This week’s history focuses on a Cabbagetowner who lived at 21 Winchester St. for many years, and was a pioneering Canadian lawyer. She was the first Canadian woman to be granted the King’s Counsel, K.C. (which is now the Queen’s Counsel Q.C.) and only the second woman in the British empire.
She had many accomplishments during her career, including winning the right for women to serve on juries, helping to found what would later become Legal Aid and being recognized for her work with the Free France movement during the second world war.
Read more about Margaret Paton Hyndman Q.C. on the Cabbagetown People website:
http://www.cabbagetownpeople.ca/person/margaret-paton-hyndman/
5 replies on “Throwback Thursday: Margaret Paton Hyndman Q.C.”
Hi,
I am a relative of Margaret Hyndman. I am writing to enquire who owned 21 Winchester right before Margaret did…I believe that it was a judge.
Thank you for giving her the attention that you did.
Anne
PS we were told as kids that she provided the Queen Mother with nylons during WWII!
Hi Anne.
Thank you for writing to us. We’re not the experts on house histories (the Cabbagetown Preservation Association and Heritage Conservation District are much more authoritative than us), but I did find out that Samuel Boddy (aka the Venerable Archdeacon), lived there for a time. You can read more about him at this page on the Cabbagetown People website: http://www.cabbagetownpeople.ca/person/samuel-j-boddy/.
It was a pleasure to feature Ms. Hyndman and wonderful to hear from one of her relatives. That’s a great story about the nylons also, “by appointment to HRH the Queen Mother”!.
Lost my first response.
The Archdeacon died in 1904. Margaret was born four years before he died, so the house must have been occupied by someone else for many years before she moved there.
The family lore was that she was “given” the house at the end of a romantic relationship with a judge. I will see if I can find out more.
I won’t bother you with more of this!
Ah yes, I wasn’t doing the math there. One of the ways we’ve discovered to research a house’s occupancy history is to visit the Toronto Reference Library and look through the phone books of the era (not everyone had phones of course, but starting in the 1920s it became much more common).
That’s a great story about being given the house. If you do find out more, please do let us know as we’d love to know the story behind it.
We appreciate you writing in to us!
Hello;
It is so good to see this article. Anne, you are quite right about the nylons. She did indeed do so and also took ice cream for Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. She made more than one trip back and forth during the War. She had a personal portrait of Queen Mary, with a personal note written on the photo, thanking her for her service and signed by Queen Mary that she always kept near her. Although a distant cousin through my maternal grandmother, I was privileged to know her most clearly as my godmother. A particularly clear memory of her is, with white flannel nightgown billowing, sweeping a huge porcupine out of the cabin at Cape Crocker with a broom! Formidable and indomitable woman she certainly was!!
Her work accomplished for the betterment of women and families does, and will continue to, impact generations of Canadians. Aren’t we fortunate to have been born to our time ….
Bonnie