The Loyal True Blue and Orange Home, Richmond Hill

The Loyal True Blue and Orange Home was a Protestant children’s home operated jointly by the Loyal True Blue Association and the Grand Orange Lodge of Canada, opened at Richmond Hill, Ontario, on Dominion Day, 1 July 1923. It stood on Yonge Street north of Toronto and became one of the recognisable institutional landmarks of Richmond Hill. The building still exists and is carried on the town’s heritage inventory.

Origins — the Picton orphanage

The Home’s institutional history starts in 1889, not in Richmond Hill. Mrs. Joseph Hilton, whose lodge affiliation was Toronto’s Lady Verner True Blue Lodge, brought the condition of Protestant orphan care before the 1890 Grand Lodge of the Loyal True Blue Association. The Grand Lodge responded by appointing an orphanage board.

The concept drew support across the Ontario True Blue membership quickly. The Picton Lodge in Prince Edward County took the initial lead, securing a property in the town. The orphanage was formally opened at Picton, Ontario, on 23 August 1899.

Outgrowing Picton

By the early 1910s the Picton accommodation was plainly inadequate to the demand. The enterprise had strong support across the True Blue membership but needed a larger institutional base and a broader funding coalition.

In 1916 the Provincial Grand Orange Lodges of Ontario East and Ontario West joined the board of management — the first formal institutional cross-over between the True Blue and mainstream Orange bodies on the orphanage. In 1919 a larger property was purchased at Richmond Hill, on Yonge Street north of Toronto. In 1920 the Ladies’ Orange Benevolent Association (LOBA) of Ontario East and West joined the project, bringing the women’s wing of the senior Orange Order into the management partnership.

The Richmond Hill building

The cornerstone of the Richmond Hill building was laid on 22 October 1921 by H. C. Hocken — former Mayor of Toronto and then Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of Canada. The building opened formally on Dominion Day, 1 July 1923.

W. W. Fitzgerald presided at the opening ceremony. Reverend W. L. L. Lawrence delivered the dedicatory prayer. The Honourable W. D. McPherson, K.C. — the then Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of Canada — delivered the Grand Lodge’s formal approval. H. C. Hocken was present again, this time in his capacity as the federal Member of Parliament for Toronto West. George Farley, Grand Master of the Loyal True Blue Association, represented the Home’s originating body. Mary Cullum, the founder and first Grand Mistress of the LOBA, represented the women’s wing.

Operation

The Home operated through the middle decades of the 20th century as a Protestant residential children’s facility. The institutional pattern was typical of the early-20th-century Canadian voluntary sector in child welfare: a denominationally-affiliated residential home, governed by a volunteer board, funded by a combination of Grand Lodge per-capita levies, LOBA fundraising, individual donations, and modest provincial child-welfare grants. A 1926 brochure described the Home’s capacity and daily routine.

The Home’s founding motto, reproduced on the original Dominion Day 1923 dedication document and on the 1926 brochure, was: “They stand straightest who stoop to help a little child.”

Decline and heritage status

By the second half of the 20th century, provincial child-welfare restructuring and the broader policy shift away from residential children’s homes reduced the operational scale of the Home. The Richmond Hill building came off the children’s-home use and into heritage status. It remains on the Town of Richmond Hill’s inventory of cultural heritage resources.