Thomas D. Morrison
Section N, Lot 5
Toronto Necropolis
Born July 21, 1795 in Quebec; moved to York in 1816). He worked as a copy clerk in the Surveyor General’s office but was fired for participating in the organisation of the first Methodist church in Toronto in 1818. (His conversion from the Church of England was looked upon as a serious deviation from the values of the provincial "officialdom.") He then became a Methodist preacher and moved to the U.S., where he studied medicine. In 1824, Morrison returned to York where he was licensed to practice medicine, and in 1832, with Drs. W.W. Baldwin and John E. Timms, he established the York Dispensary which prescribed and dispensed free medicine to 746 patients at a cost of £118.3s.4d. The dispensary only lasted about one year. In 1834 he won election to the assembly, serving as a member for Toronto until 1837; also in 1834 he was elected as a radical candidate to the first Toronto city council for St. Andrew’s riding, and was re-elected the following two years, becoming Toronto’s third Mayor in 1836. He also served as president of the Toronto Board of Health. Although he denied support for the 1837 Rebellion; he was arrested and tried for high treason. Though acquitted, he chose to live in exile in the United States for a number of years. In 1843, following a declaration of amnesty which included all Upper Canada rebels except William Lyon Mackenzie, he returned to Toronto and re-established his medical practice, serving also on various boards and lecturing at the Toronto School of Medicine. He died of palsy at his home on Adelaide Street in Toronto on March 19, 1856.