before he was able to pass the bar his wife, Elizabeth Forster became pregnant and he needed money. D’Arcy opened a the Woollen Yarn Company which shortly went bankrupt. On the advice of a friend he decided to seek his fortune in the New World. D’Arcy Boulton’s social status did not open many doors for him in the United States and so he and his family made their way to Upper Canada where British class structures ensured him entitlement to an eminent social position. When a ship sank in 1804, carrying the Solicitor General Robert Gray, Boulton was promoted into his position. Ironically, the death of Robert Gray also meant that his land was available for purchase by D’Arcy’s son, D’Arcy Boulton Junior, in 1808. It was here that D’Arcy Boulton Junior built The Grange.
The Boultons had close ties to other influential families. D’Arcy Junior married Sarah Anne Robinson, sister of John Beverly Robinson who became the Chief Justice of Upper Canada. The Boultons and Robinsons also had close ties with the older and influential John Strachan, who was the first Anglican Bishop of Toronto. While each of the Boultons achieved a degree of prominence, they were not well-respected by their peers, and their pretentions were fraught with embarrassing mishaps, rumours, petty crimes, angry creditors and conflicts of interest. One of the strangest stories, about which there is frustratingly little information, is that D’Arcy Junior’s brother, Charles, died as a young boy after being struck by a servant. One can’t help but wonder what kinds of pressures this servant had been suffering.
York’s administration was comprised of a small group of bumbling artistocrats who pleaded and connived their way into stations of influence. The generations of Boultons travelled periodically back and forth to England in the hopes of elevating their positions, while back in Upper Canada they fumbled and clung to whatever shreds of respect they could muster. As Lownsbrough explains,
As the years went by, the powers of this small elite diminished. More and more immigrants came to York, all with varying degrees of education. By 1834, when the city became Toronto and William Lyon Mackenzie became its mayor, there was a middle class developing that eroded the status of the Family Compact. Governing powers shifted. D’Arcy Boulton Junior’s position as Auditor General of Land Patents was made redundant and his pleas to England fell on deaf ears.
After D’Arcy died, his son, William Boulton, lived with his mother, Sarah Anne Robinson. William married a rich American, Harriette Mann Dixon, and brought her to join them at the Grange. William’s career was as volatile as the other Boultons. With the support of the Orange Order, he served as mayor of Toronto for several years, but as an emblem of fading Tory power he was far from universally respected. Reformer George Brown wrote about Boulton, William Boulton was also in money trouble with his law firm. Much of the land surrounding the Grange was sold off, or deeded to creditors. William died in 1874. Harriette, now the sole owner of the Grange, remarried the following year to an American, Goldwin Smith.
In 1902 Edmund Walker, a banker and champion of the arts, approached Harriette and Goldwin to ask if they would will The Grange to the Art Gallery of Ontario (then called the Art Museum of Toronto), and they agreed. In 1911 the AGO took posession of the Grange, and bought the land north of it, to Dundas, knocked down houses and started building a gallery that would attach to back of the old building. They opened their first exhibition in the Grange in 1913, and held the inaugural exhibition in their new expanded space in 1926.
- sally mckay 10-30-2009 9:44 pm