Toronto was a provincial electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that existed from 1886 to 1894. It was created by merging Toronto West and Toronto East ridings into one large riding covering the entire city.
It was abolished prior to the 1894 election when it was split into four new ridings — Toronto North, Toronto South, Toronto East, and Toronto West.
The Toronto district elected three members. In each election voters were allowed to cast two votes; they were allowed to vote for two candidates (Limited voting). The three candidates with the most votes were the winners. Parties did not run more than two candidates, for fear of splitting their votes, so mixed representation was produced in each contest in the Toronto district in 1886 and 1890. No one party took all the seats.
Members of Provincial Parliament Parliament Years Members Created in 1886 from the merger of Toronto West, Toronto Eastand the addition of the former Village of Yorkville from York East 6th 1886-1890 Edward Frederick Clarke Henry Edward Clarke John Leys 7th 1890-1892 Joseph Tait 1892 Nelson Gordon Bigelow1893-1894 George Ryerson Dissolved in 1894 and distributed to four new electoral districts:Toronto North, Toronto South, Toronto East and Toronto West Sourced from the Ontario Legislative Assembly.
Election results The first three candidates in the poll were elected to the legislature. Percentage of votes received does not indicate percentage of voters who favoured the candidate because most or all of the Toronto voters cast two votes.
+ 1886 Ontario general electionPartyCandidate Votes Vote % Conservative Edward Clarke 7,015 26.2 Conservative Henry Clarke 6,873 25.7 Liberal John Leys 5,390 20.1 Labour Charles March 4,082 15.2 Labour John Roney 3,416 12.8 Total 26,776
+ 1890 Ontario general electionresults.elections.on.caPartyCandidate Votes Vote % Conservative Edward Clarke 5,862 Conservative Henry Clarke 5,542 Liberal Joseph Tait 5,359 Liberal Alfred McDougall 5,197 Cons-Equal Rights E.D. Armour 4,502 Cons-Equal Rights Robert Bell 4,001 Equal Rights Frank Moses 703 Total 31,166
By-elections These by-elections were held to replace members who had died in office. In each case only one member was elected for replacement.
+ By-election to replace Henry Edward Clarke, April 29, 1892PartyCandidate Votes Vote % Conservative Nelson Bigelow 4,938 50.8 Independent Conservative Mr. Kent 4,122 42.4 Liberal Thomas Phillips Thompson 488 5.0 Independent Liberal E.A. MacDonald 173 1.8 Total 9,721
+ By-election to replace Nelson Bigelow, February 28, 1893PartyCandidate Votes Vote % Conservative George Ryerson 5,797 34.7 Independent Conservative W.W. Ogden 5,535 33.1 Liberal Thomas Phillips Thompson 5,392 32.2 Total 16,724
See also List of Ontario provincial electoral districts Canadian provincial electoral districts
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