Joseph Bloore

Who was Joseph Bloore?

Joseph Bloore was an innkeeper, a brewer, and a land speculator in the 19th century who founded the Village of Yorkville and is the namesake for Bloor Street. Originally from Staffordshire he immigrated to Canada in 1819 and eventually moved to the village of York, Upper Canada, where he became a prominent early figure. He kept a hotel on King Street and built a brewery in 1830 in the Rosedale Valley, near Sherbourne Street at the east end of the First Concession Road, which eventually became known as Bloor Street.

He sold the Brewery in 1843, and purchased a stretch of land in nearby Yorkville, where he and William Botsford Jarvis laid out streets for residential development.

Bloor Street was one concession north of Queen Street. The street was known as the Second Concession and the Tollgate Road until 1855, when it was renamed in Bloore's honour. It is unknown when or why the 'e' was omitted.

He is buried at Necropolis Cemetery on Bayview Avenue and Rosedale Valley Road.