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• Founding of Stratford, The
  In 1832, some three years after company surveyors had erected shanties near this site, the Canada Company, a large private land settlement agency, initiated the development of "Little Thames" as the market centre for the eastern Huron Tract. By 1834, a tavern, sawmill and grist-mill existed here and a year later, a post office called Stratford was opened. Settlement was slow until the early 1850s when the advent of the railway and the designation of...

• Tom Patterson, 1920-2005
  A native of Stratford, Ontario, Tom Patterson grew up during the Great Depression and dreamed of plans that might revitalize his community. After serving in the Second World War and completing university, he worked as an associate editor for a trade publication in Toronto. During the early 1950s, Patterson began discussing plans to establish an internationally renowned Shakespearean festival in his hometown. Although considered a risky venture by some, Patterson gained encouragement from Mayor David...

• R. Thomas Orr 1870-1957
  A life-long member of the Stratford Parks Board, R. Thomas Orr was the driving force behind the Stratford parks system. Orr led the fight to save the riverfront and millpond from railway development and oversaw the transformation of the former industrial area into parkland. In 1936, Orr's plans to link Stratford with the birthplace of the English playwright William Shakespeare led to the creation of the Shakespearean Gardens. These parklands provided an inspirational setting in...

• Sir John Cunningham McLennan 1867-1935
  An outstanding Canadian scientist, McLennan was born in Ingersoll and moved to this house in 1883. He attended the University of Toronto where he later became Head of the Physics Department. His research and publications brought international recognition to the University's physics laboratory, which bears his name. A leading advocate of close ties between science, industry and government, McLennan was instrumental in founding the Advisory Council on Industrial and Scientific Research, later the National Research...

• Stratford Normal School
  In the 1900s, concerns about the quality of rural education prompted the Ontario Government to build four new Normal Schools to increase the supply of qualified teachers in the province. Identical Italian Renaissance buildings were constructed in North Bay, Peterborough, Hamilton and Stratford. The Stratford Normal School attracted women and men from surrounding districts and educated them with an emphasis on conditions in the rural schools that employed most new teachers. Known as the Stratford...