Local History & Genealogy

Before there was a New City Hall in Toronto, there was Old City Hall…but of course, nobody called it Old City Hall until there was a New City Hall to compare it to. And when Old City Hall was just City Hall, there was already an "Old" City Hall located in what we know as the South St. Lawrence Market.

Toronto City Hall, 1868. Note that a police station was also located in the same building, which might have come in handy at certain points in Toronto political history.

Front Street East, looking west from Jarvis to Yonge.

City Hall is visible in this 1854 illustration of Toronto from Edwin Whitefield's series "Original Views of North American Cities."

In addition to the police station and market on the ground floor, the new building (designed by architect Henry Lane) also included the offices of the Mayor and City Treasurer, and the city council chambers, which were located on the second level (with a public gallery at the north end). These days, the Market Gallery is all that remains of the original council chambers.

Interior, council chamber.

City Treasurer Richard T. Coady at his desk.

Office and reception room of John Shaw, Toronto Mayor 1897-1899 and owner of perhaps the most impressive sideburns in Canadian political history.

Toronto's population grew rapidly throughout the second half of the 19th century, and the St. Lawrence Market location, despite repeated expansions and renovations, eventually became too small to house the operations of the municipal government, which moved to the newer Hall on Queen Street upon its completion in 1899. 

City council's last meeting in the St. Lawrence location, 1899; Mayor Shaw and his sideburns are visible centre-left in the Mayor's Chair.

Going back even further, city council meetings were originally held in a market building located at the south-west corner of King Street East and Jarvis (the present location of St. Lawrence Hall). This building was never officially designated as City Hall, but council meetings took place there between 1834 – when the town of York was incorporated as a city and renamed Toronto – and 1845, when the municipal government moved over to the St. Lawrence Market location.

 Market building at King and Jarvis; this quadrangular brick building replaced the original wooden market in 1831.

In 1834, 27 people were injured or killed here in what John Ross Robertson's "Landmarks of Toronto Vol. 1" refers to as "a frightful accident" on page 62:

A political meeting was being held and the gallery was overcrowded. While one of the speakers was haranguing the assemblage part of the balcony gave way precipitating the people to the floor below. In the descent many were caught upon the sharp upcurved iron hooks of the butchers' stalls.

They probably leave this part out when couples inquire about holding their weddings at St. Lawrence Hall. In 1849, the northern end of the market was badly damaged in the Great Fire of 1849 and the entire building was demolished and replaced by St. Lawrence Hall and the North Market.