Mimico High School (MHS) is a former public secondary school in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, Canada. It served the

Mimico Mimico is a neighbourhood (and a former municipality) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, being located in the south-west area of Toronto on Lake Ontario. It is in the south-east corner of the former Township (and later, City) of Etobicoke, and was an in ...

neighborhood in

Etobicoke Etobicoke (, ) is an administrative district of, and one of six municipalities amalgamated into, the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the city's west-end, Etobicoke was first settled by Europeans in the 1790s, and the municipalit ...

. The school was opened in 1924 by the Mimico Board of Education and joined the

Etobicoke Board of Education The Etobicoke Board of Education (EBE commonly known as School District 12), officially known as the Board of Education for the City of Etobicoke is the former public-secular school board administering the schools of Etobicoke, Ontario, headquarte ...

in 1967. It was the first high school and the oldest to operate in the former City of Etobicoke, after

Etobicoke Collegiate Institute Etobicoke Collegiate Institute (ECI, Etobicoke CI), previously known as Etobicoke High School is a high school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Islington neighbourhood of the former suburb of Etobicoke. It is overseen by the Toro ...

. Since closing in 1988, Mimico became the adult learning Centre as "Mimico Adult Learning Centre". In 1993, "John English Junior Middle School", which was founded in 1884, took over the Mimico building. The school is operated by the

Toronto District School Board The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), formerly known as English-language Public District School Board No. 12 prior to 1999, is the English-language public-secular school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The minority public-secular franco ...

and it is named after a prominent Mimico High School principal.

History

Mimico's first schools were basic wooden structures. John English JMS was the first brick building in Mimico, built in 1884 at the corner of Royal York and Mimico Avenue as a one-room brick building. The original structure was replaced by a new building in 1957. Mimico High School building opened in 1924 with five additions added to the original

Collegiate Gothic Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europ ...

structure in 1926, 1957, 1962, 1963, and 1966. Since the 1920s, the school has been on the north corner of Royal York Road and Mimico Avenue. It was a large two-story brick edifice that reached to Elizabeth Street. In the early 1950s, there were separate playgrounds for boys and girls, with a wood fence between them. The ceilings were ornamented plaster set in a square pattern by the old caretaker (who lived in a small house on the Elizabeth Street end) after hours, who was a never-ending source of school and local area history. With declining enrollment at Mimico High School, the building was offered to the Metropolitan Separate School Board (now the

Toronto Catholic District School Board The Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB, known as English-language Separate District School Board No. 40 prior to 1999) is an English-language public-separate school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada, headquartered in North York. I ...

) as the number of Catholics had been increasing with many Italian and Polish immigrants arriving in Mimico. This offer was refusedEtobicoke Life, 1988, 'School Boards Still Far Apart' and an Adult Learning Centre was opened there until that institution swapped schools with John English Junior Middle School in 1993. The school is named after a well known former Mimico High School principal.

Notable alumni

David Ernest Hornell David Ernest Hornell VC (26 January 1910 – 24 June 1944) was a Canadian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. E ...

, recipient of the

Victoria Cross The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...

during World War II *

Les Stroud Les Stroud (born October 20, 1961) is a Canadian survival skills, survival expert, filmmaker and musician best known as the creator, writer, producer, director, cameraman and host of the television series ''Survivorman''. Stroud was named Chief ...

, filmmaker *

Jerome Drayton Jerome Drayton (born January 10, 1945 in Kolbermoor, Bavaria, Germany) is a former long-distance runner who competed internationally for Canada. He was born as Peter Buniak in Germany, and came to Canada in the mid-1950s when his mother moved the ...

, marathon runner who won the

Boston Marathon The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon race hosted by several cities and towns in greater Boston in eastern Massachusetts, United States. It is traditionally held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897, the event was i ...

, and who placed 6th in the

1976 Summer Olympics Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phi ...

References

External links

Mimico

Mimico High SchoolFacebook groupClass of 1966

John English