Constance Hamilton

Who was Constance Hamilton?

Constance Eaton Hamilton was the first female member of Toronto City Council and the first woman in Ontario to hold elected office at either the federal, provincial, or municipal level. The elective office of public school trustee was open to Ontario widows and unmarried women who owned property from about 1884, although the first female trustees to be elected in Toronto were in 1892.

Born in Yorkshire, England in 1862 to Dr George Fowler Bodington and Caroline Mary Eaton. She attended Conservatory of Music in Leipzig, Germany and became a pianist. Hamilton immigrated to Canada with her family in 1887 and settled in Vancouver.

Hamilton married Canadian Pacific Railway land commissioner and civil engineer Lauchlan Alexander Hamilton, who was also Vancouver City Alderman and designed the Coat of arms of Vancouver. In 1888 the Hamiltons' moved to Winnipeg and then to Toronto in 1899., A supporter of women's suffrage, she became president of the Equal Franchise League of Toronto. In 1919, women obtained the right to run for elected office in Ontario. Previously married women had been barred, by law, from doing so.