![]() In December a large deputation of residents went to City Council to object to the plant. In October 1908, City Council on October 16 passed a bylaw allowing the expropriation of property to build sewer new plant. The Don Rowing Club disgusted, left for cleaner pastures, never to return. In 1932 the Don Rowing Club’s rebuilt clubhouse again went up in flames. Joseph Thompson, a Don who also happened to be Speaker of the Provincial Legislature, led a deputation to City Council, arguing that conditions were so bad because of sewage that “The city ought to pay us for staying there.” Membership in the Club was decreasing. There had been a gentleman’s agreement that the Dons would only pay a nominal rent so when, after 12 years, the City presented a bill of $1,200, the reaction was dismay and ridicule. In 1925, the City tried to bill the Don Rowing Club for the rental of the land the Clubhouse sat on. The Don Rowing Club also had a hockey rink on Ashbridge’s Bay and here teams like the “East Riverdale Ladies’ hockey team” played other city teams like the one from Weston. Their rivals in rowing and rugby were the Toronto Argonauts. The Don Rowing Club also sponsored its own rugby club for a period. Local men like Norman Lang and Bob Dibble, as well as members of the Russell brickmaking family competed. After the regattas, the Dons hosted “an at-home” or party with music and dancing. The “Dons” were known for having “crack scullers”, top rowers. Rowers competed for the Flavelle trophy and gold medals. The Don Rowing Club regularly held regattas over its course on Ashbridges Bay. 1913 the Don Rowing clubhouse burned down. In 1912 the Don Rowing Club moved here, building a club house at the south end of Morley Road. The steamer was carrying troops and there were a number of casualties. The new street may have been named after a British passenger ship, The Woodfield, sunk by a German U-boat in November 1915. On January 22, 1923, City council approved a by-law authorizing the change of Morley avenue to Woodfield Road. It was suggested, perhaps in jest, that the proposed name “will call up more pleasant olfactory memories.” City Council considered calling Morley Avenue “Coulter street”. ![]() Some on the Civic Street Naming Committee, a City of Toronto committee of aldermen, wanted the name changed to “Lilley avenue”. The neighbourhood, to put it bluntly, stank. 1922 many people on Morley Avenue wanted the street renamed because of its poor reputation being so close to Toronto’s only sewer plant. Known as Morley Avenue after George Morley (1865-1926). It was originally the farm lane running through the Ashbridge Estate and their extensive orchards. Tolkien, and Woodfield Road is such an unlikely pace. “Courage is found in unlikely places,” said J. There is usually a lot of talk about heroes when people talk of war. From 2014 to 2018 we are living through the 100 th anniversary of World War One.
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