1796 February 25

John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, writes to the Duke of Portland, Secretary of State, confirming the need for a university.

1798 December 1

The Upper Canada Executive Committee recommends that a university be established in the town of York and that half the education endowment be used for that purpose.

1827 March 15

At the urging of John Strachan, Archdeacon of York, a Royal Charter is granted to establish the University of King's College at York.  It was signed by Henry, 3rd Earl Bathurst, Secretary for War and the Colonies.

1828

King's College Council purchases 68 acres of land in Park Lots 11, 12, and 13, but turns down the offer of 150 acres between St. George St. and Spadina Avenue. King's also acquires frontage rights on the present College Street and University Avenue, which permits it to control access to its grounds by installing gates at strategic intervals.

1828 January 3

225,944 acres of crown reserve lands are given to the College for its endowment.

1830 January 8

King's College Council opens a secondary school, Upper Canada College, and its endowment is split with this school.

1831 January 27

Upper Canada Academy is established in Cobourg, opening on 18 June 1836.

1840 September 5

Observations begin at the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory, near what is now Convocation Hall.

1841 August 27

Upper Canada Academy's name is changed by provincial statute to Victoria College; teaching begins at university level in October 1842. Name changed to Victoria University on 25 March 1884.

1842 April 23

Laying of the cornerstone of King's College in what is now Queen's Park.

1843

Rolph's School of Medicine is re-established by John Rolph. It had originally been established in 1832 and dissolved in 1837 following Rolph's conviction for involvement in the Upper Canada Rebellion of that year. It changed its name to the Toronto School of Medicine and incorporated in 1851.

1843

The Faculty of Medicine occupies a small frame building that was constructed adjacent to the west wing of the Parliament Buildings.

1843 June 8

King's College opens in the renovated Parliament Building on Front Street. 26 students sign the roll. Instruction commenced on 5 October in Arts, Law, Medicine, and Divinity.

1843 Fall

The south-east wing of King's College building [site of east wing of present Legislative Buildings] in Queen's Park is completed. It remains vacant until 1845 when it opens as a residence. No other wing of the planned complex for King's College was ever built. Funds were in short supply, due to monies being spent on expensive renovations to other buildings and financial mismanagement. The latter involved, in particular, the endowment lands, the principal source of revenue, and other questionable transactions such as loaning John Strachan £5,250, of which only £1,875 was repaid.

1844

Knox College is established.

1844

John McCaul is appointed College librarian.

1844 October 19

Chair of Hebrew and Oriental Languages is established at King's College but not implemented; it is succeeded two days later by a tutorship in Hebrew Language and Literature, filled by Jacob Maier Hirschfelder. When King's was replaced by the U of T in 1850, he was appointed Lecturer in Oriental Languages. Hirschfelder was the first Jew to hold a university professorship in Canada, though the exigencies of the time ensured his adherence to the Anglican Church. Howard D. Chapman, a prominent Toronto architect, is a direct descendant.

1844 November 5

Knox College opens under the name Theological Institution. It was established earlier in 1844 as the original Free Church College of the Presbyterian Church of Canada. The name was changed on 10 June 1846 to Knox's College.

1844 December 20

The first Convocation of King's College is held in the temporary University building. "The Hall presented one of the most gratifying scenes ever held in the Province. On the Dias were seated the authorities of the University, in full academic costumesﾅof scarlet, pink, and blue according to their degrees...In the centre, on the elevated platform, was the Right Reverend Doctor Strachan, Bishop of Toronto, as the President of the University, on whom...the duty devolved of conferring the Degrees...Five Degrees were conferred, and Four Prize Compositions were recited." Henry Boys, John King, George Herrick, and Joseph Hamilton were admitted ad eundem gradum ("at the same degree", ie., based on experience) to the degree of MD, while Frederick William Barron was awarded a Bachelor of Arts. William Ramsay is listed in Fasti Academi: annals of King's College, Toronto as being admitted ad eundem gradum to the degree of B.A. in 1844 but is listed elsewhere as an 1845 graduate.

1846

The short-lived Maple Leaf, a College newspaper produced by the graduates and professors, appears.

1848 July 30

Bowing to pressure, King's College passes a statute creating a Commission on Inquiry into the Affairs of King's College University and Upper Canada College. The final report was published in 1852.It was chaired by Joseph Workman, a prominent local physician and a lecturer at John Rolph's Toronto School of Medicine.

1848 December

King's College residence closes, having continually lost money. The kitchen facilities were inadequate and the students complained about the food. Stewart Wallace, in his A history of the University of Toronto, wrote "A variety of diet was difficult to obtain. Day after day the same pies and puddings made their appearance ﾖ apple pies being the great standby. Repeated muttering of dissent would at last arise from the students' tables, and on one occasion the inevitable apple pie from one of them was sent out of the room untouched, with a small stick in the middle of it bearing the words: ﾑThe table don't eat apple pie'."

1849 May 30

A Provincial act is passed abolishing King's College and creating the non-denominational University of Toronto, effective 1 January 1850.

1849 November

King's College is forced out of the Parliament Buildings when the Canadian government returns to Toronto, and moves into the former Residence.

1850

Trinity College Medical Faculty is established.

1850-1851

The Medical Building, designed by Thomas Young, is constructed in the University Park on the east bank of Taddle Creek. It was later (1880) named Moss Hall and was demolished in 1888 to make way for the Biological Building.

1850 January 1

John McCaul becomes the first president of the University of Toronto and a Board of Endowment is established. It lasts until 1874.

1850 May 25

First meeting of U of T Senate.

1851

As a parrt of the reorganization, an expansion of the new University of Toronto, five new chairs are advertised for: history and English literature, modern languages, natural philosophy, natural history, geology and mineralogy, and civil engineering. The last was never filled.

1851 May 7

A Senate committee reports on the inadequate facilities for the University in its three buildings: the ﾑEast Wing' (old King's College residence), the Medical Building, and a house rented from George Ridout. The last was used by Convocation, the Senate, the Caput (the executive body of the University), and the Board of Endowment.

1851 August 30

An Act to incorporate Trinity College; it opens on 15 January 1852. Degree granting rights are provided on 16 January 1853 with the issuing of a Royal Charter. The College buildings were constructed in what is now Trinity Bellwoods Park on Queen Street West.

1852

The disruption to the University caused by the inadequate facilities and other challenges means that in 1852 and again in 1855 there was no commencement, as convocation was then called.

1852

The Chair of Modern Languages is established and filled on 28 May 1853 by James Forneri, who had been a cavalry officer under Napoleon and who presented excellent textimonials from the father of the premier, Francis Hincks. When he retired from the chair at the end of the Michaelmas term in 1865, it was dissolved into three lectureships in French, German, and Italian and Spanish.

1852 August

The Chair of History and English Literature is established and is filled the following year by Daniel Wilson, a Scottish antiquarian who had studied art under Turner and who was a staunch defender of non-denominational education.

1852 August 3

The Chair of Natural History is established, to which Thomas Huxley applies. He receives testimonials from Charles Darwin and many other leaders of the scientific world but he does not get the position. It is filled by the Reverend William Hincks, who had the advantage of being a brother of the premier, Francis Hincks. This glaring example of political inference in university appointments was inevitable in an era when the provincial cabinet approved them. Though Hinck's ideas were even then out of date, he was liked by the students for he was affable and tolerated their practical jokes.

1852 August 4

The Senate authorizes the construction of a gatehouse "at the Eastern extremity of the Yonge Street Avenue" (northwest corner of Yonge and College). The gates would probably have been in place since 1843. See the year 1879 for a photo.

1852 September 15

St. Mary's Lesser Seminary (established 1852) opens. It was dissolved and absorbed on 14 February 1853 into St. Michael's College.

1852 September 15

St. Michael's College (established 1852) opens. Incorporated 19 May 1855.

1853 Spring

John Bradford Cherriman succeeds Reverend Robert Murray, recently deceased, in the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy (physics). He was a Cambridge mathematician of some standing and was selected over John Tyndall, a man of much greater reputation. He resigned his position on 1 July 1875 to become the first Superintendent of Insurance for the federal government.

1853 April 22

An Act amends the laws relating to the U of T by separating its administrative and teaching functions; the latter are assigned to the newly created University College. The title 'President of the University of Toronto' is replaced by 'President of University College'.

1853 June

The Government expropriates for future Parliament Buildings the University's site in Queen's Park and the University is forced to relocate in August to the unused Parliament Buildings on Front Street.

1853 October

Alexander Thomas Augusta, the first black medical student in Canada West, enters the Faculty of Medicine at Trinity. An American from Norfolk, Virginia, he was refused a medical education in the US, so came to Canada. He remained at Trinity until 1855 (MB from Trinity, 1860). Before leaving for the West Indies about 1860, he was in charge of Toronto General Hospital.  Later he was a surgeon in the American Civil War and still later taught at Howard University.

1853 October

Edward John Chapman arrives in Toronto to take up the chair of mineralogy and geology. He had previously held the chair of mineralogy in the University of London. He lasted longer than any of his contemporaries, retiring in 1895.

1854

The Chair of Civil Engineering becomes the Department of Civil Engineering.

1854

Trinity College's medical faculty permits "occasional students" (non-Anglicans) to take courses, with the expectation that they would then write their examinations at U of T and graduate from there.

1854

Toronto School of Medicine moves into the disused Medical Building. Victoria College invites the School to become its medical faculty, of which John Rolph becomes dean in 1855. The School moves to Lot Street (now Queen Street) in the summer of 1855.

1854 January 1

The Faculties of Law and Medicine are abolished, under the terms of the 1853 Act, though the U of T continues to grant degrees in these disciplines.

1854 February 22

University College Literary and Scientific Society, the first student society on campus, is established at the behest of Daniel Wilson, newly appointed professor of History and English Literature. Affectionately known as ﾑthe Lit', It is the longest continuously running student organization in English-speaking Canada.

1855

The new stone building of Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory opens. A fence and a row of trees formed the boundary between it and University College.

1855 October

The Canadian parliament returns to Toronto and the U of T is forced back into the old King's College residence which had been partially gutted by the Department of Works.

1856 February 7

The Senate establishes a Building Committee, of which John Langton becomes the only active member though he informally consulted professors such as Daniel Wilson and Henry Holmes Croft, to oversea the construction of University College and appoints 34 year old Frederic Cumberland as University Architect.

1856 May

The Senate complains to the Government about its decision to appropriate the old King's College Residence to establish a branch of the Lunatic Asylum, dubbed the ﾑUniversity Lunatic Asylum.' The University is also forced to pay for a new road (later known as Old King's College Road) to the site through what is now Queen's Park.

1856 Summer

The U of T is forced to move to the old Medical Building, to which a temporary structure is added for "the Senate and officers of the University, an examination hall, a laboratory, six lecture rooms" and some other apartments.

1856 Summer

John Rolph's lecturers at the Victoria College Faculty of Medicine resign en masse and take the name 'Toronto School of Medicine' with them. Rolph sues to recover the name but the court decides against him. He moves his faculty into a building at 10 Little Jarvis Street (now Asquith Avenue).

1856 July 2

Trinity Medical Faculty folds when the entire faculty resigns over Trinity College's insistence on religious tests for students attending lectures.

1856 October 4

The corner stone for the University College building is laid (Cumberland and Storm, architects). The first contract for its construction was signed four days later.

1857

The Chair of Classics, Belles Lettres, Rhetoric and Logic becomes the Department of Classical Literature, Logic and Rhetoric.

1857 March 30

The Building Committee, in the interests of economy, decides that a plain brick building will be erected at the rear of University College in place of the "ornamental Chemical School now forming the South-west corner of the University buildings". John Langton leaves Toronto for his home at Lindsay, Ontario. On his return at the beginning of July he discovers that "the Architect had proceeded with the Chemical School and executed other potions of the work without their [the Building Committee's] authority". Cumberland justified his action by claiming that the School as originally designed provided an anchor for the front elevation of University College (he also used it as his office during construction). An angry Langton, much to the chagrin of the architect, contractor, and sub-contractors, demanded numerous subsequent economies and ensured they were carried out to the letter. Construction of University College, early summer 1858, showing the Round Room (chemistry laboratory) completed. This photo, one of a set taken by photographers Armstrong, Beere & Hime, belonged to John Langton.

1857 October

Daniel Wilson begins teaching 'Ancient and modern ethnology', the first such course in ethnology in the British Empire.

1857 October 1

At the Senate meeting on this day, Professor Daniel Wilson moved, seconded by Professor John Cherriman, that "the following be adopted as the arms of the University of Toronto: Azure: Two open books, clasped : a beaver in base : on a chief argent, an imperial crown all properSupporters:  Minerva and VictoryMotto:  Velut arbor avoCrest:  A maple tree Which motion was carried."

1858

Episkipon, the secret student society at Trinity College, is founded. Over the years, it proves to be a periodic thorn in the side of the College authorities.

1858 August 28

An Act formalizes the lease by the University to the City of Toronto a park of about 49 acres, to be called Queen's Park.

1858 October 4

The Governor-General places the capping stone of University College on the summit of the turret of the tower, followed by a lavish banquet in the new Library in the east wing. The final cost was $355,907.

1859 August

A stone coffer dam is constructed across Taddle Creek, providing road access to University College from the east and creating McCaul's Pond.

1859 October

Classes recommence in the new University College building, and Professor Henry Holmes Croft begins using the first purpose built chemistry laboratory in Canada in the "Round Room", now the Croft Chapter House.

1860

In 1857 Frederic Cumberland, University Architect, purchased land at the corner of St. George Street and College Avenue (198 feet on the Avenue and 598 feet on the east side of St. George) for $495 on which to build his residence, 'Pendarves'. Construction began in the July of 1857 and by the end of 1859 or early 1860 the Cumberlands had moved in. Subsequent sale of lots reduced the St. George St. frontage to 390 feet. Cumberland died in 1881 and in 1884 the property was sold to Alfred Morgan Cosby who renamed it 'Maplehearn'. His family lived there until about 1905 when the house was purchased by Walter D. Beardmore who lived in it until 1912, when he leased it to the Government of Ontario as a temporary residence for the Lieutenant-Governor until Chorley Park was ready in December, 1915. The house was then retrieved by Beardmore's widow (he died in 1913) and she resided there until 1919.

1861

The Toronto School of Medicine begins teaching courses in the old Medical Building in the University Park. This arrangement continues into the 1870s.

1862 May 5

"The University and College Rifle Company" is gazetted as a direct consequence of the Trent Affair the previous November and December. It was incorporated in the Queen's Own Rifles on November 21 1862 and was designated No. 9 Company. When letters replaced numbers in March of 1872, it became K Company. Professor Henry Holmes Croft was the first captain of the Company, Professor Cherriman, the first lieutenant.

1864

In the later years of the American Civil War, undergraduates from the Confederate States introduced the first Greek Letter Secret Society to the University of Toronto, Bond Sigma Phi. "Its very existence was, so far as was possible, kept a profound secret known only to its members...No one could become a member through any application or effort of his own...[and] every living member had to be consulted...[before admission]" though this eventually proved impractical. It flourished in the 1860s and 1870s and then faded from view. Members included A.B. Aylesworth, Arthur R. Dickey, Hugh John Macdonald (son of Sir John A.), Fred W. Haultain, and W.B. Northrup, all prominent and legal and political circles.

1866

Senate establishes Finance Committee which lasts until 1878.

1866

The first gymnasium is constructed on the Back Campus. The shed at the end accommodates the gardener of University College's pig.

1866 June 2

The Battle of Ridgeway. The Queen's Own Rifles, including students from 'K' Company (the 'University Company') and Trinity Company, engage the Fenians at Limeridge near Fort Erie. Three students, Privates Malcolm McKenzie, John Henry Mewburn and William Fairbanks Tempest are killed, and Rupert Etherege Kingsford, Ephriam George Patterson, Edgar Taylor Paul, and William Henry Vander Smissen (later professor of German and librarian) are wounded. David Junor and William Henry Ellis (dean of engineering, 1916-1920) are captured.

1867

The Legislature adopts the policy, effective 1 July 1868 and continuing until 1964, of no longer making grants to denominationally controlled institutions. Victoria and Queen's had been receiving such grants since 1845; Trinity since 1855.

1869

The University College Literary and Scientific Society publishes The Annual, the College's first student yearbook.

1869 September 1

The University regains control of the former King's College Residence as the patients of the Lunatic Asylum are moved out.

1870

The Volunteer Monument is erected on the western edge of Queen's Park, overlooking Taddle Creek, in memory of the Toronto men who fell in the Battle of Ridgeway (McKenzie is the only U of T student represented).

1870

The first organized team sport at the University of Toronto was football. According to the Yearbook of the University of Toronto (1887), "Originally, the only game played was known as the ﾑold University game'. In it, charging from behind, hacking and tripping were prominent features and although players were not allowed to carry the ball, they might bounce it along with the hand. No other club played the gameﾅVarious attempts were made to arrange a uniform set of rules until, finally, in 1876 the representatives of a number of different clubs met and adopted the entire Scottish Association rules."

1871

In 1871 the Toronto School of Medicine had eight graduates.

1871 March

The medical faculty is re-established at Trinity College; it includes five professors from the Medical Faculty at Victoria College. A building is constructed at 40 Spruce Street, and classes begin in October.

1871 October 20

University College has its first documented Sports Day. There are no team events; rather individual feats of prowess are featured, ranging from ﾑthrowing the cricket ball ﾖ distance' to ﾑmile race'.

1872

John Edgeworth Thomson, University librarian (1868-1872) becomes unhinged and threatens to shoot the Minister of Education and Daniel Wilson.

1872

The first 'Bob' at Victoria College, possibly the first recorded 'stunt night' in the history of the U of T.

1873 March 29

An Act to establish the Ontario School of Practical Science replaces the College of Technology (opened May 1872). Though with its own board and funded by the province, it was, in effect, the Applied Science Department of University College until 1889.

1873 March 29

An Act provides for alumni representation on the Senate and the chancellor is elected by the alumni rather than be appointed by the Government. The first chancellor elected under this system was Edward Blake, in 1875. He served until 1900.

1874

The faculty and students at Victoria College Faculty of Medicine move over to the Toronto School of Medicine and the Faculty folds.

1874 May

Cornerstone is laid for new Knox College building at 1 Spadina Circle.Designed by Smith and Gemmell, architects. In addition to being signed off by the architects, this plan bears signatures representing the following trades: mason, carpenter, stone cutter, plasterer, and painter.

1874 May

Ontario Agricultural College opens in Guelph. It affiliates with the U of T in 1887 and the first BSA degrees are awarded in 1888. It becomes a founding college of the University of Guelph in 1964.

1874 July 24

Henry Woodward, a medical student, and his neighbour, Matthew Evans, a hotel keeper, apply for a Canadian patent for an electric light bulb, which was granted on 3 August.  According to the Electrical World and Engineer in 1900, they had been working on the project since the early winter of 1873 when, experimenting with Woodward's Smee battery and induction coil, they noticed a light spark from the contact post. Unfortunately, they were unable to raise sufficient funds to develop a commercially viable light bulb and Thomas Edison purchased the patent from them in 1879 and refined the process.  The rest, as they say, is history. Woodward is usually cited as "a medical student in Toronto" (he describes himself as a "medical electrician" in his Canadian patent application).  As such, he would be registered at one of the Toronto medical schools of the day -- the Toronto School of Medicine affiliated with Victoria College or Trinity Medical School (the U of T then could examine in medicine but not teach courses), It does not appear that he attended the Toronto School of Medicine, for which there are records of attendees (though six names are missing from the 1873-1874 register).  The records of students then in attendance at the Trinity Medical School appear not to have survived. 

1875

The Toronto School of Medicine, which had been renting the Old Medical Building and using University College facilities, purchases Victoria College's medical faculty building on Sackville Street.

1875

The School of Dentistry is founded in Toronto by the Royal College of Dental Surgeons. It affiliated with the U of T on 25 May 1888 and the first DDS degrees were awarded in 1889.

1877 January

The government of Ontario changes the terms of affiliation of medical schools with the U of T, the principal one being that no medical body that was part of another university could be affiliated with the U of T.

1877 March 2

The Faculty of Medicine at Trinity College incorporates as the Trinity Medical School so that its students would remain eligible for U of T honours and prizes. The School is stated to be the largest medical school in the province.

1877 May

The Protestant Episcopal Divinity School is established and opens 1 October 1877. It was incorporated as Wycliffe College in 1879, moved to the campus in 1881, affiliated with the University in 1885, federated in 1889, and constructed its first building on campus in 1891.

1877 June

The U of T opens its matriculation examinations to women. They are allowed to receive scholarships at the U of T and theoretically to attend classes at University College, but the latter was not allowed.

1877 June 27

The Senate approves the affiliation of Trinity Medical School and the Toronto School of Medicine.

1878

Acta Victoriana, the student paper of Victoria College in Cobourg, appears. It is still being published.

1878 May 6

The Senate's Finance Committee becomes the Board of Management.

1878 June 24

First meeting of the Board of Management. It is chaired by the Vice-Chancellor. This marks the beginning of a bicameral governing structure at the U of T which endures for almost a century. The Senate henceforth handles academic matters and the Board financial ones.

1878 July 25

The Board of Management appoints D. B (David Brash) Dick as University Architect. He was the architect for the Biological building (1888-1892), the restoration of University College (1890-1892), the Library (1892), the third Gymnasium (1892, 1894) and the Chemistry building (1895).

1878 October 1

The School of Practical Science building ("The Little Red Schoolhouse"), designed by Kivas Tully, opens and over the next few months chemistry, mineralogy and geology are moved from University College into it. A fence is erected between it and University College, through a hole miraculously appears to facilitate the movement back and forth of University College professors, who provided most of the instruction.The completion of this building enabled the School to expand beyond the teaching of civil engineering to include (28 June 1878) the departments of analytical and applied chemistry, and assaying and mining geology.

1879

The University Gates at Yonge and College, 1879. The board at the entrance announces the following 'Prohibitions': Riding of driving immoderately, or on the green sward. / Carting over any of the roads or digging earth or land. / Climbing on or injuring the trees, shrubs, flowers or banks. / Depositing dirt (or those cleaning carpets)? / Allowing cattle or swine to run at large herein. / Playing football or any other game without permission. / Discharging firearms, setting fireworks or letting off the same. / Selling refreshments without permission (or erecting any table) ? whereon any game of hazard or chance can be played / Walking upon the grass when prohibited to do so, or injuring any...or other City Property. - P.G. Close, Chairman of Parks and Gardens Committee (City of Toronto)

1879

The University College Literary and Scientific Society ('the Lit.') moves into the old Medical Building, dubbed "Hades" by an undergraduate. The name stuck until the building was officially named Moss Hall the following year in honour of the recently deceased and popular Vice-chancellor, Thomas Moss. It also houses the University's second gymnasium.

1879 Summer

McCaul's Pond is drained because of the stench caused by pollution from tanneries and other businesses upstream in Yorkville. A "rustic bridge" across Taddle Creek apparently replaces the coffer dam.

1879 July

John McCaul announces his retirement as President of University College and chair of Classics. He lectured through the winter of 1880 as no replacement had been appointed. In his later years he was much afflicted with gout and did not attend any Senate meetings after June 1876. In 1879 Daniel Wilson wrote in his journal that 'the President is now in that stage of touchy irritable senility which makes him an obstruction in every way'.

1879 October 7

First issue of the White and Blue, the first undergraduate newspaper on campus, appears. It is published by the Lit. The last issue appeared on 20 March 1880.

1879 October 27

The founding of the University College Glee Club is the harbinger of amateur dramatics by students at the U of T.

1880

The name of the Department of Classical Literature, Logic, and Rhetoric is changed to the Department of Classical Literature.

1880 January

The first issue of Rouge et Noir, Trinity College's first student paper, appears.

1880 May 26

The Senate reports that the Chair of Chemistry and Experimental Philosophy is henceforth to be known as the Department of Chemistry.

1880 July 29

Daniel Wilson succeeds John McCaul as President of University College. On holiday in England contemplating retirement, he is instructed to hire a new professor of classics (Maurice Hutton) and a new dean of residence.

1880 October 8

The first issue of The Varsity, published by the Varsity Stock Company, appears. This arrangement lasts until 1889 when the Company collapses and The Varsity is taken over by the Lit.

1881

Knox College is authorized to grant degrees in divinity.

1881 March 4

St. Michael's College affiliates with the University of Toronto, and is entitled to offer some instruction in history and philosophy. Federation does not take place for another 20 years.

1882

The Ontario College of Pharmacy's School of Pharmacy is established. It affiliates with the U of T in 1892.

1882 April 11-12

The University College Glee Club presents the play 'Antigone' in Convocation Hall in the original Greek. The person behind this production was Maurice Hutton, newly appointed professor of Classics. Daniel Wilson wrote in his diary "The enthusiasm of Hutton has been heedless of expense. My own share of outlay runs up to $60. But his may be hundreds".

1883

The Woman's Medical College is established. The name is changed to the Ontario Medical College for Women in 1890 when it affiliated with the U of T. It closed in 1906 when women were finally admitted to the U of T's Faculty of Medicine.

1883 Summer

For sanitary reasons, Taddle Creek is put underground in a sewer.

1884

The Chair of History and Ethnology is established with the separation out of the teaching of English Literature. It is cited as the Department of Modern History from 14 November 1891.

1884

The lectureship in Rhetoric and English Literature is established, with David Reid Keys as lecturer. Daniel Wilson had hoped for an appointment in history so that he could continue teaching English literatre but he was stymied by the Vice-chancellor, William Mulock.

1884 February 1

The Department of Civil Engineering in the Faculty of Arts is dissolved.

1884 October 4

A provincial order-in-council instructs President Wilson to prepare for the admission of women to University College. Classes are delayed a week to allow preparations for separate facilities for the women and for the appointment of a Lady Superintendent.

1884 October 30

First meeting of the Board of Trustees, which replaces the Board of Management.

1885

The Varsity Publishing Company produces Varsity Book: Prose and Poetry, a compendium of poems and short stories written by students and former students.

1885 March 3

First meeting of the School of Practical Science Engineering Society.

1885 June 10

The University College graduating class in Arts for 1885 was the first to include women; there were five graduands. Catharine E. Brown and Margaret N. Brown, daughters of the late proprietor of the Globe, George Brown, were tutored privately and never attended classes on campus. The images below are of the three women who took their courses at University College.

1885 October

The YMCA building opens. It was designed by the architectural firm Gordon and Helliwell for a nominal fee, and built with funds raised by the members and friends of the University College YMCA. Prominent in the endeavour were Knox College students Angus Jones Mcleod, the moving force behind this project (he was particularly proud of the granite pillar at the entrance). and Charles William Gordon, better known later as the prolific author Ralph Connor.

1885 December 22

Knox College affiliates with the U of T; federation follows on 11 April 1889.

1886

The Chair of Natural History is renamed the Department of Biology.

1886 Summer

Old King's College residence is demolished to make way for the new Legislative Buildings.

1886 November 20

The Toronto Conservatory of Music, founded by Edward Fisher, is incorporated.

1887

The first (and only) volume of the Year Book of the University of Toronto appears. Edited by undergraduates J. G. Miller and F. B. Hodgins and published under the authority of the Senate, it was designed to "assist in keeping the work and needs of the University of Toronto before its graduates and friends".

1887

University College Young Women's Christian Association is established through the efforts of Sybil Wilson, daughter of President Wilson and "a woman of strong personal characteristics and broad sympathies".

1887

The Chair of Mathematics and Physics is split to form the Chair of Mathematics and the Chair of Physics. Cited as the Department of Mathematics from May 1892; cited as the Department of Physics from October 1892.

1887 January 22

The Varsity announces that the University College Glee Club has struck a committee of graduates and undergraduates to produce the University’s first song book.  It advertised for submissions and over 3,000 were received. The book was published on December 9th: “The binding is unique, --a design by Howard, of this city, in peacock green and gold, than which nothing more attractive or in better taste could be imagined.” The University of Toronto Song Book sold extremely well.  The 1887 edition went through several printings with different publishers, and new editions appeared in 1891, 1899, and 1918. It contained popular songs of the day along with some new ones, divided into categories. Students, graduates and faculty all contributed.  The entries under “College Songs and Choruses”, in particular, displayed the talent at the U of T.   Amongst the songs written by students were John David Spence’s ‘The freshman’s fate; or the perils of co-education’ (then a very lively and divisive topic), his ode (‘Our Irish bedel’) to the University bedel, Robert McKim, and  John  Jeremiah Ferguson’s ‘The marching song’.  Of the many graduates who contributed, Frederick Elias Seymour (BA 1864) wrote ‘Sail, sail, my bark canoe’ while John Campbell (BA 1865) countered with the ‘Regimental song of the Queen’s Own Rifles’ and ‘The College Gown’.  Students, graduates, and faculty provided adaptations such as ‘Honour old ‘Varsity’, collaborated to write songs and compose music for them, and to translate songs originally written in French, German, and Latin.  President Wilson contributed three songs, ‘Alma mater’, ‘The undergraduate’s lament’ and ‘Commencement’, and Professor William Henry Ellis wrote the ‘Camping song’.  One of the more singular titles chosen was ‘H2S 04’.  

1887 April 23

An Act respecting the Federation of the University of Toronto and University College with other Universities and Colleges [University Federation Act]. A University Council is created to oversee the work of the faculty and to supervise student societies and associations. Provision is made for the re-establishment of the faculties of medicine and law.

1887 August 22

The Chairs of Clinical Medicine and Medical Pathology; of Sanitary Science; of Opthalmology, Otology, Laryngology and Rhinology; and the Departments of Anatomy, Gynaecology, Medical Psychology, Pharmacology and Theraputics, are established in the reconstituted Faculty of Medicine which absorbs the Toronto School of Medicine.

1887 October 6

The Faculty of Medicine officially opens for business.

1888

The Toronto College of Music is founded by conductor Frederick Herbert Torrington. It affiliated with the U of T on 12 June 1890 and disaffiliated on 11 April 1918, when it was absorbed by the Canadian Academy of Music, though the name 'Toronto College of Music' remained in use until 1923.

1888 March 23

Royal assent for an act changing the name of Trinity Medical School to Trinity Medical College. Trinity Medical School had opposed the re-opening of the Faculty of Medicine at the U of T and was given an injection of money from Trinity College to enable it to upgrade its facilities. The change of the name was part of the process in the School's attempt to compete against the U of T.

1888 spring

Moss Hall is demolished to make way for the Biological Building; construction of the latter begins immediately. The east wing, for use of the Biological Department and museum, is completed the following year. The west wing, primarily for the Anatomical Department of the Faculty of Medicine, is completed in 1892 after being the subject of a major controversy that came within one vote of resulting in the resignation of Vice Chancellor William Mulock.

1888 October 16

William James Ashley is appointed professor of the newly established Chair of Political Economy and Constitutional History. The Government carefully vetted the applicants; it wanted someone who was disengaged from party politics and who would not question its policies, especially its opposition to free trade. It therefore chose a foreigner, and Ashley, a proponent of the newly emerging school of inductive and empirical economists, fit the bill.

1889

Victoria University agrees to federate with the U of T; the University Federation Act with respect to Victoria University is proclaimed on 12 October 1890.

1889 January

The lectureship in Rhetoric and English Literature is superseded by the Chair of English Language and Literature; the position was filled on 17 April 1889 by William John Alexander, whose appointment was apposed by the "nativists" because he was not a graduate of the U of T (though had taken courses at University College). This proved to be an excellent appointment. The Chair is cited as the Department of English from 2 February 1893.

1889 April

The University Federation Act is proclaimed.

1889 October 30

The School of Practical Science affiliates with the U of T. Under the terms of the University Federation Act, the teaching arrangement between University College and the School of Practical Science ceases and on November 6 an order-in-council establishes a Council to run the School, headed by Principal John Galbraith.

1890

The Department of Classical Literature becomes the Department of Classics.

1890 January 10

Appointments are made to the reconstituted Faculty of Law.

1890 February 14

The Lit' holds its annual conversazione in University College. During the preparations, two attendants carry a tray of lamps up the stairs leading to the library; one, who was lame, stumbles, the lamps spill and the flames catch and spread quickly, aided by the buntings hung for the occasion. The Lit lost heavily because of the trappings on loan or rented, the engineers lost their instruments brought over for the night, and natural science (biology) lost from 15 to 20 microscopes.

1890 February 14

Fire at University College destroys the East Wing and much of the South Front, including the University library, museum, and Convocation Hall. The offices on the ground floor west of the central tower, including President Wilson's specimen room and Professor Hutton's office, survive as does the physics laboratory and the men's residence in the west wing. Principal Galbraith exercises his new authority by taping the door to the School of Practical Science building to deny President Wilson, former chairman of the School, immediate access to School space and architect W. G. Storm refuses to allow the University use of his plans for University College during the rebuilding process. Architect D. B. Dick has to create a complete set of new plans.

1890 March 19

Major additions to the School of Practical Science building enable the establishment of the Department of Architecture and Mechanical Engineering and the subsequent reorganization of others as new programs were offered and the old ones abandoned. The Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering was formed in 1891 with the introduction of courses in electrical engineering. On 14 June 1892 the Department of Assaying and Mining Geology was absorbed into the new Department of Mining Engineering. Charles Henry Chalknor Wright, who had briefly practiced as a sanitary engineer in Chicago, became the first head of architecture. He was later called "two-holer Wright" for his expertise in designing outhouses for his colleagues at Go Home Bay.

1890 June 23

Daniel Wilson is appointed President of the University Council.

1891

The Chair of German is established; it is cited as the Department of German from 1892.

1891

The Department of Sanitary Science is renamed the Department of Hygiene.

1891 July

Construction begins on a new library building on the west side of the Taddle Creek ravine.

1891 November 19

The Women's Literary Society of University College is formed, with an initial membership of 54.

1891 November 19

The Department of French replaces the lectureship in French established in 1866.

1892

The School of Pharmacy of the Ontario College of Pharmacy affiliates with the U of T.

1892 January

The lectureship in Italian and Spanish, established in 1866, is superseded by the Department of Italian and Spanish. A Chair of Italian and Spanish is established in 1901. the Head of the department is William Henry Fraser.

1892 February 24

The first engineering laboratory in Toronto is formally opened in the School of Practical Science. It consists of three departments: one for the testing of construction materials; the second for investigating the principles of power, which encompassed three laboratories – steam, hydraulic and electrical; and the third department was an astronomical and geodetic laboratory.

1892 August

President Wilson dies and is succeeded by James Loudon. One of his first acts is to turn a fire hose on the students.

1892 Fall

Students discover that part of the foundation for the new gymnasium has been dug in the Back Campus, their playing field. The University administration agrees to move the building if the students cover the cost, which they do. This was the first of several victories in defending this open space.

1892 October 1

Victoria College moves from Cobourg into its new building on the U of T campus, designed by architect W. G. Storm.

1892 October 11

The reading room in the new Library opens. Construction of the stacks was not completed until January 1893, the same month electrical lighting was connected to the dynamo in University College, making evening hours possible.

1893 January 26

K Company of the Queen's Own Rifles holds its "Last Roll Call", a dinner at Webb's Parlor on the occasion of its winding down.

1893 April

The new gymnasium opens on the site of the north wing of Hart House. Committee rooms and a large meeting room were added on the front in 1894.

1893 October 7

University of Toronto Athletic Association (for men) is established.

1894

Mulock Cup established for interfaculty rugby championship.

1894 February 15-17

Professor Hutton enlists the University College's Glee Club and the newly formed Classical Association to stage an ambitious remounting of 'Antigone' at the Academy of Music, again in Greek, using a set of scenery used in New York City the previous year. Attended by Governor General Lord Aberdeen and Lady Aberdeen, it was the social event of the season.

1894 April 3

The Senate establishes the Committee of Extension. Extension work began with the offering of Saturday lectures in 1895.

1895

Medical students from the class of 1895 standing amid torn out benches in a classroom of the Toronto School of Medicine Building, Sackville St.

1895

The new Chemistry Building is completed. Since 1878 Chemistry had been located in the School of Practical Science building.

1895 February 15-22

The famous student strike of 1895. Though confined to University College, it aroused much turmoil on campus. James Tucker, a leader of the strike and editor of The Varsity, was suspended and never received his degree. William Lyon Mackenzie King, another strike leader and future prime minister, changed sides at the opportune time and thus engendered the undying enmity of many of his classmates, including Arthur Meighen, another future prime minister. William Dale, professor of Latin, was fired.

1896

Lillian Massey School of Household Science and Art is established by Lillian Massey, daughter of Hart Massey and an aunt of Vincent Massey. The name was changed to the Department of Household Science on its union in 1902 with the U of T.

1896 January

Photography became less expensive as the 19th century drew to a close and ever more popular. The U of T Archives has a large number of winter scenes, this being one of the earliest. This albumen print is one of several taken by Joseph Keele, a 1894 graduate of the School of Practical Science.

1896/1897 Winter

The Madawaska Club was founded as a joint-stock company to establish a university summer community at Go Home Bay on Georgian Bay. The principals behind the project were professors W. J. Loudon, C.H.C. Wright and John Galbraith, who was its first president. The Club was incorporated in July 1898 and the first building to go up was the Club House. It served as a staging ground for the subsequent construction of cottages, the first seven of which were built in June 1899.

1897

PhD degree is established by the Senate, initially under a Senate Committee. The first degrees are awarded in 1900.

1897

The Student Book Department is established (in the Library). It became the U of T Press Book Department in 1933 and the U of T Bookstore in 1966.

1897

The Department of Pharmacology and Theraputics is renamed the Department of Materia Medica and Theraputics.

1897

The Hamilton Conservatory of Music is established. It affiliated with the U of T on 31 January 1905 and disaffiliated on 11 April 1918.

1897 April

The University College Women's Literary Society publishes the first issue of its annual magazine, Sesame, with Adelaide E. Tennant as editor-in chief. The last issue appeared in December, 1901.

1897 August

The British Association for the Advancement of Science, affectionately known as the 'British ASS', holds its annual convention in Toronto, hosted by the U of T, the second time it has met in Canada. This meeting is the first large gathering of academics in Toronto and presaged the emergence in the last half of the 20th century of the U of T as a major research centre. The 'British ASS' would not meet again in Toronto for thirty years.

1897 November 2

College Topics, a weekly newspaper, is established as an alternative to the Varsity. Its appearance was due to the enterprising spirit of Frank D. McEntree and, while not strictly confined to the U of T, its emphasis was on the minutiae of student activities on campus, while The Varsityphilosophized on the broader academic and social issues facing the students. Its sanctum sanctorum was in University College. The last issued appeared on 14 January 1902.

1897 November 18

An editorial board is formed by the Class of '98 to publish Torontonensis, the first university-wide student yearbook, which appeared in the spring of 1898.

1897 December 10

The Senate establishes the Advisory Board for the Degree of Ph.D. It was suceeded on 11 December 1903 by the Board of Post-Graduate Studies, another standing committee.

1897 December 13

St. Michael's College Dramatic Club stages a highly successful performance of 'Richelieu' under the direction of H. N. Shaw, the principal of the Conservatory School of Elocution.

1898

The Yates Cup (senior intercollegiate rugby championship – initially McGill, Queen's and Toronto) is established. Toronto is the first holder.

1898 – 1906

In the 1890s golf became a popular sport in Toronto and members of the faculty wanted a course close to their homes and work. In the summer of 1898 a ten-hole course was laid out across the land north of Hoskin Avenue and east of the Taddle Creek ravine, while Victoria College land east of Queen's Park Drive provided an additional three holes. The course proved popular with faculty and students; competitive matches were held with a trophy, the Challenge Shield, first awarded in 1900. The course lasted until 1906, by which time it had become too rough for playing and construction on part of the land severely curtailed space.

1898 December 15

The origins of 'Theatre Night', when students would go off campus for an evening of dramatic entertainment and high jinks, dates back to 1882. At this December 15 meeting at the Students' Union, male students from across the campus and Osgoode Hall organize the Hallowe'en Club with the view of presenting a play or a skit on student life next Hallowe'en. The first president was James Mettrick from Osgoode Hall, but the convener, Frank McEntree, provided the needed energetic leadership.

1899

The Jennings Cup (interfaculty ice hockey championship) is established.

1899

The residence in the west wing of University College closes.

1900

The first Ph.D.s are awarded at the U of T, in geology, physics and physiology.

1900 April 17

Organizational meeting of the University of Toronto Alumni Association. The name was changed to the Alumni Federation of the University of Toronto in 1921 and to the University of Toronto Alumni Association on 22 November 1948.

1900 December 13-15

In the first decade of the 20th century, women students on campus move rapidly to the forefront of amateur dramatics on campus. The women of University College stage 'The Return of Odysseus' in modern, rather than classical Greek, at the Grand Opera House.

1900 December 14

The U of T makes the School of Practical Science its Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.

1901

The Margaret Eaton School is established as the School of Expression, with the name being changed in 1906 to the Margaret Eaton School of Literature and Expression.

1901 March

The University of Toronto Union, the first attempt at a campus-wide student governing body, is formed. It was first proposed in 1900 by E. M. Wilcox, editor of the Varsity; a committee composed of members of the faculties and colleges was formed, and club rooms were created in the third house of the former University College residence, with the Union opening in March 1901. To foster the idea of unity, the Union purchased the weekly paper, College Topics, in October that year. In March 1902, to eliminate rivalry, the Lit sold the Varsity to the Union and College Topics and The Varsity were amalgamated.

1901 March

University College Women's Athletic Club is formed, combining the Fencing, Hockey and Tennis Clubs that had previously existed separately.

1901 April 15

By The University Act, 1901 the position of President of the University is re-established and that of the Principal of University College is created, to which Maurice Hutton is appointed. Appointments and dismissals can be made only on the recommendation of the President.

1901 November 29

The Board of Management appoints the firm of Darling and Pearson as architects for the proposed medical building. This firm becomes, in effect, the university architects for the next quarter century.

1902

Holwood House, the residence of Sir Joseph Flavelle, is completed at 78 Queen's Park Crescent. The property is willed to the University on Flavelle's death in 1939.

1902 January 30

The Department of Geology supersedes the Chair of Geology established in 1901. The name was changed again on 4 May 1906 to the Department of Geology and Palaeontology.

1902 February

University of Toronto Press is established.

1902 April 29

The cornerstone is laid for Annesley Hall, the residence for women at Victoria College. The University of Toronto Monthly reported that "This will supply at least in part a long felt want in our university system and possibly be the beginning of a new departure in the university education of women in the Province." The need for the construction of student residences was recognized in the report of the Royal Commission on the University of Toronto four years later. Annesley Hall was designed by George M. Miller and was named for Susanna Annesley, the mother of John Wesley, a founder of the Methodist movement. It opened in October 1903.

1902 June 23 – 25

Jubilee of the founding of Trinity College. Although Trinity did have a dramatic club, the students stage the 'Frogs' of Aristophanes in the original Greek on 23 June, a clever abridgement of an earlier English translation.

1902 Summer

Construction begins on the Mining, Geology and Chemistry building for the School of Practical Sciences, paid for by the Ontario government. The building was completed in the summer of 1904 and is popularly known as the Mining Building.

1902 December 11

Board of Post Graduate Studies replaces Senate Committee.

1902 December 12

The degree of Bachelor of Household Science is established by Senate Statute 481.  The first two graduates, Olive Gain Patterson and Margaret Adda Proctor, convocated on 8 June 1906.

1903

The Department of Laryngology and Rhinology is established when the Chair of Opthalmology, Otology, Laryngology, and Rhinology is split to form the Chair of Laryngology and Rhinology, and the Chair of Opthamology. The latter is cited as the Department of Opthalmology from 1 July 1908.

1903

"Domestic Science Maid."

1903 April 23

A meeting is convened at University College by 22 young women graduates of seven universities for the purpose of establishing the first university women's club in Canada.  The constitution of the University Women's Association was adopted at the next meeting on 27 November and Mabel Chown, BA 1900 (University College) is elected its first president.  The name was soon chenaged to the University Women's Club and eventually to the University Women's Club of Toronto.

1903 June 10

As a part of Commencement Week, Ben Greet, an important British actor and friend of Professor James Mavor of Political Science, and his Woodland Players gave "the first open-air performances of Shakespearean plays ever seen in Toronto…in the residence garden." He returned for further productions in 1905, 1906 and 1908. The only Canadian in the company for the 1903 production was Frank McEntree, founding editor of College Topics, though students were given bit parts.

1903 October

Trinity Medical College ceases to exist when it is amalgamated with the Faculty of Medicine at the U of T.

1903 October 1 & 2

Inauguration of the new Medical Building, designed by Darling and Pearson.

1904 June 10

The original Convocation Hall was destroyed in the University College fire of 14 February 1890. In 1902 the U of T Alumni Society launched a campaign to raise funds for a new building and by 1904 sufficient funds had been raised to occasion the laying on the cornerstone at noon on Commencement Day. The spade is wielded by John Hoskin, chairman of the Board of Trustees, after whom Hoskin Avenue is named.

1904 August

A Department of Physics is established in the School of Practical Science with the appointment of G.R. Anderson to a lectureship in physics. It was absorbed into the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering in 1906 but did not have the status of a formal department.

1904 October 1

Trinity College federates with the University of Toronto. As the Trinity College campus, in the current Trinity-Bellwoods Park, was some distance from the U of T, the University Administration agreed to pay the street car fare of students going back and forth. For 1905-1906, the cost was $255.70. By the time Trinity moved to the U of T campus in 1925, the annual bill had risen to $1807.74.

1905

The Women's Dramatic Club of University College is founded. It encouraged, through the plays of Shakespeare, 'voice culture' and 'dramatic expression'. Its leadership was recognized as early as 1909 when it performed 'The Princess' during Commencement Week. Over time it attracted students from the Protestant colleges on campus – Victoria and St. Hilda's.

1905

Victoria College Athletic House (for men) is constructed.

1905

Part-time courses leading to the B.A. degree are established.

1905 January

Queen's Hall opens. In November 1904 the Board of Trustees purchased No. 7 Queen's Park, the residence of the late William H. Howland, former mayor of Toronto, for use as a residence, by the women of University College. The Women's Residence Association of University College, which had been campaigning for this objective for almost a decade and had raised over $6,000 towards it, declared itself satisfied with the result and dissolved in November 1905. The first superintendent was Mrs. John Campbell, widow of the late Professor Campbell of Montreal Presbyterian College. Later, Darling and Pearson designed an extension for the back of the house. Queen's Hall was used as a residence until the opening of Whitney Hall in 1931.

1905 February 28

The Toronto University Women's Athletic League is formed. It was instituted "to supply the want felt by the women students of the three colleges under federation, of the lack of intercourse on the social side of college life". The first honorary president was Mrs. Ramsay Wright. On 27 March 1914, the name was changed to the Women's Athletic League of the University of Toronto. It was never formally recognized by the University officials.

1905 May 25

The University Act 1905 provides $1.5 million for capital purposes – the first significant provincial capital grant; funds are also provided for relocation of Toronto General Hospital to University Ave.

1905 October 3

Premier Whitney appoints a royal commission on the structure of the University of Toronto, headed by Joseph Flavelle. Meetings were held at The Grange, the residence of Goldwin Smith who was one of the commissioners. Their report was submitted on 4 April 1906.

1905 October 31

The Hallowe'en Club runs afoul of the University authorities due to the excessive enthusiasm of its participants, and is shut down. It was revived in 1907 as the Theatre Night Committee of the Undergraduates Union.

1906

The Mrs. Ramsay Wright Trophy (tennis) is awarded, the first athletic trophy for women at the U of T.

1906

Bachelor of Household Science degree is instituted; first two graduates.

1906 May 10

President Loudon resigns and is replaced by Maurice Hutton, Professor of Classics and Principal of University College, as acting president. A search committee, headed by Edmund Walker, is struck to select a new president.

1906 May 14

The University of Toronto Act, 1906 receives royal assent. The reconstituted Senate is responsible for purely academic matters while the Board of Governor selected the president and dealt with financial matters. The annual operating grant to be 50% of provincial death duties. It came into effect on June 15.

1906 May 28

The Board of Governors approves the creation of the Department of Astronomy.

1906 June 15

The School of Practical Science is absorbed by the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. Six departments are inherited from the School: civil engineering, mining engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, architecture, analytical and applied chemistry, and chemical engineering. Informal "departments" include physics and surveying.

1906 August

The Board of Governors approves the lease to Wycliffe College of the parcel of land at the corner of Hoskin Avenue and Queen's Park east of its building, this land being "not of sufficient width to make it possible to satisfactorily place a building therein, and it is the policy of the Board not to build upon it."

1906 August 2

The Department of Household Science becomes the Faculty of Household Science. Lillian Massey agrees to fund and equip a new building, and she also pays the salaries of the faculty for the first few years.

1906 November 22

Faculty of Education is established. It was succeeded on 30 June 1920 by the Ontario College of Education.

1907

69 St. George Street is purchased by the U of T. It is the first building acquired by the University outside the University Park and iss the first of many on St. George St. to succumb to the expanding needs of the University.

1907 May 22

The Property Committee issues a special report recommending that "the Board of Governors should no longer delay consideration of the estabishment of a properly organized museum" and that it formally set aside for that purpose "the block of land north of leasehold of A. H. Campbell, being one hundred and fifty feet on the North Drive [now Queen's Park] by four hundred and forty-four feet along Bloor to the McMaster College line, less the depressed part [Taddle Creek Ravine]" plus "the strip of land west of the leasehold....being in length...three hundred and eighty six [sic] feet and in width approximately one hundred and eighty-five feet."  The latter parcel of land was never deeded to the future Royal Ontario Museum and is now occupied by the Edward Johnson Building of the Faculty of Music.

1907 February 14

The Faculty of Forestry is established. Bernhard Edouard Fernow, who had been at Cornell University, is appointed dean in April.

1907 June 6

Convocation Hall formally opens. The ceremony was presided over by Dr. R. A. Reeve, president of the Alumni Association, and an oil painting of the former Vice-Chancellor, Thomas Moss, was presented. (Moss hall was named after him.)

1907 July 1

The Department of Comparative Philology is created. It was dissolved c. 1 July 1923 on the retirement of Professor A. J. Bell.

1907 Summer

Renovations to 69 St. George St. are carried out at a cost of $5,200 to make it suitable for the new University president, Robert Alexander Falconer.  He is charged $800.00 per annum in rent.

1907 September 25

Robert Alexander Falconer is installed as the president of the U of T.

1907 September 27

Official opening of the Physics Building (later McLennan Physical Laboratories), designed by Darling and Pearson.

1907 October 10

The Department of Drawing is established in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.

1907 May 21

The Property Committee of the Board of Governors reports that it has arranged the purchase from George Dickson, at a cost of $70,000, the block of property known as St. Margaret's College, at the south-east corner of Bloor Street and Spadina Avenue. It had previously recommended that the Board negotiate with the Gooderham estate for the adjacent block of land between the College and Huron Street. The purchase  These properties became the site of the future Faculty of Education/University of Toronto Schools building.

1908

The first black fraternity is established at the U of T, as a chapter of the Afro-American fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha.  Only two students are on record as having been members, Manasseh Robert Mahlangeni from Toleni, Cape Colony, South Africa, and Keith Myric Benoit Simon from Dominica.  The fraternity lasted only two years.

1908 January

Graham Campbell, the Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds, reports that the newspapers were critical of "his acton in stopping sleigh-riding on the hills [the Taddle Creek ravine] in the University grounds...As many as three hundred children have been sliding on the hills at one time."  The students using the library had complained that the noise prevented them from studying and it was also reported that the older boys had been using "very bad language".  The matter was resolved when Campbell arranged with the Mayor, Joseph Oliver, for the stationing of a city policeman there "to regulate the coasting and to keep order."

1908 May 28

The Department of Materia Medica and Theraputics is split into the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology and the Department of Theraputics.

1908 June

The Board of Governors approves the construction of a building to accommodate the laboratories for steam, gas, and hydraulic work and for all general mechanical engineering. The Thermodynamics Building was designed by Darling and Pearson. The laboratory section to the left of the picture below was the only portion built; it opened late in 1909.

1908 July 1

The Department of Electro-Chemistry is established in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. It was dissolved on 1 July 1921 and absorbed by the Department of Chemistry in the Faculty of Arts.

1908 September 15

The Board of Governors approves the reports of the Property Committee on two projects. The first involved taking down the old Meterological Building and erecting it "on the knoll almost opposite the eastern entrance to the Main Building and making provision in this new erection for the accommodation of the Geodetic Observatory at present situated in the small observatory south of the Engineering Building." A proposal to cut costs by eliminating a wing was abandoned. The second project approved was tenders for alterations and improvements to the Worthington House at No. 11 Queen's Park for the use of the Department of Forestry and Botany.

1908 September 30

The cornerstone is laid for Devonshire House, the first university wide men's residence, primarily for medical and "science" (engineering) students. It was the first residence built largely with private money, though this funding covered only the East and North Houses, with the finances for South House being provided by the Province.  The architects were Eden Smith & Sons.

1908 October 20

The University of Toronto Parliament of the Undergraduates gets a new constitution and assumes responsibility for the publication of Torontonensis (previously published by the 'Graduating Year'). It also gains a Musical Board to supervise all approved music clubs in the U of T, "marketed the new University rug – an artistic creation in royal blue and white, with a shield design and meander border', superintended the Students' Theatre Night and, for the first time, appointed the Toronto debaters to the Inter-University Debating League.

1909

The women of Queen's Hall residence establish their own dramatic club that puts on an annual play between 1909 and 1915. It favoured the works of modern Irish playwrights. One of its accomplishments was the first presentation on campus of a play written by a woman, Hannah Cowley's "The Belle's Strategem".

1909

The Chair of Biochemistry is established within the Department of Physiology. It is cited as the Department of Biochemistry from 1 July 1910 when it becomes an independent department within the Faculty of Arts. Effective 1 July 1921 the Department moved over to the jurisdiction of the Faculty of Medicine.

1909

The Department of Electrical Engineering is established on the Division of the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering into two departments, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.

1909

The Department of Botany is established.

1909 June 10

The Department Laryngology and Rhinology is renamed the Department of Laryngology. In June 1912 the name is changed to the Department of Otolaryngology.

1909 July 1

The Chair of Chemical Pathology is established; it is cited as the Department of Chemical Pathology from 12 August 1909.

1909 December 3

The cornerstone is laid for the new Household Science building. Chancellor Burwash of Victoria College performs the ceremony of the laying of the stone and Dr. John Hoskin, Chairman of the Board of Governors, accepts the building from Mrs. Lillian Massey Treble.

1909 December 4

The Senior Rugby Team defeats Parkdale in first Grey Cup final. The game is a lackluster one; the contest the week before with the Ottawa Rough Riders really decided the championship. Then eleven thousand spectators cheer Varsity on to a 31-7 victory.

1910

University of Toronto Schools is established in Faculty of Education.

1910 March

A gift is announced from the Hart Massey estate to the U of T to fund the construction of a social and athletic centre for male students on campus, to be called Hart House. The initial proposal puts the cost at $300,000 but an expanded plan soon pushes the budget to $1,000,000. Sproatt and Rolph, a Toronto firm, is chosen as architects and the first sod was turned in the summer of 1911.

1910 July 1

The Department of Iron and Steel Metallurgy is established; the name is changed on 1 July 1911 to the Department of Metallurgy.

1910 November

The digging for and construction of the University heating tunnel, power house, and stack begins. The project extended through May 1911.

1910 November 26

The Senior Rugby team plays Hamilton in an away game for the second Grey Cup championship before 12,000 spectators. Varsity won 16-7. 

1910 November 26

The Senior Rugby team plays Hamilton in an away game for the second Grey Cup championship before 12,000 spectators. Varsity won 16-7. This photograph "shows two of Canada's greatest backs - Jack Maynard, the find of the year and possible captain of the Canadian championship of 1911 has just kicked a very difficult goal. Hugh Gall, Canada's greatest half back is lying on the ground having placed the ball in position for Maynard to kick. Prior to the 1920s the 'convert' was kicked from any section of the field provided it was opposite the point where the touchdown was scored. Defending team lined up under the goalposts. Touchdown, five points; convert, one point. The nearer the touchdown was to the touchline, the greater the distance from the goal-line to the kicking point - to get the angle. This was a 35-yard kick."

1910 December 8

St. Michael's College federates with the U of T. The students produce their first Year Book the following spring.

1911

Ivy G. Coventry is appointed the first Directress of Athletics and Physical Training for Women.

1911

Albert Edward Gooderham founds the Canadian Academy of Music.

1911

The First Conference of Canadian Universities is established. It changed its name in 1916 to the National Conference of Canadian Universities.

1911

Loretto Abbey College is established for the women students of St. Michael's College. They soon formed a dramatic society.

1911

Albert Edward Gooderham founds and finances the Columbian Conservatory of Music.  It became the Canadian Academy of Music the following year when it moved to 12-14 Spadina Road, and absorbed the Metropolitan School of Music that became its Parkdale branch.  

1911

United College Alumnae Association (for women) is established.

1911 November 25

The popularity of rugby football after the U of T team won the 1909 Grey Cup led to the construction of an 11,000 seat stadium. It was completed in 1911 in time for Varsity's defeat of the Argonauts by a score of 14-7 for its third Grey Cup, under the leadership of Hugh Gall and Jack Maynard, captains 1910 and 1911 respectively.Gall has been described as Canada'a greatest half back of the period and Maynard as one of its greatest backs.

1912

Canadian Academy of Music is established when the Columbian Conservatory of Music, established in 1911, changes its name. It was absorbed in 1924 by the Toronto Conservatory of Music.

1912

The medical students, who had started a skit night, called Daffydil Night, in 1895 as a Punch and Judy show to caricature their professors, rent Convocation Hall; for the first time the event includes an elaborate program called Epistaxis that became ever more risqué as time passed. Daffydil Night became the model for other faculties and colleges.

1912 April 16

An Act to establish a provincial museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, is passed. The force behind its conception and realization was Sir Byron Edmund Walker, Chairman of the Board of Governors, 1910-1923, and Chancellor of the U of T, 1923-1924.

1912 July 1

The Department of Metallurgical Engineering is established.

1913

The Household Science (Lillian Massey Treble building) opens; it provides a gymnasium and a swimming pool for all women students. Though the latter was considered adequate for the time, after the opening of much grander facilities for men in Hart House, the women referred to it as 'the bathtub'.

1913 March 27

The last meeting of the Parliament of the Undergraduates is held.

1913 April 3

The first meeting of the Students' Administrative Council (SAC), successor to the Parliament of the Undergraduates.

1913 December 12

The stunt nights did not solve the need on campus for a serious dramatic society for men. The formation of a Men's Dramatic Club in December 1907 was not successful -- it soon collapsed. The formation of the Players Club of the University of Toronto in the spring of 1913 was more propitious. Its first production, 'An Enemy of the People' by Henrik Ibsen, was presented on 12 December and provided further evidence of the move towards modern works. The Club early felt the impact of World War I but managed one more season under the direction of A.R.M. Lower before ceasing operations as men enlisted. The 1914-1915 season was an imaginative one in which two plays, seen in the city for the first time, were presented: Galsworthy's 'The Pigeon' and Shaw's 'The Dark Lady of the Sonnets'.  The Players Club then suspended its activities for the duration of the First World War.

1914

The Medical Research Fund is established as the first systematic attempt to support research at the University.

1914 March 19

Royal Ontario Museum opens. It was part of the U of T until 1959, one result of which was that no University Museum was ever created.

1914 April 29

The Senate approves Statute 730 creating a curriculum in social service, effectively the Department of Social Service.

1914 May 1

The annual grant from death duties to the U of T is limited to $500,000 by a Provincial Act. This continued to be the case until 1964, though each year the Government made a supplementary grant.

1914 May 1

The Antitoxin Laboratory is established at the insistence of Dr. John Gerald FitzGerald, with financial support from Sir Edmund Osler, Sir Edmund Walker and, especially, Colonel Albert E. Gooderham.

1914 May 1

An antitoxin laboratory is created in the Department of Hygiene to produce diptheria antitoxin, rabies vaccine, textnus antitoxin and anit-menengitis serum.  The Director is Dr. James Gerald Fitzgerald.

1914 June

The Department of Social Service is established.

1914 August 4

The outbreak of World War I. By this point the walls of Hart House were up and the roof on, but now construction slows to a crawl. The building is turned over to the war effort. The Great Hall became a drill hall for a time and the future theatre,as Ian Monatagnes described it, "housed a macabre puppet show. At one end a ruined Belgian village rose in minature: from behind its wrecked buildings and its shattered windows, marionettes in German field grey popped suddenly in to view - life-like targets for student riflemen posted at the far end of the room in a sand-bagged imitation trench."

1915-1919

From 1915 to 1919 the Students' Administrative Council, assisted by faculty and other interested people, issued an annual Magazine Supplementcontaining illustrated articles on the University and the war effort.

1915 March 26

The Canadian General Hospital No. 4 (University of Toronto) is established.

1915 April

Immediately following the establishment of Canadian General Hospital No. 4, two committees were formed to provide the equipment needed over and above government issue. One, representing the Board of Governors, the Senate, and the faculty and staff, "arranged for the purchase of medical, surgical, and laboratory apparatus...The second committee, [which soon evolved into the University Women's Hospital Supply Association], which was composed of ladies connected with the University, proceeded to prepare the hospital clothing, bed linen, surgical dressings, and all similar articles...In the first year, 3340 cases containing 124,000 articles, were sent overseas."

1915 October 14

Board of Post Graduate Studies replaces Committee of Post Graduate Studies; it in turn is replaced by School of Graduate Studies in 1922.

1915 November 2

The U of T contingent of Canadian Officers Training Corps is authorized.

1916

The Schonnenburg house (also known as the Schoenberger House) at 184 College Street is purchased for use by the COTC, with the Alumni Association occupying four rooms on the second floor.

1916

The house at 79 St. George Street, erected in 1885, is acquired for the University College Women's Union. Renovations begin in May for occupancy by the beginning of October. In 1922-1923 a major addition by Darling and Pearson is added on the east side.

1916-1919

During the War and once the roof was on, certain "afterthoughts" were added to Hart House. These, noted by Vincent Massey in a letter to the Warden, Burgeon Bickersteth, included "the theatre and its adjoining equipment, the Faculty Union (now the Gallery Grill), the chapel and the sketch-room (later the art gallery)." The most ambitious, and almost accidental, of these was Hart House Theatre. Vincent Massey and his wife, Alice (married 1915), "looking about the building one day, were seized with the idea that the great vaulted space underneath the quadrangle might be used as a theatre". This occasioned further excavation, the cutting two additional entrances in the front of the building, designing a concrete arched roof to span the 50-foot width of the auditorium, and adding the necessary fitting and other rooms.

1916-1917 Winter

Some of the issues for returning disabled soldiers are addressed by Dr. E.A. Bott of physiology, who opens a small clinic for their 'functional re-education'. In May 1917 this work is re-organized and expanded by the Military Hospitals Commission and moved into Hart House. In 1918, the Canadian Amry Medical Corps assumes responsibility and created a School of Physiotherapy in Hart House. Massage therapy was carried out in the swimming pool. From 1917 onwards members of the faculty, especially from Applied Science and headed by Professor H.E.T. Haultain, run a programme for refitting disabled soldiers for civilian life. Classes for industrial instruction are carried out in the temporary gynasium (constructed for use while Hart House was being built) and courses in 'occupational therpay' for the more seriously injured soldiers. For soldiers whose faces had been disfigured, sculptor Frederick Coates used his modelling ability to make plaster models of faces so surgeons could reconstruct them. "The doctors know how to graft flesh and bones; Coates knew what a remodeled face should look like."

1916 February 8

The Faculty of Education Dramatic Club presents 'The Cricket on the Hearth' by Dickens and 'She Stoops to Conquer'.

1916 April 27

Wycliffe College is authorized to grant degrees in divinity.

1916 October 12

The first meeting of the the Women's Student Council of the University of Toronto, the first such university-wide body, representing University College, Victoria, St. Hilda's, St. Miike's and Medicine. The first president is Elizabeth Grant from University College.

1917

The Imperial Royal Flying Corps (its official title) establishes a training centre for Canada with headquarters in Toronto. The cadets received their preliminary training on campus before being sent to flying camps at Leaside, Borden and Desoronto; the first cadets headed to Borden at the end of April. During the summer of 1917 a large number of Americans from Fort Riley in Kansas also arrived for training, and the RFC took over the front and back lawns, parts of the Engineering Building, Convocation Hall and Hart House; Wycliffe College, most of Burwash Hall, and Devonshire Hall. A number of airplanes (or parts thereof) were set up around the campus for instructional purposes, and in the gymnasiums of Hart House the RFC cadets "mastered the principles of engine and aircraft construction by stripping down an old Curtis Jenny and re-assembling it again". In 1918 the Back Campus and the quadrangle of Burwash Hall were filled with tents.

1917

The Board of Governors budgets $15,000 for research; this leads to establishment of School of Engineering Research in Faculty of Applied Science in May.

1917 January 15

A lengthy column in The Varsity describes the founding meeting of the University of Toronto Sketch Club, attended by about 30 men. Amongst those addressing the students were the architect John M. Lyle and the artist and illustrator C. W. Jeffries.

1917 October 25

The Connaught Laboratories are formally opened by Governor General the Duke of Connaught on a farm of 58 acres purchased by Colonel Gooderham at what became Downsview and was named the University Farm. It merged with the Antitoxin Laboratory to form the Connaught Anti-Toxin Laboratories on 8 May 1919. Renamed Connaught Laboratories in 1923, the name was changed again in 1946 to the Connaught Medical Research Laboratories. Sold to the Canadian Development Corporation, 29 Sept. 1972.

1917 October 29

The Victoria College Women's Dramatic Club is formed. Its policy was a radical departure from the past for it expressed immediate interest in the burgeoning "Little Theatre" movement and presented, in the place of one long play, "three charming short plays which are being produced by so many popular playwrights". They were 'Overtones', a study of modern woman; 'Gods of the Mountains', a piece about idols; and a satire, 'Helena's Husband". These plays were so successful that the following year Shakespeare comprised only a fourth of the program, sharing the season with scenes from the great novels, "Little Theatre" plays, and Mrs. Gaskell's 'The Ladies of Cranford'.

1917 December 14

The Ontario College of Art affiliates with the University of Toronto and a Chair of the History of Industrial Art is established in the Faculty of Arts.

1918

The Canadian Academy of Music absorbs the Toronto College of Music. 

1918 April 5

The Faculty of Music is established, with instruction beginning in 1919-1920. A provincial Act confirms an agreement between the Toronto Conservatory of Music and the Governors of the U of T whereby the university assumes financial responsibility and control of the Conservatory and its programs.

1918 Summer

University College and the Faculty of Medicine acquire the house at 100 Queen's Park, for use as a women's residence known as Argyll House, "so called in honour of the clan to which its recent owners", the family of A. H. Campbell, belonged. Described as a residence "imposing enough to be designated by a title, other than a mere numerical one", it provided accommodation for 31 residents, medical students and Arts graduates and undergraduates. Because of the extensive renovations required, it was not ready for occupation at the beginning of term and the students were housed elsewhere in the interim. In the fall of 1930 it was demolished to make way for the east wing of the Royal Ontario Museum.

1918 July 1

The Department of History of Industrial Art is established. The name was changed to the Department of History of Industrial Art and Archaeology on 1 July 1929 and to the Department of Archaeology on 23 February 1933.

1919 June

The Canadian General Hospital No. 4 (University of Toronto is dissolved (demobilized). Its members are welcomed back in Toronto at a ceremony in Convocation Hall in July.

1919

71 St. George St. is purchased for use by the Department of Psychology.

1919

92-94 St. George Street is purchased for use as a residence for University College women students, capacity 38. It is given the name Hutton House in honour of Principal Maurice Hutton.

1919 February

The University Veterans' Association of Toronto is formed. It is "limited to those who had seen voluntary service in the actual theatre of war…As early as 1916 student-soldiers who had been wounded or otherwise rendered unfit for service overseas began to dribble back to the University….In January, 1918…about 300 veterans had returned to the University." It had a room on the second floor of the Schonnenburg house at 184 College Street.

1919 April

In preparation for the opening of Hart House, the Hart House Committee, chaired by the recently appointed warden, Walter Bowles, meets for the first time and creates the first – library and finance – committees charged with running Hart House. J.E.H. MacDonald, one of the original members of the Group of Seven, is commissioned to design a bookplate for the library.

1919 August 26

Official visit of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.

1919 October

The Players Club is reorganized as an association of highly gifted amateurs with little room for any but the most experienced students, of whom Harold Scudamore, a returned soldier at Trinity College, was one. It ran Hart House Theatre for its first two years, becoming in 1921 an auxiliary body to it, providing "a social organization for the men who are working in the theatre with drama as a common interest". The members often showed great promise, presenting one-act plays that formed part of the fare of the Theatre in the 1920s. "The presence of a professional theatre on campus occasioned an explosion of interest in dramatics. So many new clubs were formed by the mid-1920s that almost every interest group on campus was putting on at least one play a year. The older clubs were forced to define their areas of dramatic interest and to seek new means of support. Single-sex organizations outside the Catholic colleges tended to disappear and the barriers amongst the colleges continued to erode."

1919 October 10

The Senate approves the curriculum for a Diploma in Public Health.

1919 November 11

Hart House, built by the Massey family "at a cost approaching two millions," officially opens; the ceremony begins at 11:00 sharp. Hart House Theatre, which is run separately, also opens. Designed as a "Little Theatre," it is described as "quite the best thing of the kind anywhere." Vincent Massey also provide $125,000 towards an athletic centre for women; this dream is not relized for another forty years.

1919 November 13

The Department of Analytical and Applied Chemistry becomes the Department of Chemical Engineering on 13 November 1919. On 22 September 1921 the name was changed to the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry.

1919 November 19

A reunion of the University Battery, Canadian Expeditionary Forces, is held in Burwash Hall and the 67th (Varsity) Battery Association is formed.

1919 November 28

Returning war veterans brought new experiences and ideas to theatre on campus; these were first demonstrated in two war sketches presented at Trinity College, both written by students and the earliest known examples. "'As We Are' by Ada Garrow and performed by the women of St. Hilda's was a war-time fantasy in one act. 'The Mudwallopers of Na Poo Corners' by Robert Hays, was a clever and highly amusing look at life in the trenches. It was presented by the men of Trinity who, under the leadership of Harold Scudamore….form[ed] the Trinity College Dramatic Society two months later."

1919 Christmas

The Players Club presents 'The Chester Mysteries', with music by Healey Willan.

1920-1921

From autumn of 1915 the activities of the University College Literary and Scientific Society and many other student organizations were suspended. At war's end, due to "the break in tradition, together with the changed interests of many of the students", a re-organization of the Lit was necessary. "A slow and difficult task" it was carried out through a series of weekly meetings that resulted in a name change to the University College Literary and Athletic Society and a move away from a debating society to "the blending of the two forces of College life, an adoption of a compulsory fee, and change in the nature of many of the executive officers." The membership was not expanded to include women students.

1920

The dental students were the first faculty to take up the theatrical challenge posed by the medical students, forming the Dramatic Committee of the Royal Dental Society in the autumn of 1920 specifically to put on "Dentactics Night". This, the Society's dramatic night, was the spring counterpart to "Noctem Cuckoo", its annual stunt night held in first term. The students experimented frequently with the structure of the event, one year producing three one-act plays, so as to involve more students, and following it with a three act comedy the next. The quality of their productions gradually improved so that in 1938 a one-act play, 'Heaven on Earth', was entered in the University Drama Festival.

1920 May 15

The Toronto Telegram reports that "within a few days it is expected that Prof. Mavor's house will be ready for the 'scrapping' process" to make way for the new home of the University of Toronto Press. The new building went up quickly; it was ready for occupancy by the end of September. The building the Press had previously occupied was the last out building left over from the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory some eighty years previously. A third storey was added to the new building in 1926.

1920 May 24

Harold Scudamore and three others produce "The P.B.I. or Mademoiselle of Bully Grenay' at the Princess Theatre, following two sold out performances in Hart House Theatre. It then went on tour through southern Ontario. 'P.B.I' stood for "poor bloody infantry", originally an expression of compassion arising from the horrors of trench warfare.

1920 June 2

The Senate approves the curriculum for a course in Public Health Nursing.

1920 June 30

The Faculty of Education is dissolved and replaced by the Ontario College of Education, entirely funded by the provincial Department of Education.

1920 July 1

The Department of University Extension and Publicity is created. Divided in 1947 into the Department of Publicity and the Department of University Extension.

1920 July 1

A diploma course in Public Health Nursing is established on a trial basis, with the support of the Canadian Red Cross.

1920 October 20

The Royal Commission on University Finances, chaired by Henry John Cody, is created to inquire into the financial structure and requirements of the University of Toronto, Queen's University and Western University. Its report, tabled on 10 February 1921, recommended increased government support for the universities.

1920 November 2

University of Toronto Women's Athletic Association replaces the Toronto University Athletic League

1920 December 4

Those poor Argos! Varsity again defeats them to win the Grey Cup. This time the score was 16 to 3. George Westman and Frank Sullivan also played on the Senior Hockey Team and were the first and perhaps only U of T students ever to play on national championship teams in different sports in the same year.

1921

The Women's Dramatic Club folds. It is replaced in 1922 by the University College Player's Guild which included both men and women and rapidly became the leading dramatic organization on campus. Its productions were for members only and it had its own facilities, the new Women's Union, in which to produce plays.

1921

The Electrical (later named the Rosebrugh) Building is completed. It has been under construction since 1919. The architects were Darling and Pearson.

1921

The American Association for the Advancement of Science holds its first meeting in Toronto since 1889.

1921

The Department of Civil Engineering becomes the Department of Applied Mechanics and Civil Engineering.

1921

The Department of Hygiene is renamed the Department of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine. In 1924-1925 it was re-organized as a Faculty of Medicine department housed in the School of Hygiene.

1921 February

In the autumn of 1920 two students, Keith Crombie and Joseph Easton McDougall, expressed interest in starting a literary magazine; they were joined by James Cowan and Clarke Ashworth who wanted to start a humour magazine, an idea popular in North American universities at the time. They soon attracted more followers with the result that "Toronto's college comic, the generic term for such products at the time,..started with thirty-five editors, no business staff, and about the same amount of working capital." The first issue of The Goblin appeared in February 1921. Priced at 20¢, "It was an immediate success. It had a first run of 2,000 copies followed by a reprint of 1,000 both of which sold out in a day….By November, 1921, sales had reached 8,500, 2,500 more than the undergraduate body at the time." Its cover, layout, artwork, and advertising set it apart and provided a professional look that made the whole package attractive.

1921 March

Not ones to be left out, engineers organize an evening of skits called "SpAsMs Nite", which became the "Revue" section of their annual variety night, "School Nite", once they were given access to Hart House in 1923. By the mid-1930s they were claiming it to be more popular than any other stunt night on campus but, unlike the medical and dental students, they made no attempt at serious drama.

1921 March 21

The Senior Intercollegiate Hockey team defeats Brandon in Winnipeg to win the Allan Cup, the Dominion intercollegiate hockey championship.

1921 April 1

The honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) is established by Senate statute 843.  The first two recipients of this honour, on 9 June 1921, are Wilfred Pirt Mustard, an 1886 graduate of the University College, a distinguished classical scholar and professor of Latin at Johns Hopkins University, and Duncan Campbell Scott, the Canadian poet.

1921 May 12

The Department of Chemical Pathology is renamed the Department of Pathological Chemistry.

1921 September 21

The Department of Chemical Engineering is renamed the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry.

1922 January 13

The degrees of Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architecture are established by Senate statute 856.

1922 February 10

The degree of Master of Surgery (Ch.M.) in the Faculty of Medicine is established by Senate statute 857.

1922 February 10

The degree of Master of Surgery (Ch.M.) in the Faculty of Medicine is established by Senate statute 857.

1922 April 27

The Board of Governors approves the establishment of the School of Graduate Studies which had been created by Senate statute 863 on 28 March 1922.  James Playfair McMurrich  its first dean. He resigned in 1930.

1922 July 1

The Department of History and Ethnology is split into the Department of History and the Department of Ethnology.

1922 July 13

The term "Department of Law" emerges once again.  A formal  Department is not established until 1 July 1937.

1922 October

The Nobel Prize Committee announces that the Nobel Prize in Medicine is awarded to John James Rickard Macleod, head of the Department of Physiology, and Frederick Grant Banting for their work on the discovery of insulin. "Banting was incensed that he had to share the prize with Macleod and not with [Charles] Best, and had to be dissuaded from turning it down…."

1922 November 20

The matter of a memorial to those who fell during the war was resolved when, at a meeting a month after the Armistice was signed, the suggestion by unidentified female student of "a tower with bells" was accepted. A lengthy period of fundraising followed, and on 20 November 1922 the contracts were signed. Construction began three days later when "two workmen with picks and shovels appeared on the ground and commenced to dig." The architects were Sproatt and Rolph, the architects of Hart House.

1922 December 12

At 4:00 pm on this day the first sod of the new Trinity College building is formally turned by the Bishop of Toronto.

1923 January

Professor J. P. McMurrich, chair of the Department of Anatomy, reports that the Department's new building is "now practically completed and the Department, hitherto inadequately housed in the west wing of the Biological Building, will begin the work of the second semester in its new quarters." The architect was the firm of Darling and Pearson.  The insurance file described the building as "Stone faced – grey stock brick exterior, fireproof construction – no plastering. Mastic floors."

1923 January 24

A cyrogenics laboratory opens, shortly after Professor J. C. McLennan and his team succeed in producing liquid helium in quantity, the first such success outside of a laboratory in Leiden, Holland.

1923 May

The Banting and Best Chair of Medical Research is established. The name was changed on 22 May 1930 to the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research.

1923 July 1

The Department of Drawing becomes the Department of Engineering Drawing.

1923 Fall

When the YMCA vacated its building on the completion of Hart House, it was taken over by the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering for use by its Department of Architecture until the fall of 1923 when the Board of Governors made it available to the Insulin Department of the Connaught Laboratories and it was dubbed the 'Insulin Building'. Charles H. Best was put in charge of the laboratory and "all the insulin used in Canada is produced, besides large quantities which are exported to Ireland, New Zealand, India and South Africa….The ground floor of the building is devoted to the manufacture of insulin. Here the beef pancreas is received and ground up. It is dissolved in alcohol and this is filtered and is treated with chemicals and is ready for use. The upper floor…is used as a laboratory." In December of 1926, having outlived its usefulness, the building was torn down.

1923 October 25

Frederick Grant Banting and John James Rickard MacLeod are awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of insulin.

1924 October 25

The Toronto Telegram annouces that the "nameless thoroughfare which lies immediately to the north of the Parliament Buildings" is to be called 'Old King's College Road'.

1924 February

Simcoe Hall, designed by Darling and Pearson and erected at a cost of $378,082, opens. It was the first building purpose built solely for the administration of the U of T and housed the President's office and offices for the chancellor, the registrar, and the bursar. There was also a room for the Board of Governors, the Senate chamber, and offices for the Department of University Extension, School of Graduate Studies, the Alumni Federation, and others. There was also a post office with "no fewer than three wickets with glass and brass doors, and standard-sized letter and parcel chutes".

1924 February 28

The School of Hygiene is established with the aid of Rockefellet Foundation grants.  With its establishment, the Department of Epideniology and Biomentrics and Physiological Hygiene are created.  The Department of Hygiene is re-organized as a Faculty of Medicince depafrtment housed in the School of Hygiene.

1924 February 28

School of Hygiene is initiated; it opened on 9 June 1927.

1924 Spring

The Canadian Academy of Music is taken over by the Toronto Conservatory of Music and Principal A. S. Vogt, "a very good businessman", cleans house, depriving his rival, Ernest MacMillan, of a portion of his salary. Vogt died in September 1926 and MacMillan succeeded him as principal.

1924 June 5

The dedication of Soldier's Tower is an impressive event, with detachments of the militia units of Toronto present. Their slow march from Knox College to the front of the tower is proceeded by bands of the Governor-General's Body Guard and the Forty-Eighth Highlanders, and numerous dignitaries.

1924 July 13-17

Professor T. R. Loudon takes the Varsity eight-oared rowing crew to the VIII Olympiad in Paris. They bring back the silver medal. The men's eights event, the sixth appearance of the event at the Olympics, was held from 13 to 17 July 1924 on the river Seine. The Canadian team clocked in at 6:49.0 minutes. The time for the American team from Yale, which took the gold, was 6:33.4 minutes.

1924 August

The British Association for the Advancement of Science holds its 92nd annual meeting in Toronto.

1924 August 16-21

The International Mathematical Congress holds its convention in Toronto for the first time. Professor John Charles Fields edited a two-volume set of its proceedings.

1924 Fall

By the autumn of 1924, the construction of new concrete bleachers at Varsity Stadium is well under way. The new seats were designed by Professor T. R. Loudon and the seating capacity of the Stadium is increased by 10,445.

1924 October 23

The Department of Applied Mechanics and Civil Engineering becomes the Department of Civil Engineering (Muncipal and Structural).

1924 October 23

The Department of Surveying becomes the Department of Civil Engineering (Surveying and Geodesy).

1924 November

Excavations begin for the construction of a new Forestry Building, which opened the following year. It originally stood next door to Cumberland House (described at the time as "the old Beardmore residence").

1925

45 St. George Street is acquired for $30,000 for use by the Department of Law (this designation was used from 1922).

1925

47 St. George Street is acquired for $10,000 for use by the Department of Mechanics (from 1930 Dept. of Applied Mathematics).

1925

The University of Toronto Art Service is established. The name was changed on 25 January 1945 to the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine.

1925 March 22

Centenary of the University of Toronto.

1925 July 1

The School of Dentistry of the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario becomes the Faculty of Dentistry in the U of T, and its Department of Dentistry is dissolved.

1925 July 22

Letters patent are issued for the Banting Research Foundation.

1926

The building at the corner of Huron and College Street, erected in 1908 for the Royal College of Dental Surgeons, is purchased for use by the new Faculty of Dentistry.

1926

A brick fence is erected along Bloor Street and along the east boundary of the University property during the widening of Bloor Street. The cost is $8,022.00.

1926 January 19

The new Forestry Building officially opens.

1926 November

The Toronto Psychiatric Hospital is established.

1926 December 17

Varsity Arena officially opens. It was designed by Harkness, Loudon & Hertzberg, engineers, with Darling and Pearson as the architects. Built of red brick, it was constructed at a cost of $223,070.40. The refrigeration unit was provided by Linde Refrigeration Company at a cost of $33,400.00.

1927 March 22

The centenary of the founding of King's College. Preparations had begun several years previously, with former graduates being asked to write their reminiscences for the University of Toronto Monthly. University officials also began systematically to track as many former graduates as possible. Greetings poured in from universities around the world and events continue throughout the year.

1927 June 9

The School of Hygiene formally opens; the ceremonies were conducted in Convocation Hall. The School initially had three departments: Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Epidemiology and Biometrics, and Physiological Hygiene.

1928

43 St. George St. is purchased for $30,000 by the Board of Governors. 

1928

49 St. George St. is purchased for $25,000 for use as a social centre by graduate students.  At the time this photo was taken, it was being used by Housing Services.

1928 February

A fire in the Medical Building causes over $39,000 in damage.

1929 November 1

The University Women's Club of Toronto purchases its own clubhouse at 162 St.George St. for $20,000 cash and a mortgage of $25,000.  The carriage house at the rear had living quarters upstairs, wood-panelled with casement windows.

1930

96-98 St. George Street is purchased for a total of $39,500 for use by the St. George’s School of Child Study.

1930

100 St. George Street is purchased for $12,775 for use by the Department of Pyschology.

1930 September

106 St. George Street is leased until May 1931 for women students relocated from Argyll House and awaiting the completion of Whitney Hall.  The University then purchased the building for $10,000, leaving it vacant.  On 25 September 1937, it was turned over to the Workers Educational Association (WEA) who occupied it for the next ten years.  In September 1947 the University, having repossessed the property, “made alternations for accommodation for 12 maids”.

1930 September 16

Official opening of the Banting Institute.  Architects, Darling and Pearson.  Type of architecture: Georgian. Total cost, $817,450.

1930 December 5 & 6

The University College Players’ Guild presents its first Hart House Theatre production, Congreve’s ‘The Way of the World’.

1931 October 2

Whitney Hall, designed by Mathers and Haldenby and erected in 1930 as a residence for the women of University College, officially opens.

1932 June 8

Formal opening of Botany Building, Mathers and Haldenby architects.  The building cost $405,133.37, the greenhouses $31,906.81.

1933 January 2

The Ontario Government takes over Queen’s Hall to house the School of Nursing.

1934 June 8

The A. O. Beardmore residence at 75 St. George St. is purchased for $25,000 and is demolished the following summer.

1938 March 10

102-104 St. George St. is purchased for $22,500 for use by the Department of Psychology.

1939 July 1

The Alexander McArthur House at 119 St. George St. is purchased for $20,000.  Designed by D. B. Dick and erected in 1892, with alterations in 1911 by Francis S. Baker, it was designated as officers quarters for the U of T contingent of the Canadian Officers Training Corps.

1941 July 1

The Margaret Eaton School is dissolved on its incorporation into the U of T.

1947 January

Associates of the University of Toronto, Inc. is established.

1947 Spring

42 St. George St. acquired, to house the U of T Alumni Federation’s offices on the ground floor and the Health Service men’s infirmary in the balance of the building. 

1948 April 1

The University of Toronto Placement Service is established.  As the bulging Class of 4T8 approached grauduation, many student were having difficulty finding employment. Anticipating this, the University had researched placement services across Canada and the United States and created its own unique system to "help find positions for recent or older graduates and for undergraduates who had to give up their courses and...would help employers find the right people for specfic jobs". Student were required to applyfformally to the Service and John Kenneth Bradford, its director, sent letters to banks, insurance and trust companies, and industrialists and notified government agencies. Interviews and referrals followed and the result, even its first year, was a resounding success. 

1949 April 1

The Institute of Aerophysics is established, with substantial government support, with new facilties at Downsview airport that opened in September 1950. It absorbed the Department of Aeronautical Engineering that had been established on 1 October 1946. Both divisions were headed by Gordon Patterson, who created a leading centre for aerospace studies with an advanced supersonic wind tunnel.

1953 January 12

The new quarters of the College of Optometry, a red-brick building erected at a cost of $150,000 at the south-west corner of St. George St. and Sussex Avenue, is officially opened by Dr. J. W. Dunlop, Minister of Education.  The new building is located in front of an old house, former quarters of the School, now being used as a clinic.

1953 June

The School of Nursing moves into its new building at 50 St. George St.

1953 September 15

The Charles H. Best Institute officially opens.  Designed by the architects Mathers & Haldenby, the corner stone was laid on 7 November 1952 by Colonel Eric Phillips, chairman of the Board of Governors.

1958 July 1

St. Michael’s College changes it name to the University of St. Michael’s College.

1959 January 1

The report of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Planning for Future Library Facilities (McLaughlin Report) documents the need for a central library expansion of 217,700 square feet. 

1959 June

With the expropriation in 1958 by the University of lower St. George Street, known as 'Fraternity Row', the fraternities began to move out of buildings they had occupied, often for a long time.  The Dekes (Delta Kappa Episilon) had been at 80 St. George Street for 58 years when they departed in June 1959 for 44 Bedford Road.

1961 March 18

The Committee on the Library Building Plans (appointed October 1960) submits its first report to President Bissell, asking for a total of 320,950 square feet for a research library. 

1961 March 6-7

The Galbraith Building, which replaces the “Old Red Schoolhouse” as the home of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, officially opens.

1962

President Bissell asks the Committee to revise its report to accommodate predictable needs over 50 years, and to include a Library School building.

1962 November

Faculty of Household Sciences becomes the Faculty of Food Sciences.

1962 November 22-23

The Law Building officially opens.

1963 March 7

The reconstituted Users’ Committee on the Central Library issues its first report, asking for 401,930 square feet for the Library plus 17,000 square feet for the Library School.

1963 February 27

The Centre for Russian and East European Studies is established in the School of Graduate Studies.  It is now known as the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies.

1963 May 23

The Centre for Linguistic Studies is created.  It was disbanded and succeeded on 1 July 1974 by the Department of Linguistic Studies.  On 11 December 1975 its name was changed to the Department of Linguistics.

1963 May 23

Erindale College is established.  Its first courses leading to the Bachelor of Arts degree were offered in 1965, at the T. L. Kennedy Secondary School in Mississauga.

1963 May 23

Scarborough College is formally established and the first sod is turned for buildings on a new campus of 202 acres on Highland Creek in Scarborough. The plans, with John Andrews as architect, were first made public in February 1964 in an exhibit of scale models and drawings.  In his second a nnual report in  1965, Principal D. Carlton Williams described the facilities as "a very practical college building of unique beauty; it has already received most favourable comment from various parts of North America and also, quite recently, from as far away as Japan."

1963 July 1

The Centre for Medieval Studies is established in the School of Graduate Studies.

1963 July 1

The Centre of Criminology is establshed in the School of Graduate Studies.

1963 October 1

The Centre for Culture and Technology is created.  It is headed by Marshall McLuhan and housed in the "Coach House" at St. Michael's College.

1964 March 2

Edward Johnson Building, the new home of the Faculty of Music, officially opens.

1964 May 1

The Centre of Urban Affairs is established in the School of Graduate Studies.  In April 1966 its name was changed to the Centre for Urban and Community Studies.

1964 Autumn

The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies is established within the School of Graduate Studies and is based at Victoria College.

1964 October 5

Laidlaw Library in University College officially opens.

1965 February 2

President Claude Bissell announces that the U of T’s Canadian centennial project will be a Humanities and Social Sciences Research Library.   The cost is estimated at $10,000,000. 

1965 June 8

The New York firm of Warner, Burns, Toan and Lunde is designated as the design team for the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Library, in association with Mathers and Haldenby of Toronto, principal architects.

1965 September

Scarborough College, with a faculty of 41, admits 191students to the First Year of the General Course and the General Course in Science, leading to the BA and BSc degrees. The Collge is housed temporarily in  on the St. George campus until January of 1966 when it moved to its current location on 202 acres of land in Scarborough.

1965 March 30

President Claude Bissell announces the establishment of the Centre for Industrial Relations, with Professor John H. G. Crispo as its director.  It opened in July.

1965 September 16-17

Ramsay Wright Zoological Laboratories officially opens.  The move from the old Biology Building means that it can be torn down to make way for the planned Medical Sciences Building.

1965 October

The Centre for Industrial Relations is established.

1966 March 24

The Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama is established, the first such program in Canada.

1966 May 26

The International Studies Programme is established.  On 27 January 1977 its name was changed to the Centre for International Studies.

1966 October 4

Scarborough College is formally opened.

1967

The Materials Research Centre is established in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.  It was formally organized in 1970 and its name was changed in 1974 to the Centre for the Study of Materials.  It was disbanded in May 1983.

1967 March 29

The plans for the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Library are formally unveiled.  The floor space has risen to 1,036,000 square feet and the cost to $42,000,000.  Other universities in Ontario share the cost by giving up $6,443,690 in building grants over two years, much to their chagrin.

1968 March 15

Working drawings of the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Library complex are completed, and immediately $7 million in economies was sought. The two largest eliminations were terracing and landscaping and the 350-seat auditorium on the west side of the Library. The tower above the roofline of the Rare Book wing survived.  It provided a visual anchor to the building and the chairman of the Board of Governors liked it. 

1968 November 18

Stewart Wallace and Bertha Bassam turn the first sods for the Humanties and Social Sciences Research Library complex and construction beings on the 24th.

1969

The Systems Building Centre is established in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. On 27 June 1983, its name was changed to the Centre for Building Science.

1969 September

Strikes and a lockout over the summer of 1969 set back the construction timetable for the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Library by ten weeks.By September the foundation for the central building, a heavily-reinforced concrete slab seven feet thick, is completed.  It sits one foot above the high-water level.  Work begins on the walls and columns of the first basement level.

1969 January 15

The Senate announces that henceforth its meetings will become public, ending 62 years of closed-door meetings.

1969 April 11

The Senate approves a statute respecting the establishment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art in the School of Graduate Studies.  The first person to receive the degree was Luba Esther Eleen in 1972. She wrote on "The illumination of the Pauline Epistles in French and English Bibles of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries".

1969 Spring

The Graduate Programme in Comparative Literature is established.  In the spring of 1979 its name was changed to the Centre for Comparative Literature.

1969 October 8

The Senate approves statutes establishing the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature and in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.  In 1970 Elizabeth Greene received the first PhD in Comparative Literature, while the first recipients in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology were Peter John Bowler (Philosophy) and Nachum L. Rabinovitch (Mathematics), who graduated on the same day, 9 June 1971.

1969 October 11-12

Erindale College (now U of T Mississauga) hosts the first public showing in Canada of moon rock samples, a 21-gram lump and a teaspoon of moon dust in a vial.

1970

An interfaith group, the University of Toronto Campus Ministeries Foundation, is established. One of the people associated with the Foundction in its early years was the Reverend Harold J. Nahabedian, who remained with the organization until 1988 and through its transition in 1984 into the Campus Chaplains' Association.

1970 June 12

William Davis, Minister of University Affairs, lays the cornerstone of the Humanities and Scoial Sciences Research Library and the School of Library Science.

1970 December 11

The Senate approves a statute creating the Centre for Renaissance Studies in the School of Graduate Studies.  It was created to work closely with the then nine departments and 59 scholars working in the field and to build up the library collections and strengthen general resources.  One of the major projects already under way was the publication of the works of Erasmus in translation.

1971 June 24

At a small, informal reception in the School of Library Science building, the Library is named the John P. Robarts Research Library in honour of Mr. Robarts who had resigned as premier three months earlier. President Bissell and Chief Librarian Robert Blackburn are  not consulted on the naming.

1971 May 31

The School of Library Science re-opens in the new building at 140 St. George St. as the faculty and staff move in from 167 College St. and 256 McCaul St.

1971 May 20

The Senate approves a statute establishing the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Science following its division from the Department of East Asian Studies.  The creation of the same department in the School of Graduate Studies was approved on 7 June.

1971 June 7

The Senate approves a statute establishing the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Engineering in the School of Graduate Studies.

1972 December 21

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections and the University of Toronto Archives open in the new Rare Book Library at 120 St. George Street.

1972 February

Students launch sit-in demonstrations to open the stacks of the Robarts Library to undergraduates.  18 are arrested.

1972 March 10

The Senate approves statutes chaning the name of the School of Social Work to the Faculty of Social Work and the School of Library Science to the Faculty of Library Science.

1972 May 12

Acting President John H. Sword chairs the final regular meeting of the University of Toronto Senate, Dean F. Norman Hughes of the Faculty of Pharmacy, the longest standing member of the Senate, delivers the valedictory addrress.  Robin Ross, secretary of the Senate for the past fourteen years, is presented with a framed illuminated address.  One of the Senate's business decisions is to change the name of the Department of Pathological Chemistry in the Faculty of Medicine to the Department of Clinical Biochemistry. 

1972 June 28

The last meeting of the University of Toronto Senate is held.

1972 July 1

The Governing Council becomes the supreme governing body of the U of T under the new University of Toronto Act, with the merging of the Board of Governors and the Senate.

1973 April 13

The Rare Book Library is dedicated and named for Thomas Fisher, whose grandsons had just donated their collections to the Library.  The value of the collections it attracted in the following four years exceeded the cost of construction.

1973 July 30

The John P. Robarts Research Library opens to the public, with all departments and collections in place by mid-August.  It is the largest university library building in the world and the second largest university library in terms of holdings in North America.

1973 May

The Vice-President Business Affairs is authorized "to spend up to $200,000 for the purchase of property in the  North-West campus if the properties come on the market at reasonable asking prices."  By 1975 most of the allocation had been spend on three properties and the fund required topping up.

1974

The label “Fort Book”, used by the students, is taken up by the press which generally disliked the size of the Robarts Library and its “brutalist” architectural style. The managing editor of The Canadian Architect wrote that “There is something about the library that offends every sense.  It resembles not so much a place of learning as a World War II gun emplacement.” Ron Thom, the architect of Massey College, described it as a “dictionary of architectural miseries.” 

1974 June 29

The Centre for Religious Studies is established in the School of Graduate Studies.  It is now known as the Department and Centre for the Study of Religion.

1975 June 30

Faculty of Food Sciences is dissolved and its departments of nutrition, dietetics and food chemistry are combined with the Department of Nutrition of the School of Hygiene to form the Department of Nutrition and Food Science.

1975 June 30

The School of Hygiene is dissolved and partly succeeded by the Division of Community Health in the Faculty of Medicine.

1975 July 1

The Department of Nutrition and Food Science is established, with faculty from the former Food Sciences teaching.  The name is changed on 11 June 1981 to the Department of Nutritional Sciences.

1979 October

Warren A. Stevens Building opens.  It and the Clara Benson Building form the Athletics and Physical Education Centre.

1980 June 19

The Centre for South Asian Studies is established within the School of Graduate Studies.   It is now (2012) "a constitutive unit of the Asian Institute at the Munk School for Global Affairs, and supported by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, with core faculty across the University of Toronto's three campuses."

1983 July

The Centre for Nuclear Engineering is established in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering with the financial support of several parties i the nuclear industry.  O. J. C. (John) Runnalls is appointed its first director.

1984 May 17

The Governing Council approves the renaming of the Faculty of Library of Science Building as the Claude T. Bissell Building.

1984 June 21

The chair in Estonian Studies is established in the School of Graduate Studies.

1985

In 1982 the University agreed to establish a Chair of Peace Studies, but it did not become a reality until 1985 when a fundraising campaign raised enough money to fill the posiiton.

1986

The Centre for Technology and Social Development is established in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.  This arose from a requirement the previous year by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board "that all undergraduate engineering programs include instruction in this field."  W, H. Vanderburg was appointed its first director.  He had been lecturing on the social impact of technology with Professor Morris Wayman since the late 1970s, and "was the Faculty's first appointment of an acacemic staff member whose research and teaching was not in the scientific or technical aspects of engineering."

1986 June 2

The Centre for Large Scale Computation is established.

1988

The Centre for Chemical Process Metallurgy is established in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.  It coincided with the creation of the new federal funding program for research centres called the National Network of Centres for Excellence, which required the Faculty to create industrial partners for its programs.  By 1991 there were eleven NSERC industrial chairs in the Faculty, almost a fourfold increase in four years.

1990 January 1

The Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases is established.

1995

The Information Commons opens on the ground floor of the Robarts Library, in the space formerly occupied by the Map Library.  A new entrance allows access to the Library at street level for the first time.

2001

The Citizen Lab is established as "an interdisciplinary laboratory [of acitivist hackers or 'hactivists', according to The Varsity] focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of digital media, global security, and human rights...[Its] mission is to undertake advanced research and engage in development that monitors, analyses, and impacts the exercise of political power in cyberspace."

2005 Summer

70 Japanese flowering cherry (Sakura) trees are planted in the grounds of the Robarts Library, a gift from Japan.

2005 September

Canada's first Centre for Mathematical Medicine opens at the Fields Institute at 222 College Street.  The co-directors are Amit Oza and Siv Sivaloganathan.  The Centre was created "to provide a dialogue between lead researchers in pure mathematics and medical research so they can create research opportunities and organize grant applications...Mathematical science will 'change the way math and biology is done to address specific problems of the body"'.

2008 December 2

Russell and Katherine Morrison donate $10,000,000, the lead gift for the Robarts Library Renewal Plan.

2008 February

The Robarts Library renewal and expansion plan is announced.  $75 million is slated for the revitalization of the Robarts Library, with $15 million coming from the Ontario government. Included is $35 million for a five-floor study space on the west side of Robarts atop the loading dock.

2009 July 15

The Centre for Teaching Support and Innovation is established, The Committee to Review the Resource Centre for Academic Teaching had recommended on 24 June that the Resource Centre (established January 2002) be amalgamated with the Office of Teaching Advancement.  Carol Rolheiser was appointed director of the Offfice of Teaching Advancement on 1 July 2009 and two weeks later of the new Centre for Teaching Support and Innovation.

2010 May 31

The University of Toronto purchases 162 St. George Street from the University Women's Club of Toronto.  At some point the coach house was separated from the property, sold and renovated.  It is now a private residence.