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Local Politics at the End of Victoria's ReignRichmond Hill's municipal council reflected the settled pace of village life through the last two decades of the nineteenth century. After its 1880 move from the Robin Hood Hotel to the new Palmer Block (later called the Lorne Block, and today the Central Guaranty Trust Office at 10132 Yonge Street), council resumed its regular routine of monthly meetings, patronage appointments, tax levies, and annual elections. Council minutes reflect continuing attention to such perennial concerns as sidewalk maintenance and fire protection, poundkeepers, and "nuisance" inspectors. Most of Richmond Hill's leading business and professional men sat on council for a year or two, then stepped down to make way for others. Such public service was seen as one's civic responsibility, and at the same time reinforced an upper-middle-class male domination of village life. Usually, these village fathers moved on and off council with relative ease and anonymity - although minor issues occasionally erupted, like Reeve James Langstaff's 1880 comic-opera run-in with poundkeeper Richard Jordan over a stray Langstaff cow!
Council could also swing into action when members sensed a threat to community morality - the debate over a billiard room licence in 1885, or the passing of bylaws regulating bicycle riding in 1897. Some problems, however, seemed incapable of easy solution - like the perennial question of a dependable water supply for fire-fighting purposes.
Council also took on new, permanent responsibilities during this period of rising civic activism throughout North America. In 1884, for instance, it established the village's first board of health and appointed Dr. William J. Wilson as medical health officer. That same year it purchased land east of Yonge Street for a new public park, later building an agricultural hall, curling facilities, oval racetrack, and bandstand. And in 1892, after years of debate, council established a "Lock-Up House" for petty criminals, vagrants, and other "undesirables" apprehended by the village constable. As council dealt with these everyday matters, major events beyond the control of the local government continued to shape life in Richmond Hill. Shortly after four o'clock in the afternoon of Tuesday, January 22, 1901, news of Queen Victoria's death reached the community by telegraph. Both the town bell - now located at the public school - and the Presbyterian Church bell began tolling, flags were silently run up at half-mast on the high school and public school buildings, and a "feeling of reverent sadness pervaded the village." 13
Now she was gone, after more than six decades as Queen and Empress, residents of Richmond Hill grieved her death and mourned the passing of an era. On Friday, January 25, a memorial service was held at the public school, and Saturday, the day of her funeral, was declared a public holiday. On Sunday, the community's churches held memorial services. At its next meeting, Richmond Hill Village Council moved "an expression of universal grief at the bereavement that has befallen the British Empire by the demise of a Sovereign universally admired and beloved by all her subjects." 14
Notes14. Richmond Hill Village Council,"Mbnutes,"February 15, 1901. 15. The Liberal,April 27, 1899.
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