A meeting of the Toronto Hunt Club during the 1920s in
King, Ontario
The 1929 clubhouse on Avenue Rd
Entrance to the Toronto Hunt Club's original site in
Scarborough
, which is now a private golf club
The
Toronto Hunt Club
was established in 1843 as a
fox hunting
club by
British Army
officers of the Toronto garrison (
Fort York
). It held
gymkhana
equestrian events at various sites around
Toronto
. In 1895, it acquired its first permanent home in a rural area east of the city in
Scarborough
, between
Kingston Road
and
Lake Ontario
.
In 1898, the
Scarboro radial line
was extended eastward to the site, and soon the area became a cottage district and then a
streetcar suburb
of Toronto. This forced the equestrian activities to move further afield. In 1907, the horses were thus moved to a site in
Thornhill
(Steeles' Corner at Steeles Avenue and
Yonge Street
) called "Green Bush Lodge".
[1]
In 1919, the club moved to a location in Toronto on
Avenue Road
, north of
Eglinton Avenue
. Known as the Eglinton Hunt Club, a polo arena, clubhouse and other facilities were erected. The 1930s saw the club run into financial difficulties, however.
In 1939, with the outbreak of the Second World War, the large site was purchased by the federal government and turned into a secret
Royal Canadian Air Force
research facility, the No. 1 Clinical Investigation Unit. Noted scientists
Frederick Banting
and
Wilbur R. Franks
were employed there, and it was at the CIU that Franks invented the anti gravity
g-suit
. The site was also home to RCAF No. 1 Initial Training School, a unit of the
British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
.
[2]
After the war, the site became the RCAF Staff School, and it remained an officer training facility of the
Canadian Forces
until it closed in 1994. By 1995, the
Government of Canada
transferred the property to the Metropolitan Separate School Board (which was then renamed to the
Toronto Catholic District School Board
) to replace
De La Salle College Secondary School
, which had been privatized in 1994.
Marshall McLuhan Catholic Secondary School
was built on the site in 1998.
[3]
The area surrounding the old Eglinton Hunt Club is now an established residential neighbourhood.
[
citation needed
]
The Toronto Hunt Club's original site in Scarborough was turned into a nine-hole golf course during the 1930s, and it remains an exclusive private golf club today.
[4]
Its street address is 1355
Kingston Road
.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Filey, M. (1996).
"From the Hunt to the Skies", Toronto Sketches 3
. Toronto: Dundurn Press.
- ^
Hewer, H. (2000).
In for a penny, in for a pound: the adventures and misadventures of a wireless operator in Bomber command
. Toronto: Stoddart. p.
7
.
ISBN
077373273X
.
- ^
Hurst, Lynda "
Outrage at sale of city army base Deal `stinks,' homeowners say
" -
Toronto Star
, February 12, 1995. Retrieved on January 1, 2016. "All the board knows at present is that it's going to have some kind of high school on the property to make up for the loss of De La Salle College, which has reverted to private-school status."
- ^
The Toronto Hunt golf club
External links
[
edit
]
43°40′51″N
79°16′19″W
/
43.680918°N 79.272022°W
/
43.680918; -79.272022