Archives: Historical Figures

Born in St. Thomas, Ontario, Mitchell Frederick Hepburn attended school in Elgin County and hoped to become a lawyer. His formal education ended abruptly, however, when someone threw an apple at a visiting dignitary, Sir Adam Beck, and knocked his silk top hat off his head. Hepburn was accused of the deed and denied it but refused to identify the culprit. Refusing to apologize, he walked out of his high school and obtained a job as a bank clerk at the Canadian Bank of Commerce where he worked from 1913 to 1917. He eventually became an accountant at the bank’s Winnipeg branch.

At the outbreak of World War I, Hepburn had already enlisted in the 34th Fort Garry Horse but was unable to obtain his parents’ consent to sign up for the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He then became a lieutenant in the 25th Elgin Regiment of the Canadian Militia, and was conscripted to the 1st (Western Ontario) Battalion in 1918. He transferred to the Royal Air Force and was sent to Deseronto for training but suffered injuries in an automobile accident that summer, followed by being bedridden by the influenza in the fall, both of which kept him from active service. He returned to St. Thomas to run his family’s onion farm.

After the war, Hepburn joined the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) helping to start its branch in Elgin County, but by the mid-1920s he switched to the Liberal Party. In the 1926 election, he was elected to the House of Commons of Canada as a representative of Elgin West, and was overwhelmingly re-elected in the 1930 election.

Later that year he became leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario. His support of farmers and free trade, and his former membership in the UFO allowed him to attract Harry Nixon’s rump of UFO Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) into the Liberal Party (as Liberal-Progressives). This and the Great Depression led to the defeat of the unpopular Conservative premier George Stewart Henry in the 1934 provincial election. His stance against the prohibition of alcohol allowed him to break the Liberal Party from the militant prohibitionist stance that had helped reduce it to a rural, Protestant south western Ontario rump in the 1920s.

As premier, Hepburn undertook a number of measures that enhanced his reputation as the practitioner of a highly vigorous style. In a public show of austerity, he closed Chorley Park, the residence of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, auctioned off the chauffeur driven limousines that had been used by the previous Conservative cabinet, and fired many civil servants. To improve the province’s welfare, he gave money to mining industries in Northern Ontario and introduced compulsory milk pasteurization (in so doing, he has been credited with virtually wiping out bovine tuberculosis in the province). Breaking with the temperance stance of previous Liberal governments, Hepburn expanded the availability of liquor by allowing hotels to sell beer and wine.

In 1942, Hepburn resigned as premier, but retained his seat until 1945, when he retired to his farm, where he died of a heart attack in 1953. His funeral was attended by five former premiers, and Rev. Harry Scott Rodney observed in his eulogy: “You met him, you shook hands with him, you were warmed by his famous smile, and you heard him say, ‘I’m Mitch Hepburn’; and in a few minutes you were calling him Mitch, and you liked it, and you felt you had always known him.”

Hepburn was the first Liberal to become Premier since George William Ross, and was the last Liberal Premier to win two successive majority terms until Dalton McGuinty.

In 2008, the Thames Valley District School Board named a school after him in St. Thomas. The school is located only miles away from his family’s farm, Bannockburn Farms, it was officially opened in January 2009.

In 2007, the Ontario Minister of Culture announced funding for the Premiers’ Gravesites Program, delivered by the Ontario Heritage Trust, to mark and commemorate the gravesites of Ontario’s premiers. Specially designed bronze markers inscribed with the individual premier’s name and dates of service are installed at each gravesite, along with flagpoles flying the Ontario flag, where possible. This program is administered by the Ontario Heritage Trust with funding support from the Government of Ontario. The Trust is an agency of the government dedicated to identifying, preserving, protecting and promoting Ontario’s heritage for the benefit of present and future generations.

Foote, 58 years Fireman – St. Thomas Times Journal – 26-Feb-1935

For 58 years a member of the St. Thomas Fire Department, and a member of the Fenian Raids, William Foote died at 86 yrs old.

Born in St. Thomas, Mr. Foote spent his entire life here, seeing the place to city hood from the tiny village in which he was born, then centered in the Kettle Creek Valley at the foot of Talbot street hill. Only one short period of his life was spent away from St. Thomas; for eighteen days he served as a member of the St. Thomas Cavalry and was sent to Windsor during the Fenian Uprising. Beyond that short period, his entire life was spent here, where he faithfully employed his time as a member of all the fire departments the city ever had.

Mr. Foote attended a little school at the foot of the hill on the Fingal Road just a little beyond where the M.C.R. bridge now crosses Kettle Creek and of which there is no written record. He later attended Central School, which grew from a four-roomed structure to the building which is now Wellington Street School.

Mr. Foote married Mary Jane Lewis and had two sons – George E. Foote and Lewis Foote.

In 1873, he joined the Beaver Fire Department when it included such well known old-timers as Fred Doggett, William Walbourn, Sam Bowlby and Fire Chief “Sandy” Henderson. He automatically became a member of the city fire department when the municipality undertook to establish and maintain its own department. He was the first paid member of this department.

Fires Came First

Recalling the early days on the department, Mr Foote was cited as saying that one of the duties of the department members was to sweep the streets, and if a fire alarm came in, the broom job had to be chucked on the spot and a mad dash made for the fire station. Out came the hand-drawn pump which had to be pulled along the streets to the scene of the fire where it took “sixty men” to work the pump.

Life in the employ of the city’s early fire department bound its members “hand and foot” to the job. One of the requirements was that the members “live” in the fire hall. If any of the members chose to marry they had to suffer the consequences for no wives were allowed to live at the station. Mr. and Mrs. Foote were married for thirty years before they lived together. Only at meal times did Mr. Foote spend time at his home. It was not until the city employed an all-paid fire department that the couple were able to enjoy a proper home life.

Describing his early experiences, Mr. Foote said: “We were on duty 24 hours a day, on at 10 o’clock at night to sweep the streets until five or six in the morning, and after that on watch at the fire hall all day. I only went home to meals. In the first ten years I never had a day off, not even a Sunday. After that we got one Sunday off in three, then later, one day a week. Until the time came when we got one day off each week, we never had a chance to go to a ball game or any sort of recreation or entertainment. Not only in theory, but in fact, we were on duty every hour of the day, year in and year out. And the pay was $37.50 a month.”

Mr. Foote would add that there was one compensation for this rigorous routine. He was always sure of his pay at a time when “men worked for employers who were not reliable paymasters.”

Ralph Herbert Crocker

1878-1950

As you drive through the city did you ever wonder how the streets got their names?

Ralph Herbert Crocker, Veteran florist and nurseryman of St. Thomas and member of the one of the oldest St. Thomas Families.

Ralph Herbert Crocker was in the florist business in St. Thomas for more than 45 years and was widely known not only in the city but throughout the province.

Ralph Crocker had a greenhouse on what is now the site if Metcalfe Gardens. Crocker Ave heads north from Wellington St to the site of Metcalfe Gardens.

Ralph Herbert was the third generation in St. Thomas. His parents the late George K and Mary Crocker were highly esteemed residents of the City.

Ralph was blessed in life with a loving wife Ethel Maud, three daughters Isabel, Gertrude and Betty and three sons George Kirby, Daniel and Fred. At the time of his death he was survived by 13 grandchildren and one great grandchild.

The Crocker Family resided at 31 Wellington St at the time of Ralph’s passing. Ralph will be remembered for the elaborate casket sprays that adorned the caskets of many prominent people.