Joseph Bloor (or Bloore) (1789–1862) was an innkeeper, brewer, and land speculator in the 19th century who founded the Village of Yorkville and is the namesake for Toronto's

Bloor Street Bloor Street is a major east–west residential and commercial thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Bloor Street runs from the Prince Edward Viaduct, which spans the Don River Valley, westward into Mississauga where it ends at Central Park ...

. Originally from

Staffordshire, England Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

, he emigrated to Canada in 1819 and eventually moved to the village of

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

(later Toronto) with his wife Sarah (née Lees) and three children, where he became a prominent early figure. Bloor kept a hotel, Farmer's Arms Inn, at 157 King Street East (now home to

St. Lawrence Hall St. Lawrence Hall is a meeting hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located at the corner of King Street East and Jarvis Street. It was created to be Toronto's public meeting hall home to public gatherings, concerts, and exhibitions. Its main featur ...

) from 1824 to 1831 and built a brewery in 1830 in the Rosedale Valley, near Sherbourne Street. He sold the brewery in 1843 (John Rose operated it as Castle Frank Brewery until 1864 and the building was demolished by 1875), and purchased a stretch of land in nearby Yorkville, where he and

William Botsford Jarvis William Botsford Jarvis (May 4, 1799 – July 26, 1864) was an important member of the Family Compact and Sheriff of the Home District. His estate in what was then York, Upper Canada, gave its name to Rosedale, Toronto. Jarvis Street was nam ...

laid out streets for residential development. The boundary of Yorkville and Toronto was named

in his honour in 1855. Bloor died at his home at 121 Bloor Street East, now demolished near Bloor and Church Street. A plaque commemorating his life can be found in St. Andrew's United Church on Bloor Street East. He is buried at Necropolis Cemetery on Winchester Street in Cabbagetown. While his tombstone, and those of his descendants, spell the family name "Bloore", this was a posthumous development. Period references such as city directories, tax assessment rolls and biographical publicationsLovell, John. "The Canada Directory for 1857-58" all spell his name without an "e".

Notes

References

* Filey, Mike. "Toronto Sketches: The Way We Were". Dundurn, 1992. p 68–69. * * Robertson, J.R. "Robertson's Landmarks of Toronto: A Collection of Historical Sketches of the Old Town of York from 1792 Until 1837, and of Toronto from 1834 to 1904, Volume 1". 1894. p 476–477. 1789 births 1862 deaths People from Old Toronto English emigrants to pre-Confederation Ontario Immigrants to Upper Canada Pre-Confederation Canadian businesspeople Burials at Toronto Necropolis {{Canada-business-bio-stub