The Journal · The Brantford Club
Brantford in 1898: A Flood in March, a Club by New Year’s
In 1898, Brantford was a manufacturing city of more than sixteen thousand people. That March the Grand River delivered the worst flood of the nineteenth century; that May, five men sat down to form a social club; and on December 31, 1898, the door of The Brantford Club opened at 98 George Street.
Some years earn a whole entry, and 1898 is Brantford’s. The Club’s centennial history and the City’s own records keep the year’s dates the way a minute book would, so this entry gives the year the same treatment: in order, dated, and without embroidery.
- March 9 to 10
- The Grand River delivers the worst flood of the nineteenth century
- A day in May
- “Five men sat down to discuss the formation of a social club for men of like tastes and similar interests”
- July 16
- The Brantford Club incorporated by Letters Patent
- August 1
- The Toronto World prints the incorporation notice naming the five provisional directors
- December 31
- The door opens at 98 George Street, on a New Year’s Eve the Club still tells stories about
What happened in Brantford in 1898?
Brantford in 1898 took a hard blow and ended the year building. The flood of March 9 and 10 was the worst the city had seen in the century, and the city that absorbed it was no village: more than sixteen thousand people, incorporated as a city since 1877, with workshops whose names travelled far beyond the county. Nine months after the water, five of its citizens had incorporated a social club, bought a house, and opened its door on the last night of the year. The sequence says something about the town’s temperament that no adjective could.
The decade before: the hospitality of the Duffs
The Club did not come from nowhere. Through the decade before 1898, the men who would found it were honorary members of the Officers Mess in the Armories, home of the Dufferin-Haldimand Rifles under Lieutenant-Colonel C. S. Jones, and the centennial history remembers those years plainly as “the hospitality of the Duffs.” A mess is a fine borrowed room, but borrowed is borrowed. The five wanted a house with their own name on the letters patent, and in 1898 they got one.
Opening night, December 31, 1898
The centennial history gives opening night its full weather: “a bitter cold winter evening, warmed only by the heat from the fireplaces and refreshments. But it was a New Year’s Eve to remember.” The members present that night, listed in the book’s endnote, were headed by the Honourable A. S. Hardy, then Premier of Ontario and Brantford’s own. The first thing the new club ever hosted was the arrival of 1899, and it has kept the address ever since.
By the year’s last night, the fires were lit on George Street.
Questions the record answers
How big was Brantford in 1898?
More than sixteen thousand people, per the Club’s centennial history, in a city incorporated in 1877 whose manufacturers exported across the country and beyond.
When was the 1898 Brantford flood?
March 9 and 10, 1898. The Club’s centennial history records it as the worst flood of the nineteenth century in Brantford, months before the Club’s founding meetings that May.
When did The Brantford Club open?
December 31, 1898, at 98 George Street, on “a bitter cold winter evening” the Club’s centennial history still quotes. The City of Brantford’s heritage record gives the same date.
Sources: the Club’s centennial history, privately printed for the hundredth year, for the flood, the population, the Armories decade, and opening night; the City of Brantford’s heritage record for the opening date.
The five men the year belonged to have their own entry in the Journal.
