In last week’s Timmins history feature, we discussed a handful of townships being amalgamated into the Town of Timmins all the way back to the 1920s.
Local historian Karen Bachmann says in the late 1950s and early 60s, talk picked up about the town annexing Mountjoy, Tisdale and Whitney Townships. It finally came true with the creation of the “Super City” in 1973.
It also brought about five wards, represented by aldermen. Mayor Leo Del Villano led the council composed of 14 aldermen.
“And it is an Old English term,” Bachmann explains, “and the aldermen in the medieval times were all working for the king directly within communities. So they had specific roles to play and they were kind of the big hoi polloi in the community and all that kind of stuff.”
Timmins abandoned that title in the early 1990s, replacing it with “councillor”.
“Alderman” could be considered sexist. Bachmann notes that since 1973, there have been women on council.
“At least one woman since amalgamation,” notes Bachmann. “We also had a reeve in the 1920s for Tisdale Twp. that was a woman. There’s a long history of that as well within the community.”
While the first post-amalgamation council had a mayor and 14 councillors, tt was reduced to eight councillors in 1978.
