Edward Roger Wood
Triangle 19
Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto
Born in Peterborough, Ontario on May 14, 1856, Wood was educated in the local public schools before obtaining a full-time position as a telegraph messenger in the insurance office of George Cox (Plot 2, Lot 8). Wood was still with Cox when the latter organized the Central Canada Loan and Savings Company. When the business was moved to the big city of Toronto in 1884, the 28-year-old Wood came with it. Before long, Cox’s loan and savings company branched out to form the Dominion Securities Corporation. As the years went by, Wood advanced through the ranks eventually becoming president of Central Canada Loan and Savings as well as of numerous other companies such as Brazilian Traction, Light and Power (now Brascan*), National Trust, and the Canada Life Assurance Company. He was a director of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, Massey-Harris Company, and a number of life insurance companies.
Wood was a generous man, endowing the University of Toronto, both Victoria and Emmanuel College, Metropolitan and Sherbourne Street United Church, and the Toronto General Hospital with large sums of money, He also worked diligently on the 1917 Victory Loan Committee bond drive and helped raise $600,000 for the Young Men’s Christian Association.
In 1920, Wood and his wife moved to a newly constructed residence he called Glendon Hall on Bayview Avenue in York Mills. Following Edgar Roger Wood’s death on June 16, 1941 at the age of 75, his wife Agnes continued to reside at Glendon. On her death in early 1950, Glendon Hall was bequeathed to the University of Toronto and in 1961 became the first building on the campus of the newly established York University’s Glendon College. Both Edward Roger Wood and his wife Agnes are buried in the Wood plot at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
Mike Filey
Mount Pleasant Cemetery: An Illustrated Guide
Second Edition Revised and Expanded
*Editor's Note: Brascan changed its name to Brookfield Power Corporation in January 2006.