Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton is a city with half a million inhabitants located in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is the 10th largest city in Canada.

History

This section summarizes the full entry found at History of Hamilton, Ontario, and stops in 1945.

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History to 1913

The Iroquois Confederacy or Five (later Six) Nations first occupied the land now covered by Hamilton. French explorers made transient visits to the area, but major European settlement did not begin until United Empire Loyalists arrived around the American Revolution and War of 1812. In the latter conflict, Britain defeated American invaders at the Battle of Stoney Creek in what is now Hamilton.

Related Topics:
Iroquois - United Empire Loyalists - American Revolution - War of 1812 - Battle of Stoney Creek

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Immediately after the war, in 1815, George Hamilton laid out a townsite in Barton Township which eventually outstripped close rivals like Dundas. Hamilton was incorporated as a police village in 1833 and as a city in 1846.

Related Topics:
Dundas - Police village - 1833 - 1846

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Hamilton was part of (and served as seat for) Wentworth County since its creation in 1816. By 1851, the county acquired its final composition of townships: Ancaster, Barton, Beverly, Binbrook, East Flamborough, West Flamborough, Glanford and Saltfleet.

Related Topics:
Wentworth County - Ancaster - Beverly - Binbrook - Saltfleet

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In the second half of the 1800s, Hamilton became identified and self-identified with heavy industry, billing itself as the Ambitious City and the Birmingham of Canada. It became a hotbed of working class activism, and in 1872 the cradle of the Nine Hour Movement which urged the universal limitation of working hours to nine per day.

Related Topics:
1800s - Birmingham

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The easy access to limestone from the Niagara Escarpment, coal mined in Appalachia, iron ore mined from the Canadian Shield and export markets through the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system made Hamilton an important iron and steel producing city. Diverse steel works combined to form the Steel Company of Canada in 1910 and the Dominion Steel Casting Company in 1912.

Related Topics:
Limestone - Niagara Escarpment - Appalachia - Canadian Shield - Great Lakes - St. Lawrence - Iron - Steel - Steel Company of Canada - Dominion Steel Casting Company

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History 1914–1945

Hamiltonians participated in the First World War as combatants, but due to Col. Sir Sam Hughes' mobilization plans for the Canadian Expeditionary Force, there were no major battles associated purely with Hamiltonians. Heavy industry boomed as the Canadian and British governments' war-driven demands for steel, arms, munitions and textiles increased. War profiteering by manufacturers dampened some of the mood, but generally Hamiltonians pulled together.

Related Topics:
First World War - Col. Sir Sam Hughes - Canadian Expeditionary Force

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After the Great War the school-building boom continued, including Memorial School, Allenby School and Earl Kitchener School. In the Roaring Twenties hundreds of low-rise apartment buildings, of three to four stories and six to ten units, grew up across the city, especially in the east end. The Great Depression of the 1930s hit Hamilton hard, with the simultaneous and prolonged decline in domestic consumption and international trade in finished industrial goods and building supplies dried up.

Related Topics:
Allenby School - Earl Kitchener School - Roaring Twenties - Great Depression - 1930s - International trade

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When the Second World War began, Hamiltonians like most Canadians welcomed the spike of economic demand but not its cause. In this war, the Canadian Army mobilized its territorially recruited militia units. As a consequence, Hamilton lost hundreds of its young men on a single day in 1942, when the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry http://www.rhli.ca/ was effectively wiped out at Dieppe. Read more of The Hamilton Spectator's coverage of the war. Hamilton also gave The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise's) to the cause.

Related Topics:
Second World War - Canadian Army - Royal Hamilton Light Infantry - Dieppe - The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise's)

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