The most hotly disputed category of exempt land was "lawns and gardens", which included all land not used for urban purposes. Although not coloured on the map, this category included the unsubdivided lands of the northwest part of the city. The exemption was criticized for blocking development and lowering tax revenues. By 1880 new legislation decreed that lawns and gardens would be taxed as urban land and within a few years much had been subdivided and offered for sale.’
- Isobel Ganton & Joan Winearls, MAPPING TORONTO'S FIRST CENTURY 1787-1884
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Wadsworth & Unwin’s Map of the City of Toronto [shewing real estate exemptions from taxation], compiled and drawn by Maurice Gaviller, C.E. & P.L.S., from plans filed in the Registry Office and the most recent surveys, 1872. Wadsworth & Unwin, P.L. Surveyors, Toronto, Sepr. 1st, 1872. City Engineers Office, Toronto, Jany 1878 [Signature illegible]. Copp, Clark & Co. Lith. Toronto. Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year 1872, by Wadsworth & Unwin, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.
Lithograph with coloured manuscript additions; 1 inch to 300 feet
Images courtesy Library and Archives Canada: NMC25641
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| Advertisement, 1871 City Directory |
Unwin also held the position of an Assessor for the City from 1872 to 1905, when he was appointed City Surveyor. The firm from which he retired in 1896, Unwin, Murphy, and Esten, is still in existence today.’
- Ganton/Winearls, ibid.
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