Mildmay, Ontario

By Orville Audrey Kalbfleisch, 1984

Over seventy years ago I was born in the township of Carrick, more precisely the unincorporated hamlet of Mildmay. In 1883 my mother, Mathilda Magdalina Liesemer, had been born in the same community. Although Mildmay had been renamed in 1865, only eighteen years before her birth, she did not know the origin of the new name. What is stranger still, neither did the old-timers of that era who used to indulge in reminiscences, often in the German language, at rear of Schnurr’s shoe store. Some of these elderly citizens must have been in their early adulthood in 1865.

As a curious enquiring school boy will, I, persistently enquired here and there about the origin of the name; invariably, I received the evasive answer that Mildmay was formerly called Mernersville.

W. Stewart Wallace, an eminent Canadian historian, and for many years, librarian of the University of Toronto, wrote the following in his Encyclopedia of Canada, 1940:

“Mildmay, a village in Bruce County Ontario, on the Saugeen river and on the Canadian National Railway, seven miles south of Walkerton. Originally called Mernersville after Senator Merners, who erected a hotel there in the early days; the name was changed about 1865 to Mildmay, after Mildmay Park in Scotland, by William Murray, who built a grist mill in the village. Its chief industries are dairying, farming, and lumbering; it has a public library and a weekly newspaper (Gazette). Population (1934), 685.”

This brief article appeared to end my quest for the origin of the name, but complications arose. Carrick was first surveyed by A. P. Brough in 1850-51 and the survey was completed in 1852 by J. D. Daniel. The land was first offered for sale officially at the time of the ‘Big Land Sale’ in September 1854, but long before that every lot in the township was squatted upon. It was a time of rampant speculation, and Senator Merner of Waterloo county had built a hotel and invested in part of the land on which Mildmay now stands. Perhaps, because he was an absentee landlord, he was not liked, and just before the hamlet received its post office the businessmen insisted that the name be changed Mernersville. According to Stewart and also to the Mildmay Gazette in 1903, it was William Murray, the owner of the grist mill on Absolom Street (the red mill), who around 1865 suggested that the new name be Mildmay. The suggestion was accepted.

Robertson says that ‘Mildmay commenced to take the form of a village about 1867’, but there, inevitably, was a small hamlet or settlement a few years prior to that including perhaps, a blacksmith shop, and a grist mill. There is reference to a Patrick Fitzpatrick who opened a ‘shoe making business’ in a hut erected in 1855. This was said to be the first business enterprise in the settlement.

Now, to return to Stewart Wallace’s article in his encyclopedia. In attempting to locate Mildmay Park in Scotland, I wrote to the Scottish Record Office in Edinburgh. This office made a thorough search and replied in part, “If a property of the name (Mildmay Park) did exist in Scotland it looks as though it must have been a very small one.” Another letter to the Secretariat of Geographical Names, Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Canada elicited this response. “We have done further research on the name Mildmay and have been unable to find any information on Mildmay Park in Scotland.” At the suggestion of this office, I wrote to the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names, London, England, and was informed that a street named Mildmay Park still existed in the Burough of Islington in northern London. I shall leave the narrative at this point for the time being.

Throughout my study the Secretariat of Geographical Names, Department of Energy and Resources, has been most helpful. I received from this office photostats of pages from an atlas of London showing Mildmay Park in Islington, and also a Photostat of a letter dated October 5, 1905 from a former Mildmay, Ontario, postmaster, James Johnston. Mr. Johnston’s letter was in response to a survey made by the then Department of the Interior for information on the origin of Canadian place names. I shall quote the letter in its entirety:

“In response to how this village got its name, I remember when the first Post Office was opened here, its name was Mernersville. The office was on the corner of the Merner’s Survey. The subdivision of the Farm Lot was made by Senator Merner. About the time the Railway was first run through here the name was changed Mildmay. Who asked the change or why it was asked or made I have no certain knowledge. Whether after one of Marryat’s heroes, or after the place in England where the famous Mildmay Evangelical meetings are held, I cannot say. The aforesaid change in name was made sometime about 1870. There never was any person lived here by the name of Mildmay. The name possibly may have been given at the suggestion of the Railway authorities when the station was placed here.”

The statements in this letter are at wide variance with other references, indicating that Johnston’s memory may have been faulty. Dr. K. S. Mackenzie of the National Postal Museum, Ottawa, writes, “I have no record of a post office at Mernersville.” Mackenzie also stated that the Mildmay post office was officially opened in July, 1867 which was approximately five years before the railway reached Mildmay in 1872. The railway authorities cannot have suggested the name which was proposed earlier by William Murray. However there is one intriguing sentence in his letter which refers to “the famous Mildmay Evangelical Meetings……in England”.

I had hoped to learn more of the life of William Murray as there seemed at one time to be the possibility that he secured the name from his birthplace in Scotland. He must have moved from Mildmay before 1867 as his name does not appear in the Bruce County Directory of that date. For this reason I did not search back issues of the Mildmay Gazette for his obituary. Mr. Glenn Lucas, Archivist-Historian of the United Church of Canada, is of the opinion that Murray was an Evangelical Presbyterian (Free Church) which may be of some import.

By the courtesy of the British Tourist Authority, I received a ten page photostat of the Islington Official Guide. The extreme easterly part of the Burough of Islington is known as Mildmay. Formerly, it was the southerly part of the estate of Sir Henry Mildmay, master of the Jewel Office, at the time of James I and Charles I. He is also said to have been at the trial of Charles I. Forty-four acres of this estate was known as Mildmay Park and in later years must have been subdivided. Now an avenue known as Mildmay Park runs north and south through it, and branching off at right angles from this important avenue are Mildmay Road, Mildmay Grove, Mildmay Street and Mildmay Avenue.

In the mid-nineteenth century, a change from a rural to an urban society occurred in England. This change brought with it many social problems; unemployment, extreme poverty, near starvation, drunkenness, prostitution, petty crimes, child neglect and even abandonment. A loosely organized group called Evangelicals sprung up almost spontaneously, and attempted to minister to the unfortunates. This group had nothing to do with the Evangelical Church of Canada or the Evangelical Association to give it its original name. The Evangelicals in England were interdenominational and were initiated by Rev. and Mrs. W. Pennefather about 1856. Wesleyans, Evangelical Presbyterians, Quakers, Baptists and others all co-operated in this venture. What organization there was associated with the Evangelicals, was centred at Mildmay around Mr. Pennefather’s church, St. Jude’s of Mildmay Park. Pulpits were exchanged among these denominations for worship and camp meetings were prominent in these ecumenical sessions. But the main thrust of the Evangelicals was social work which they claimed was the duty of every Christian. In Mildmay over the years were formed a Deaconess’ Institution 1862, a Mildmay Lads’ Institution for aiding adolescents 1867, a Mildmay Mission to the Jews 1866, a nurses’ training institution 1866 (Dr. W. Grenfell of Labrador fame secured nurses from this school), and many other worthy organizations. The work of this movement covered all of England and peaked between 1860 and 1870. This Mildmay Evangelical movement was a truly great historical event of which little is known today.

What has this to do with Mildmay, Ontario? In 1861 the first Carrick camp meeting was held on the seventh concession. For the next few years the venue changed from time to time until finally it was held annually on its present site a few miles from Mildmay. The camp meeting was organized by the Evangelical Church of Canada (Evangelical Association), but, as stated before, the name Evangelical is purely coincidental.

When William Murray was searching for an alternative name for Mernersville, it is not improbable that he, knowing of the great evangelical work, and the associated religious ecumenical services centred at Mildmay, England, connected the movement with the newly organized Evangelical camp meetings held in Carrick a few miles from Mernersville. Hence the name Mildmay.

Chesley, Ontario, January 5, 1981

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kathleen Heasman: Evangelicals in Action (Gregory Bless, London, England, 1962)

J. Henry Getz, editor: A Century in Canada 1964 (Published by Committee on Centennial Observation and the Historical Society of the Canada Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, Kitchener, Ontario, May, 1964)

The Metropolitan Borough of Islington Official Guide (Pyramid Press Ltd., Publicity House, Streatham Hill, London, S.W.2, no date)

W. S. Wallace: Encyclopedia of Canada 1940 (University Association of Canada, Toronto, Ontario, 1940)

The Mildmay Gazette (Holiday Number, Christmas, 1903)

Norman Robertson: The History of the County of Bruce (Wm. Briggs, 1906)

Geographers A Z Atlas of London 1971. (New Edition)

E. A. Willats: Libraries Department, London Borough of Islington (Central Library, 2 Fieldway Crescent) Direct Correspondence, letter October 7, 1980.