The Mysterious Lady Simcoe
- kmabel6
- 2 minutes ago
- 11 min read
There never was a Lady Simcoe. Nor was there a Lord Simcoe. Yet the belief that Upper Canada’s first imperial couple were titled aristocrats is widespread and deeply rooted. Where did the idea come from? And why has it been so persistent? This blog installment started out as a fun little research project. But it quickly turned up some curious stories with wider implications that are just as fascinating. And the great irony of it all is that the pursuit of a title was one of the main driving forces of John Graves Simcoe’s life: a campaign that he based in no small way on the claims of his wife’s “antient family.” He was never granted a title by the crown, but we have awarded it to him posthumously.
What seemed to be the earliest reference that I could find to “Lady Simcoe” turned out to be a later addition. Circa 1858, painter Cornelius Krieghoff produced a canvas in his series of scenes around Quebec City that was recently sold at auction in Toronto under the title, “Lord and Lady Simcoe Taking a Sleigh Ride.” Since the Simcoes were long gone by the time Krieghoff arrived in Canada, the descriptor seems an unlikely bit of nostalgia. The origins of this title have proven elusive, in part because the painting was in private hands for nearly a century. No work with that title appears in Marius Barbeau’s 1934 catalogue raisonné of Krieghoff’s work. Rather, it seems to have first appeared in the late 1940s when the painting was offered for sale at Laing Galleries in Toronto. And it has been listed that way ever since.
The next reference that I could find to “Lady Simcoe” appeared in the shipping news published in several newspapers in the summer of 1874, noting that the barque Lady Simcoe had docked at Montreal and then Melbourne. A quick check of Lloyd’s Register of Shipping revealed that there was no such ship. Apparently it was a typographical error, for there was, indeed, a ship named the S.S. Lake Simcoe. Built in Scotland in 1871, she was an iron-hulled barque rated at 334 tons that originally sailed between Glasgow and Montreal for the William Thomson company. She passed through several owners over the next forty years then disappeared without a trace in November 1915 en route to Newfoundland out of Naples. A second example of a mistake within a mistake.
The first solid use of the term “Lady Simcoe” appeared in the 1866 memoirs of Philippe Aubert de Gaspé. A lawyer, seigneur, and descendant of a prominent Quebec family, he had made a name for himself three years earlier with the publication of Les Anciens canadiens, an historical novel now considered a classic of French-Canadian fiction. In his memoirs, he claimed that his parents told him he had been “un prodige de mémoir” even in childhood; one of the examples that he offers to his readers is a story about “Lady Simcoe.” She allegedly told his mother that she wanted to meet the young Philippe, having heard that he was a “savant.” “Lady Simcoe” was remembered in his family as better than a Bluestocking with her voracious appetite for serious reading; she borrowed endless books from Philippe’s aunt, Marie-Anne Baby. Indeed, Mrs. Simcoe and Mme. Baby saw a great deal of one another at Quebec, but it is curious (and telling) that the man with a prodigious memory remembered her as “Lady Simcoe.”[1]
English-speaking Ontarians might first have discovered the Lady in 1884. That year, a little wooden church built in the 1830s at what is now called Jackson’s Point, Ontario, was torn down and replaced by the fine stone building that still stands. Local newspapers recorded proudly that “the bell of the old church is also historical being a gift of Lady Simcoe.”[2]
It was in the 1890s that the myth of Lord and Lady Simcoe became truly embedded in the Canadian historical canon. Through the 1870s and 1880s the Simcoes were introduced to the reading public through two books and numerous published public addresses.[3] These were part of a broader movement that historian Carl Berger first explored in his classic study, The Sense of Power, in which he proposed that late nineteenth century Canadians were struggling with the belief that the young dominion was already being left behind in a new world order dominated by American wealth and influence. For some of these anxious Anglophones, the answer lay in promoting ties to imperial Britain – and the study of history offered a resource for both the tangible and the symbolic. [4]
Local historical societies began sprouting across southern Ontario. Men established the York Pioneers (1869), the Lundy’s Lane Historical Society (1887), and the Ontario Historical Society (1888) among others. Not to be outdone, a group of Ontario feminists founded the Women’s Canadian Historical Society at Toronto in 1895, followed three years later with an Ottawa branch. Members of these groups campaigned endlessly and enthusiastically for their fellow Canadians to recognize the value of the imperial connection and the heroes/heroines who had “built” the country through their bravery, hardiness, and loyalty.[5] The Simcoes provided ideal fodder and the imprimatur of historical expertise gave credence to the stories.
“Lady Simcoe” appears regularly in these campaigns. A multi-pronged lobby of historical societies referred to “Sir John Simcoe” in an 1898 campaign to have Toronto’s new civic building christened Simcoe Hall. The editor of the Orangeville Sun sneered, “Some pioneers want the Toronto city hall called Simcoe hall in memory of Lord Simcoe. How would Boodle Villa do?”[6] No less a luminary than Duncan Campbell Scott informed the Royal Society of Canada that early settlers “must have felt their woes pale into insignificance beside those of Lady Simcoe” for whom a “log cabin, or a tent, frequently served as the vice-regal residence.” And pity Lady Simcoe whose servants all “promptly deserted” to the United States (“as many of their class have done since.”)[7]
In the campaign to promote British imperialism, anonymous articles were written for circulation in local newspapers. For example, one piece on “Canada’s Brave Noble Women” appeared in 1902, headlined in the Kingston Daily Whig’s version as “Our Heroines.” The author observed, “Canadian history has fortunately preserved to us a picture of domestic heroism in the life of Lady Simcoe, wife of the governor of that name.”[8] The indefatigable Janet Carnochan educated Ontario readers on the history of the Niagara region in which she referred to sketches by “Lady Simcoe.”[9] A story from Prince Edward County about an old house included the observation that “Lady Simcoe, who had been tenderly bred in England, and was not used to roughing it” was forced to stay in the house when she fell ill en route to Newark in 1792.[10]
Apparently, these kinds of references had become sufficiently well known by the turn of the century that the American Kennel Club registered a spaniel bitch as “Lady Simcoe” (bred by one Milt F. Melvin of Pennsylvania in 1896); a pointer of the same name began showing regularly at the C.N.E. and the St. Thomas Dog Show. When the ladies of Trenton, Ontario, organized a local of the Imperial Order, Daughters of the Empire, they decided on “Lord Simcoe Chapter” for their name. In 1930, Lady Simcoe was the champion senior mare (and grand champion mare overall) at Toronto’s Royal Winter Fair.
The error was perpetuated over and over through the twentieth century: in a Maclean’s Magazine article on the history of the parliamentary library, in a report to the Ontario Minister of Education, in a collection of essays by Bertal Heeney on Canadian Anglican church leaders, in the 1922 report of the newly founded Canadian Historical Association, and in a poem that opened a collection of odes on historical topics (Legendary Lyrics) by Toronto lawyer George Allen Kingston.
Perhaps the most infamous award of the Simcoe peerage came in the mid-1950s with the construction of the Lord Simcoe Hotel at the corner of University Avenue and King Street West in downtown Toronto. With its starkly modernist 18-storey envelope and $9.5 million price tag, it attracted considerable attention, including a few sharply worded letters-to-the-editor from snarky historical purists who pointed out that there never was a Lord Simcoe. Harry Weale, president of the consortium that built the hotel, responded airily, “We know that John Graves Simcoe was never a lord. But we operate the Lord Elgin Hotel in Ottawa and the Lord Beaverbrook in Fredericton, and we want Lord to be part of the name in every hotel in the chain.”[11] Lady Simcoe put in a suitably domestic appearance at her husband’s hotel. The chef created the Lady Simcoe Salad because the lady had recorded in her diary “that in summer she and most of the other people she knew ate a great deal of fruits and vegetables.”[12]
The Lord Simcoe Hotel was never much of a financial success and closed after just 22 years. But we have plenty of other Lord Simcoe businesses and buildings to replace it: the Lord Simcoe Brewing Company (Toronto), the Lord Simcoe Apartments (Victoria, Edmonton, Niagara Falls), and at least two craft beers: “Lord Simcoe 1791” and “Lord Simcoe’s Revenge,” the last perhaps more aptly named than the Forked River Brewing Company realized, since it was the great regret of Simcoe’s life that no-one had seen fit to give him a title. Amazingly, one organization even found a photograph of “Lord Simcoe” to explain the history behind the name of Simcoe Park in New Westminster, British Columbia.
Perhaps my favourite is the coverage of a special episode of CBC’s “Air Farce” in 2001 (which poked fun at the network’s series, “Canada: A People’s History”). The Canadian Press reviewer observed that “Graham Greene, of all people, plays a swishy Lord Simcoe, encountering suspicious native leaders Billy Two-Willies and Susan Born-with-an-Attitude.”[13]
It is easy to chuckle at (and forgive) the appearance of Lord and Lady Simcoe in the projects of well-meaning amateurs, but it isn’t necessary to dig very deeply to find the error perpetuated by more recent professionals and experts of whom one might expect more. Just some examples (so as not to embarrass any of my colleagues): The Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women (2000) has an entry on Lady Simcoe. The Ontario Department of Citizenship and Culture welcomed newcomers to Canada (in 1984) with the observation that “Lady Simcoe,” like her husband, “made significant contributions to history.” The 2016 Walrus poetry prize went to David Huebert for his “Colloquium: J.T. Henry and Lady Simcoe on Early Ontario Petrocolonialism.” Two historical briefs submitted to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1994/5) refer to Lord Simcoe. And the on-line catalogue of Library and Archives Canada currently includes at least four entries with references to Lord Simcoe.
So why has the myth of the Simcoe peerage proven so compelling and enduring? Awarding a title to an important figure in Canadian history certainly has served some curious purposes over the years.
At the end of the nineteenth century, as Anglo-Canadian Conservatives tried to create a future for Canada within the British Empire, they created a founding myth centered on an alleged baronet. The title provided a multi-layered connection to the crown. An aristocrat represented the leadership class and reflected the authority of the Queen. Furthermore, the idea that imperial interests in London had considered the new colony of Canada to be of sufficient importance to send a baronet as governor mattered to nation builders who wanted to promote Canada as the “senior dominion” in Victoria’s realm. John Graves Simcoe, Esq., simply did not have the same resonance.
Meanwhile, a certain segment of the Ontario population was feeling besieged by the march of industrialization and urbanization that was changing their economic, political, and social world. They looked to the past for personal roots and collective identity. Finding one’s ancestors among the Loyalist settlers of the Simcoe era became a badge of honour. “Lady” Simcoe’s sketches made the connection visible, her title adding gravitas. And her experiences in the “wilderness” became a motif in the emerging myth of the pioneer – not evil settler-colonials, but courageous and hardy souls who overcame great hardship to build a new world. Lady Simcoe had endured all these things too, with her title serving to create an even greater distance between herself and the “primitive” surroundings that she described with endless cheer and resolve. Her purported social status served in its very contrast to strengthen the trope of the wilderness so central to the sense of identity in which these late Victorians were enveloping themselves.
Of course, these myths have long outweighed their usefulness. Canadians now use different versions of history to create a sense of identity in place. So why does Lady Simcoe (and her ennobled husband) continue to be invoked? Why do people believe things that are not true? Clearly, in an age of conspiracy theories, “fake news,” and social media gossip, this is a question of fundamental importance.
First, if the information comes from a source that claims authority, we are more likely to accept it. Community leaders, local historical societies, public speakers and university professors all referred to Lord and Lady Simcoe, so who are we to question them, particularly if we have only the vaguest notion of who the Simcoes might have been in any case?
Second, if the claim fits with something we think we already know, it becomes that elusive yet powerful belief: common sense. The empire was controlled by the upper classes, so senior posts must have gone to senior people. Lord Simcoe makes sense.
And if a claim is repeated often enough, it becomes that cousin of common sense: common knowledge. Everybody knows – of course!
Finally, if a claim is about something that we want to believe, we seem to lose some of our capacity for critical thought. If we identify with someone or something because it aligns us with what matters to us (status, rights, identity, etc.), we are willing to believe all manner of things about that association. Our emotional need to believe overwhelms our capacity for rational analysis.
There never was a Lady Simcoe. And yet, in some fundamentally important ways, there was – and likely will continue to be.
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[1] Aubert de Gaspé, Mémoirs (Quebec: N.S. Hardy, 1885), p. 13. Originally published 1866.
[2] See, for example, The Hamilton Daily Spectator, 27 July 1884, p.1. There is much more to the story of this church. See the forthcoming biography of Mrs. Simcoe!
[3] Henry Scadding, Toronto of Old (Toronto: Adam Stevenson, 1873) and D. B. Read, The Life and Times of General John Graves Simcoe (Toronto: George Virtue, 1890).
[4] Carl Berger, The Sense of Power (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970).
[5] Various aspects of the history of these societies and their campaigns have been considered by scholars in recent years. For further reading, see a partial list and discussion in my essay, “‘A Storage Place for Manure’ and the Politics of Commemoration,” University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 94, no 4 (November 2023): 661-684.
[6] The Sun, 9 March 1899, p. 2.
[7] Quoted in an item in the women’s section of The Ottawa Evening Journal, 27 May 1901, p. 7. The article is headlined “Housekeeping in 1792”.
[8] The Daily Whig, 20 December 1902, p. 12.
[9] The Globe, 2 July 1892, pp. 2 ff.
[10] The Globe, 16 February 1901, p. 3.
[11] The Globe and Mail, 28 September 1955, p. 5.
[12] The Globe and Mail, 26 July 1957, p. 4.
[13] 13 March 2001. To be fair, the Air Farce writers did not make the same mistake! The episode is available on YouTube should you wish further entertainment.
