Toronto’s legendary former Mayor, Tommy Church, passed into history on this date in 1950. A Tory and prominent member of the Orange Lodge, he was Mayor from 1915 to 1921. Church was, in part, famous for his feuds in the Toronto Star with one of their journalists. The reporter’s name? Ernest Hemmingway.
In 1921, Church turned his attention to federal politics and was sent to the Commons by Toronto voters that year and served in the House until his defeat in 1930. Church was then on the sidelines until he was returned as a MP in a 1942 by-election. He remained a MP until his death in 1950.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.