2012 starts with 3,600 additional names

Just before the end of 2011, we added 3,600 names from memorials in ten schools from wide-ranging communities around the city, including Riverdale, North Toronto, Parkdale, East York, Dovercourt, Corktown, and Scarborough. The new schools are: Agincourt Continuation School, Deer Park Public School, Earl Grey School, Midland Avenue School, Morse Street School, Park School, Parkdale Public School, Regal Road School, William Burgess School, Withrow Avenue School.

Coming very soon will be: Lambton Park, Long Branch Continuation School (now James S. Bell), Brock, and Courcelette. We’re working on the histories for each of these schools, which can be a challenge.

I’ve been at the library three times lately over the history of Long Branch Continuation. Out there in the Lakeshore area, groups were often “seceding” from Etobicoke, so it’s hard to sort out what Board of Education was in charge over the years, etc.

Etobicoke’s evolution from township, to borough, to city, to part of MetropolitanToronto is hard to follow. Fortunately, there are many local histories about Etobicoke’s early days.

History of the schools is murkier. Small school boards valued independence. Sifting through local histories one senses that separatist feelings were strong. Was it worry that a bigger board meant a bigger mill rate—higher taxes? Was it that “our” way of running things was better? Hard to know, and harder to follow from a distance in time.

The school being researched might have been governed by Lakeshore Board of Education, Long Branch Board of Education, or Etobicoke Board of Education, etc. Useful for unravelling tangled threads is Sylvio Sauro’s: A Celebration of Excellence: to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the amalgamation of the Etobicoke and Lakeshore District Boards of Education 1967-1992.

Mr. Sauro lists each school separately, with relevant chronological dates and snippets of local colour:

1889:(When S.S.#12 Long Branch was to be demolished to make way for a CPR spur line) The Board persuaded the railway company to provide another school site, build the school and pay the Board $150.
1908: Ratepayers vote to break away from S.S.#3 Lambton Mills to establish their own school (Sunnylea)
1930: Long Branch becomes an incorporated village.
1931: Long Branch secedes from the Township of Etobicoke.