John Rolph

On 28 July 1837, radical Reformers planned a congress to address grievances against the Upper Canada government and appointed Rolph as a congress delegate. He refused to participate in these plans; his views on the meeting or a rebellion were not published or written down.[48]

In November 1837, the Patriote movement in Lower Canada sent a letter stating they were starting the Lower Canada Rebellion and encouraged the Upper Canadian reformers to begin the Upper Canada Rebellion.[49] Mackenzie convinced Rolph to support an armed rebellion and suggested that he would become president of the State of Upper Canada upon the rebellion's success.[50] Mackenzie argued to Rolph that the social and political system of Upper Canada required radical change based on the rights and liberties of its citizens.[51] Rolph joined the rebellion to bring more independence to the legislature which would then more closely resemble the British governance system.[52] He was hesitant to immediately begin the rebellion and wanted to survey support in rural areas. He sent Mackenzie north of Toronto to determine the level of support among farmers.[50] Having learned Mackenzie planned to hold the rebellion in December, Rolph insisted that Anthony Van Egmond, a retired military officer from the Napoleonic Wars, should lead the military operation.[49]

On 2 December 1837, Rolph learned the government was going to arrest Mackenzie. He sent a message to warn him and suggested starting the rebellion on 4 December.[10][53] Samuel Lount received the message and told the rebels to gather in Montgomery's Tavern north of Toronto to begin the rebellion.[10] Rebel leaders met on 4 December. After learning that the Lower Canada Rebellion had failed, Rolph advised abandoning their plan and dispersing the assembled troops.[54] The other leaders convinced him to support the plan[55] and Rolph returned to Toronto.[56]

On 5 December, Bond Head appointed Rolph and Robert Baldwin as emissaries of the government to deliver a truce to the rebels. Rolph accepted the appointment because others who refused to help the government were suspected of supporting the rebels, and he did not want the government to suspect his involvement.[57] Rolph and Baldwin convinced the rebels to stop their march towards Toronto and relayed Bond Head's offer of amnesty.[58] They returned to Bond Head with the rebels' counter-offer, but Bond Head refused further negotiations. The two men returned to the rebels to relay Bond Head's response. Rolph met with Lount and Mackenzie separately and encouraged them to march towards the city immediately. Rolph spent the rest of the evening recruiting men in Toronto to meet the rebels upon their arrival.[59] The rebels retreated to Montgomery's Tavern after a skirmish with government troops.[10] Rolph abandoned his recruitment efforts and dispersed the men he had gathered.[10] He sent a messenger to the rebels in Montgomery's Tavern calling for an end to the rebellion.[60]

On 6 December Thomas David Morrison, another Reformer who organised the rebellion, was arrested by the Upper Canadian government. Rolph feared that the government would also arrest him, so he fled for the United States. Loyalist troops travelling towards Toronto stopped and questioned him near the Credit River. Rolph showed them a letter stating his sister was ill and claimed he was travelling to give her medical attention. The next day he arrived in Lewiston, New York. On 11 December, Bond Head issued a proclamation and £500 (equivalent to £50,000 in 2019) reward for Rolph's arrest.[61] Rolph was expelled from the Upper Canada legislature on 20 January 1838 for helping to plan the rebellion and replaced by William Salmon the following month.[10][62]

Rolph was granted amnesty in 1843 and returned to Toronto in August.[10] He renovated the rear portion of his house into a dissecting room and held medical lectures there. In January 1844 he reestablished his medical school.[68] Initially called the Rolph School,[69] an Act of Legislature in 1851 incorporated it as the Toronto School of Medicine.[70] He advertised the school as an alternative to the university education students could receive at King's College in Toronto.[10]

In 1848, Rolph worked with the board of commissioners of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum to successfully dismiss their medical superintendent Walter Tefler.[71] Rolph encouraged the board to hire George Park, his protege and brother-in-law. In August, Rolph became the temporary superintendent of the asylum after Park took a leave of absence.[72] Rolph suspended a keeper named Mr. Hungerford for falsely accusing staff members of abusing patients. The board reinstated the keeper. This created conflict between Park and the board, who repeatedly fired Hungerford, only to have the board reverse the dismissal. The Executive Council dismissed Park and the new director reversed Park and Rolph's policies.[73]

In 1850, the public criticised the Medical Board of Upper Canada for giving medical licenses only to those who had graduated from a university but were failing qualified candidates from the Toronto School of Medicine. To alleviate these concerns, Rolph and other doctors from his school were appointed to the board. Rolph was appointed president of a sub-committee to improve the effectiveness of the board. Many of Rolph and his allies' suggestions, such as incorporating the Upper Canada profession, and barring teachers from examining their students for their medical license, were not adopted.[74]

In 1849, the Parliament of the Province of Canada passed the Rebellion Losses Bill, which compensated citizens who had lost property during the Upper and Lower Canada Rebellions. Citizens in Toronto opposed to the bill rioted. They believed it would financially compensate participants in the rebellions and blamed Reformers, including Rolph, for its passage. Rolph's family hid while rioters threw rocks through the windows of his house.[75] In 1851, he was elected to represent Norfolk County in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada and withdrew from running the administrative tasks of his medical school.[10][70]

Francis Hincks, a co-premier of Canada, appointed Rolph as Minister of Crown Lands. Rolph successfully defended himself against critiques of the handling of timber-cutting licences near Peterborough. He was accused of stealing funds from the Treasury, but Rolph said he was using the money to pay moving expenses for his relocation to the Province of Canada's capital, reimbursement that was given to his predecessors.[76] W. J. Boulton, a Tory legislator, accused Rolph of encouraging an attack on Toronto when he brought Bond Head's truce to the rebels during the Upper Canada Rebellion. Boulton used Lount's testimony of the event to support his claims. Mackenzie published similar accusations in his newspaper because he wanted to defend Lount's reputation. This caused a rift in Rolph and Mackenzie's relationship, although the event attracted little attention in other newspapers.[77]

In August 1853, Rolph became the president of the Council and Minister of Agriculture.[78] He proposed a bill called the Act for the Better Management of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, which transferred various decision-making powers from the board of directors to the medical superintendent. It became law in 1853.[79] Rolph convinced Hincks to withdraw government financing of the University of Toronto's medical faculty. Rolph resented the centralisation of education in the province and wanted to reduce funding to rival medical schools.[80] Hincks was accused of buying debentures for the Toronto, Simcoe and Huron Railways then using Toronto city funding to bail out the railway, thus making £10,000 in profit. Reformers encouraged Rolph to resign from Hincks's cabinet and assume leadership of the party. Hincks improved his public image, and Rolph supported him to avoid fracturing the Reform party.[81]

In the 1854 election, Rolph was reelected with 55% of the vote.[82] Augustin-Norbert Morin abandoned his alliance with Hincks and instead formed a coalition government with Upper Canadian Tories led by Allan MacNab. Rolph opposed this new coalition because the Tories would oppose reformer policies. A Tory legislator named John Langton tried to discredit Rolph's opinion by speaking about the Bond Head truce, but Rolph rebutted those comments with a prepared speech that outlined his account of the event.[83]

Upon the formation of the Morin-MacNab administration, Rolph's attendance in the legislature declined as he focused on his medical career.[84] In 1854, the Toronto School of Medicine merged with Victoria College to become Victoria College's medical school.[85] The medical staff at the school clashed with Rolph's autocratic leadership style, and opposed moving the school to a new location in the Yorkville neighbourhood in Toronto.[86] They brought their grievances to the college's board of directors, but the board sided with Rolph and the medical staff resigned en masse.[85] The college's students remained at Victoria College, and he remained dean of its medical faculty.[87] He taught all the courses for the first two weeks of the school year while recruiting new faculty members.[86] In 1856, the former staff established their own medical school and called it Toronto School of Medicine.[10][88] Rolph attempted to advertise his school as "the medical department of Victoria College – The Toronto School of Medicine". His former staff successfully sued Rolph and stopped him from using the Toronto School of Medicine branding.[89]

He declined to run in the 1857 legislative election and became chairman of the Medical Board.[90] He continued to teach various topics at the medical school and hire other faculty members.[91] In 1868, Rolph was appointed to the medical staff of the newly reopened Toronto General Hospital. He clashed with other board members from the Toronto School of Medicine. To end the conflict, the hospital stopped all clinical lectures on their property.[92]

Rolph was an Anglican[96] who thought everyone in Upper Canada should belong to the Church of England.[97] He believed religious institutions deteriorated when government money supported them.[98] Rolph's medical school did not require faculty or students to join a particular religion or denomination.[99]

Rolph was initially supportive of clergy reserves since they supported his Anglican faith financially.[100] His position changed as he observed the reserves were preventing land development in Canada.[101] Rolph opposed an 1825 bill that would expand clergy reserves to other Christian denominations because of its vague language concerning who could claim the land. He feared ten people could create a congregation, claim land for religious purposes, then sell it for a profit. In 1837, he denounced clergy reserves because they led people to think a ceremony within the state-sponsored church would give them salvation, instead of seeking it outside of church institutions.[102] Rolph kept this opinion when he returned to Canada, denouncing clergy reserves in the Canadian legislature in 1852.[103]

The Church of England controlled King's College, and Rolph wanted it to be turned into a secular institution.[104] He opposed government funding for its medical faculty at the exclusion of others and advocated for institutions to train lawyers and doctors without government funding.[105] If funding was to be provided by the government, he wanted it to be available to all medical schools through endowments.[106]

Rolph sought the latest medical trends in North America and Europe while practising medicine. He cited these trends when teaching at his school but also gave counter-arguments to the theories presented in his lectures.[107] His research focused on the structure of organisms, and he was willing to research ideas that were considered fringe.[108] Rolph did not focus research attention or his curriculum on studying the causes and effects of diseases or diagnosing patients.[109] He experimented on animals to understand how the body reacts when approaching death.[107] Rolph incorporated a French style of teaching medicine where he treated patients at a hospital in front of his students.[33] In lectures at the end of his life, Rolph still taught older remedies to his students, including bloodletting.[110]

Marian A. Patterson described Rolph as the "Father of Medical Education in Upper Canada".[111] His Act for the Better Management of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum bill was part of a wider trend to transfer control of asylums away from ordinary members of society and towards medical professionals.[112] However, his disputes with other medical schools and factions caused public trust of medical professionals and their ability to regulate themselves to decrease.[113] His contemporaries highlighted his abilities as a researcher and public speaker but also accused him of lying and manipulating facts.[114] Rolph used his reputation and political influence to control the governing councils of the Toronto hospitals and the medical licensing body of Upper Canada.[115]

As a politician, Rolph's contemporaries had conflicting views on his actions. James Lesslie and Jesse Ketchum wanted to commission a portrait of Rolph in 1837 as a reward for his service, while Jonas Jones said he possessed a "vile and democratic heart".[116] He could contemplate multiple perspectives on an issue and easily persuaded others to agree with his perspective.[23] In his book on the Upper Canada Rebellion, John Charles Dent praised Rolph's actions and criticised William Lyon Mackenzie's leadership. Mackenzie's sons-in-law Charles Lindsey and John King published critiques of Dent's book that disputed Rolph's influence in the rebellion.[117] Historians have struggled to write about Rolph because he rarely described his personal feelings to others and wrote few documents expressing his political opinions.[118]

A portrait of Rolph, painted in 1836, hangs in the library of the Academy of Medicine of Toronto. Rolph's pocket watch, given to him by a co-worker during the Upper Canada Rebellion, is displayed under the portrait.[111] Rolph Road Public School in Leaside, a neighbourhood in Toronto, was named for Rolph and opened in 1939.[119]