Upcoming Events
Monthly SHS meeting, Wednesday, May the 1st, 2024 at 7:30 p.m.
Speaker: Chris Higgins
Topic: “BRICK by BRICK: Swansea Public School, 1890-2020”
Time: 7:30 pm
Monthly SHS meeting, Wednesday evening, May the 1st, 7:30 pm
Please mark your calendars for the next meeting of the Swansea Historical Society, scheduled for 7:30 pm, Wednesday evening, May the 1st, 2024.
In our final meeting before we break for the summer, Swansea Historical Society welcomes speaker Chris Higgins. In seventeen years as a teacher at Swansea Public School, Chris curated the school archives as a hobby. Upon his retirement in 2020 he decided to leave a record behind. Adding files from the City of Toronto Archives, Toronto Star and Globe and Mail, input from the community and rare documents – Chris’ book, BRICK by BRICK: Swansea Public School, 1890-2020, was the result and is the topic of our meeting.
Brick by Brick adds important chapters to the story of Toronto. Students of Swansea Public School were residents of a suburban village before the Village of Swansea was absorbed by Canada’s largest urban centre in 1967. The school had been built in a prime spot in 1890, where it remains a perfect place to learn and play. Over time, the school has faced its share of challenges, including wars, and pandemics, and 130-odd years of growth and change.
In addition to Brick by Brick, Chris has also published Riverstoryz: Conversations on the Humber and he is currently working on a third book, one that marries his love of history and true crime, entitled Hanging on Every Word: Toronto in the Age of Execution.
The meeting will be conducted in a hybrid format so that participants can attend in-person at the Swansea Town Hall or connect on-line using the Zoom tool. Here (and on the SHS website) is the link for joining the meeting on-line.
SHS – May Meeting
Time: May 1, 2024 07:15 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89216911799?pwd=ZWy3pXxxkHi60B3t4XzZy3QTKWlLBg.1
Meeting ID: 892 1691 1799
Passcode: 333003
Note: the meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. with the Zoom link opening 15 minutes ahead of time.
Upcoming Swansea Historical Society Events
While our regular meetings will be on break for the summer months, our event for the month of June is a walking tour on Saturday, June 8th, which will explore the Humber River and the 1929 proposal to turn it into a regatta course and what it could have meant to Toronto. The walk will be co-led by Patrick Okens and Lance Gleich. More information can be found on the Everbrite link here.
Past Swansea Historical Society Events Highlight
Join us on Wednesday, Mar 6, 2024 at 8 p.m. Our speaker for March will be Lorna Poplak and her topic will be “Toronto’s Don Jail”.
Lorna Poplak is a Toronto-based writer, editor, and researcher. She is the author of two award-nominated non-fiction books: — “The Don – The Story of Toronto’s Infamous Jail”, and “Drop Dead – A Horrible History of Hanging in Canada”. With these and other publications, Lorna is establishing herself as an authority on the history of crime and punishment in Canada. Her presentation will include many fascinating stories about people associated with the Don Jail – the inmates, the staff, the governors, people who escaped from the Don, and people whose lives ended there at the end of a rope.
View a partial list of our past speakers ›
View a partial list of our past guided historical walks ›
