William Peyton Hubbard was an impressive man in many respects, being a long-time elected official in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and also an influential person in the privatization of Toronto’s hydroelectric system. He was also one of the first Black men elected to office in Canada.
To honor Black History Month (#blackhistorymonth), we offer this profile.
Hubbard was born Jan. 27, 1842, in a cabin on the outskirts of Toronto, the second of nine children born to Mosely and Lavenia Hubbard. His parents were former slaves who escaped a plantation in the U.S. state of Virginia and reached Canada in 1840 via the Underground Railroad.
Hubbard was trained as a baker at the Toronto Normal School, and invented and patented the Hubbard Portable commercial baker’s oven. A 1900 advertisement touted the oven as “‘practically fire-proof’ and much smaller than standard brick ovens,” according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.
Hubbard married Julia Luckett in 1874 and they had three children. After working form noire than a decade as a baker, he joined his uncle’s horse-drawn livery taxi service. He became the driver for newspaper publisher George Brown, who later encouraged Hubbard to seek public office.
Getting active in politics
Hubbard first sought public office in 1893 at age 51. He was Alderman for Ward 4 from 1894 to 1898, which was regarded as “one of the wealthiest and whitest wards in the city.” At that time, he was the city’s first non-white elected official. Hubbard was again Alderman for Ward 4 from 1900 to 1903. He was nicknamed Cicero or Old Cicero for his oratory.
In his years of city leadership, Hubbard helped pass almost 100 initiatives. This included advocating for improved waterworks and the authority to enact local improvement bylaws. Hubbard also opposed discrimination. In 1896, he defended the Chinese community in Toronto against taxes meant to discourage Chinese-operated hand laundries. And he presented a petition to City Council calling for an end to attacks against Jews by anti-Semitic street preachers. For four decades, Hubbard served on the board of the Toronto House of Industry, which provided relief for the poor.
He was on the Toronto Board of Control, which operated until the late 1960s as the executive committee of the Toronto City Council. It was created in 1896, consisted of three controllers appointed from and by the aldermen, and was presided over by the Mayor of Toronto.
After his first appointment to the board in 1898, Hubbard reportedly advocated to have the body directly elected by the people. This happened beginning in 1904, and Hubbard won election in the first citywide election in 1904.
In 1906, Hubbard was vice chairman of the Toronto Board of Control and served as acting mayor on occasions when the mayor was absent. Despite being a city official, however, Hubbard needed a letter from the mayor to vouch for his character when traveling to Washington, D.C., for a business meeting in 1906.
Public power for Ontario
Hubbard also fought for public ownership of Toronto’s water and hydroelectric supplies. “A major political issue at the time, the campaign for ‘people’s power,’ prioritized access to inexpensive and locally controlled electricity as a public good instead of private profit making,” according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.
Hubbard joined with fellow politician Sir Adam Beck to advocate for a publicly owned hydroelectric utility system in the province. And Hubbard led efforts to create the publicly owned Toronto Hydro-Electric System. According to Ontario Power Generation, Hubbard’s lasting legacy arguably was his commitment to public power.
Hubbard’s dream came to pass, when Sir Adam Beck founded the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario (HEPCO) in 1906. It established a province-wide public electricity provider. Beck considered Hubbard his strongest ally and credited him with helping to sway public opinion to help form the power giant.
Hubbard’s efforts led to Toronto and 18 other municipalities voting in 1907 in favor of contracts that would bring in power distributed by HEPCO. A year later, Torontonians approved the formation of a publicly owned distributor, leading to the formation of the Toronto Hydro-Electric System, now called Toronto Hydro.
Hubbard was appointed justice of the peace for York County in 1908. But he was defeated for re-election to the Toronto Board of Control in 1908, opposed by businessmen who wanted a private hydroelectric system. This was Hubbard’s first loss in the polls in 24 years. Hubbard was defeated again in the 1909 and 1910 municipal elections.
Despite these defeats, Hubbard was able to see the fruits of his labor as the public hydro system he and Beck had fought for expanded swiftly across the province. In 1910, HEPCO’s first transmission lines began providing power to southwestern Ontario.
His later years and legacy
Hubbard was Alderman for Ward 1 in 1913, but he retired at the end of his one-year term due to his wife’s poor health. In all, Hubbard was elected to city council 15 times over the course of his political career.
The Canadian Encyclopedia reports that “While Hubbard was active in local Black organizations, he considered himself primarily a capable and well-regarded public official, rather than an example to his community. Although he rarely addressed the question of race, in one candid letter to his friend Anderson Abbott, he reflected: ‘I have always felt that I am a representative of a race hitherto despised, but if given fair opportunity would be able to command esteem.’ Improving conditions for Toronto’s growing and diversifying Black community was more than one man could accomplish.”
By the 1920s, HEPCO was in full growth mode, acquiring the Toronto Electric Light Company to become the largest electric power system in the world.
Hubbard’s son, Federick Langdon Hubbard, was chairman of the Toronto Transportation Commission from 1929 to 1930 and married Grace Abbott, the daughter of Anderson Ruffin Abbott, Hubbard’s lifelong friend and Canada’s first Black physician.
Hubbard died on April 30, 1935, at the age of 93.
In 1896, Hubbard’s great-grandson, Stephen L. Hubbard, published a biography entitled Against All Odds.
Hubbard has received a number of honors and recognitions since his death.
In 1989, the City of Toronto’s William Peyton Hubbard Award For Race Relations was established and is awarded annually.
In 2000, the William Peyton Hubbard Memorial Award scholarship was established, funded by Hydro One, and is awarded annually to two Black students studying power industry-related disciplines at a recognized Ontario post-secondary institution.
And today, HEPCO’s successor company OPG continues Beck and Hubbard’s legacy as the largest publicly owned generator in the province, providing low-cost, clean and reliable power to Ontarians every day.
Editor’s Note: This article was compiled from several sources, including Wikipedia, a profile published by Ontario Power Generation and the Canadian Encyclopedia.
