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Cawthra family

family

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 20, 2024
Entity authorityQ5055244 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Cawthra family of Toronto was famous for its business, social and cultural contributions to the city. It is one of the oldest families in Toronto, and many descendants of the family's founder, Joseph Cawthra, continue to play significant roles in Toronto society.

History

Joseph Cawthra migrated to Canada from Yorkshire in 1803. In 1809, he acquired a large parcel of land along the Ontario lakeshore and the Credit River, near the present-day Port Credit. The narrow dirt road that cut through his property is now the Cawthra Road in Mississauga. Sometime later, the Cawthra family moved to the Town of York, where William Cawthra acquired several properties. One such property on Lot 19 Concession 3 on Yonge Street would later become Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.

Notable members

Joseph Cawthra - the family's founder in Canada

William Cawthra - expanded on his inheritance and contributed to the political and civic growth of Toronto; son of Joseph Cawthra

John Cawthra - soldier in the War of 1812 and first MP for Simcoe County; son of Joseph Cawthra

Mabel Cawthra Adamson (1871–1943) - painter and decorator; wife of Agar Adamson daughter of John Cawthra

Agar Rodney Adamson (1901–1954) - mining engineer and Progressive Conservative MP for York West (1940–1954); son of Mabel Cawthra Adamson and Agar Adamson

Anthony Patrick Cawthra Adamson (1906–2002) - historian, architect and author; son of Mabel Cawthra Adamson and Agar Adamson

Latham Cawthra Burns (1930–2015) - honorary chairman of BMO Nesbitt Burns; son of Latham Burns Sr. (c.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Cawthra family” as family. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cawthra and family.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1803, 1809, 1812, 1871—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Cawthra and family providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Cawthra family”, the useful work is to connect “family” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 20, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q5055244. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1803, 1809, 1812 and 1871.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Cawthra family primary sources, Cawthra family archive and Cawthra research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Cawthra family” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.