Two Dances at Osgoode Hall

Doors Open is happening in Toronto this coming weekend and Osgoode Hall is once again opening its doors to the public. The theme of this year’s event is Hidden Histories, where the public can uncover untold stories from across the city. 

We thought this would be a great opportunity to share a little-known fact about the Great Library: it was the location of two balls (as far as we are aware), 122 years apart. 

The Main Reading Room of the library as well as the centre block of Osgoode Hall was built by Cumberland & Storm from 1858 to 1860. To commemorate both the building’s opening and the visit of the Prince of Wales, the Law Society of Upper Canada threw a reception in the Prince of Wales’s honour on Saturday, September 8^th, 1860, which included a ball in the Great Library.  

The library holds two contemporary accounts of the visit of the Prince of Wales in its collection and both give accounts of the ball in 1860. The first book, Visit of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to the British North American provinces and United States in the year 1860, was compiled from the journals of a man named Robert Cellum. Cellum describes women entering the Great Library for the ball with “…much crushing of crinoline, and doubtless the personage who observed that ‘a good many hoops would be smashed’ was right…”¹, which evokes quite the mental image, especially if you are familiar with our main doorway.  

It is hard for us to imagine dancing in our Main Reading Room, as it is currently filled with many bookshelves and desks that would be hard to remove. Cellum mentions that, “room for dancing was as soon as practicable secured, and the process of taking the polish off the library floor commenced.”² Perhaps there wasn’t so much furniture to move around as, at that time, the space was still new. 

Dancing during the 19^th century was more structured than the dancing you might see at a modern social function. Partygoers would be given a dance card, like the one pictured below, which informed them of the order of the dances for the night and allowed participants to write down their dance partners for each dance. N.A. Woods in The Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States states that “…dancing was at once commenced in the library with some eight to ten quadrilles”.³ If you, like me, are unaware of what exactly a “quadrille” entails, Merriam-Webster defines it as “a square dance for four couples made up of five or six figures chiefly in ⁶/₈ and ²/₄ time.”. ⁴ 

While Robert Cellum gave the impression in his writings that the ball took place entirely in the library, N.A. Woods provides a different picture: “Spacious as this apartment [the library] was, however, it was too limited to accommodate all who wished to dance; so, as there were plenty of bands, auxiliary polkas and waltzes were soon formed in all the learned nooks and corners of the building, and Courts of Common Pleas and solemn halls of Convocation resounded with galops, music, laughter, and the little whisperings of half-concealed flirtations”. ⁵ 

Up until very recently, we were under the impression that only one ball happened in the Great Library. While researching the 1860 ball, we discovered that there was a second ball in 1982. Unlike the historical accounts of the 1860 ball, scant details exist for the 1982 gathering. We know that it happened on February 6^th, 1982, to commemorate the 150^th anniversary of the first Convocation⁶ held in Osgoode Hall in 1832. A brief mention of the ball was found in a booklet that was given to attendees as well as a short article in the Globe & Mail. Both sources state that music was provided by Peter Appleyard’s⁷ orchestra and Bora and The Supremes⁸ supplied the entertainment. One can imagine that crinoline and hoops were exchanged for polyester and shoulder pads.  

While it is doubtful that another ball will be held in the Great Library due to the amount of furniture that would have to be removed, it is fun to imagine men and women dancing the night away while walking through the Main Reading Room. 

Interested in learning more hidden history about Osgoode Hall and the Great Library? Check out these blog posts: 

• Ghost Stories 
• When One Door Closes, Another Opens 

1. Cellem, R. (1861). Visit of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to the British North American provinces and United States in the year 1860. H. Rowsell. Pg. 235 ↩︎
2. Ibid ↩︎
3. Woods, N.A. (1861). The Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States. Bradbury & Evans. Pg. 213 ↩︎
4. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Quadrille. A depiction of a quadrille dance was used as the featured image for this blog post. ↩︎
5. Woods, N.A. (1861). The Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States. Bradbury & Evans. Pg. 213 ↩︎
6. As per the Law Society of Ontario website: “Convocation is the monthly meeting of Law Society benchers, the directors who govern the Society.” ↩︎
7. For more information about Peter Appleyard, check out this entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia. ↩︎
8. Four young lawyers, Mark Melvyn Crystal, Allen C. Edgar, Edward K. Mann and Eric K. Slone, who have been singing together since 1975 in judges’ wigs and robes – Cherry, Zena, The Globe and Mail (1936-); Feb 12, 1982; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Globe and Mail, pg. 13 ↩︎