HOW BOOZY BYTOWN BECAME CANADA'S CAPITAL
Welcome to the first of two special lectures this month that mark the BICENTENNIAL OF BYTOWN.
Ottawa owes its capital city status to a mob of angry Tories who burned the Canadian Parliament and drove the Governor-General out of Montreal in 1849.
Bytown was never in the early running during the competition to be the seat of government for the United Canadas in the mid-19th century. It was passed over in favour of Kingston (1841) and Montreal (1844) because of its reputation as a lawless frontier town. Bytown lacked police, paved streets, potable water, sewage treatment, or any form of planning to create an attractive capital city.
After the seat of government was driven out of Montreal, the community leaders saw their chance, re-branded Bytown as “Ottawa” and won the competition to become Canada’s capital, much to the surprise and chagrin of the other six cities. This heavily-illustrated lecture will chart Bytown’s transformation from a construction camp to capital city of a new federation that stretched from sea to sea to sea.
A question and answer period will follow the lecture.
David Gordon is Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning in Queen’s University’s Department of Geography and Planning. He received his Doctor of Design from Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has taught at a number of universities, including McGill, Toronto, Western Australia, Harvard, and Pennsylvania, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He is a member of the NCC’s design review committee, Research Chair of the Council for Canadian Urbanism, and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners, sharing their National Awards four times. David’s books include Town and Crown: An Illustrated History of Canada’s Capital, Planning Twentieth-Century Capital Cities and Planning Canadian Communities. His research examines capital cities, waterfronts and suburbs in Canada, Australia, and the USA. David was born in Ottawa, where his family have lived for almost a century.
