Charles Luther Burton
Mausoleum Rooms E and D, Crypt C
Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto
Born in Malvern, Scarborough Township in 1876, Burton and his family moved to Toronto in 1899. The young man enrolled at Jarvis Collegiate, then located south of Carlton Street. He quit school at the age of fifteen and obtained employment as an office boy in a law firm. Before long, he left and obtained a similar position with Fancy Goods of Canada Company Ltd., which was owned by H. H. Fudger. Burton worked his way up the proverbial ladder, years later becoming managing director. In 1912 he re-established himself as assistant general manager at the Robert Simpson Company then under the directorship of his old friend and mentor H. H. Fudger. By 1929, Burton was president of Simpson’s, becoming chairman of the board in 1948 when his son Edgar assumed the presidency.
It was during Burton’s regime that the Eaton people bought property at the southwest corner of Yonge and College Streets for their new head office (due to unforeseen circumstances only a much modified Eaton’s College Street Store, now College Park, was ever built). Eaton’s offered to sell Burton the block kitty-corner if the Simpson main store (which had been across from Eaton’s downtown store for decades) was relocated at the northeast corner. Similar financial constraints that prevented the College Street property from ever becoming the site of Eaton’s new head office skyscraper also precluded Simpson’s from following up on the proposal.
Burton was also an advocate of a two-language society in Canada and often declared that every Canadian student should be proficient in both English and French even before learning arithmetic. Charles L. Burton died on March 19, 1961 at his residence, 135 Glen Road.
Mike Filey
Mount Pleasant Cemetery: An Illustrated Guide
Second Edition Revised and Expanded