William Gooderham Sr. (August 29, 1790 – August 20, 1881) was a British-born

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

distiller, businessman, and banker. He was a founder of the

Gooderham and Worts Gooderham and Worts, also known as Gooderham & Worts Limited, was a Canadian distiller of alcoholic beverages. It was once one of the largest distillers in Canada. The company was merged in 1926 with Hiram Walker & Sons Ltd., and the merged fir ...

distillery.

Life and career

Born in

Scole Scole () is a village on the Norfolk– Suffolk border in England. It is 19 miles south of Norwich and lay on the old Roman road to Venta Icenorum, which was the main road until it was bypassed with a dual carriageway. It covers an area of and h ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, England, the son of James and Sarah Gooderham, he immigrated to

York, Upper Canada York was a town and second capital of the colony of Upper Canada. It is the predecessor to the Old Toronto, old city of Toronto (1834–1998). It was established in 1793 by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe as a "temporary" location for th ...

(now

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 ...

) in 1832 to invest and partner in a wind-powered flour mill with his brother-in-law,

James Worts James Worts (c. 1792 – February 18, 1834) was one of the co-founders of the Gooderham and Worts partnership which, after his death, evolved from a simple mill into a prosperous distilling company which eventual become the largest in the worl ...

. Briefly operating as Worts and Gooderham until Worts' death in 1834, Gooderham continued to operate the mill as the William Gooderham Company. In 1837, he added a distillery to make efficient use of surplus and second-grade grain. Having taken Worts' son, James Gooderham Worts, under his guidance since Worts' death, they became partners in 1845 and renamed the company as Gooderham and Worts. Expanding their business, they introduced gas for illumination, expanded the use of steam power in the plants and built their own wharf to ship their consignments. By the 1860s, they owned schooners on the Great Lakes. During the 1860s and 1870s, Gooderham was a community and business leader in the Toronto industrial landscape and in transportation and financial services, as well as on the stock exchange, and in the council and the board of arbitration of the

Toronto Board of Trade The Toronto Region Board of Trade is the principal local business community organization in the City of Toronto. It is the largest Chamber of Commerce/board of trade in Canada and one of the largest in North America. Its primary contemporary focu ...

. In the summer of 1842, he participated with Bishop

John Strachan John Strachan (; 12 April 1778 – 1 November 1867) was a notable figure in Upper Canada and the first Anglican Bishop of Toronto. He is best known as a political bishop who held many government positions and promoted education from common sch ...

in the founding meeting of

Little Trinity Anglican Church Little Trinity Anglican Church (officially Trinity East) is a parish church of the Anglican Church of Canada. It is located at 425 King Street East in the Corktown neighbourhood, just east of downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. An Ontario Herita ...

, where he later was a warden for 30 years. A marble memorial for Gooderham is mounted on the west wall inside the church. In 1864, he was appointed president of the

Bank of Toronto The Bank of Toronto was a Canadian bank that was founded in 1855 by a group of grain dealers and flour millers. On February 1, 1955, it merged with The Dominion Bank to form the Toronto-Dominion Bank, which is now known as the present-day TD Bank ...

Descendants

His son George Gooderham (1830–1905) was a businessman and philanthropist, his grandson

George Horace Gooderham George Horace Gooderham (April 18, 1868 – December 22, 1942) was a Canadian businessman and politician. From 1908 to 1919, he was a Conservative member in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, representing Toronto South and then Toronto So ...

was a businessman and politician, and another grandson,

Albert Gooderham Colonel Sir Albert Edward Gooderham, KCMG Dean Gooderham Acheson Dean Gooderham Acheson (pronounced ; April 11, 1893October 12, 1971) was an American statesman and lawyer. As the 51st U.S. Secretary of State, he set the foreign policy of the Harry S. Truman administration from 1949 to 1953. He was also Truman ...

, born and raised in

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

, would serve as the

U.S. Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...

. In 1870, his son Charles Horace Gooderham (1844–1904) built a residence in Meadowvale (now part of Mississauga) – a

Georgian Revival Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, Georg ...

manor at 929 Old Derry Road. It was sold in 1884 and is now the Rotherglen School's Meadowvale Elementary Campus, a private Montessori school. Charles Horace Gooderham also built a

Queen Anne Revival The Queen Anne style of British architecture refers to either the English Baroque architecture of the time of Queen Anne (who reigned from 1702 to 1714) or the British Queen Anne Revival form that became popular during the last quarter of the ...

mansion in Toronto at 592 Sherbourne Street in 1883, which became the Selby Hotel in 1912.The Selby – 592 Sherbourne Street
/ref> The historic building was moved a short distance on its site in 2015 in order to incorporate it into a new apartment complex calle
The Selby

References

External links

The Gooderham & Worts families – genealogy website
1790 births 1881 deaths Canadian bank presidents English emigrants to pre-Confederation Ontario People from South Norfolk (district) Toronto-Dominion Bank people Toronto-Dominion Bank presidents William Sr. Immigrants to Upper Canada Drink distillers Whisky distillers Burials at St. James Cemetery, Toronto {{Canada-business-bio-stub

Life and career

Descendants

See also

References

External links