Meaning of the word 'Glebe'
A friend of mine from Toronto has just found an apartment in the Glebe and will be moving next month. I'm just wondering if you can provide some brief history on the area that I can pass along. Why is it called "The Glebe"? Is the name exclusive to Ottawa? Is it a family name? How long has the area been called The Glebe?
The word 'glebe' comes from the Latin 'gleba' meaning a clod of earth. In England, the term 'glebe' came to mean a plot of land granted to a clergyman as part of his benefice during his term of office. Clergymen were often poor in rural areas where the collection was skimpy, so the clergyman could at least keep a garden or a cow on the glebe land, or rent it to a farmer for income. This idea of setting land aside to support a clergyman migrated to North America and Australia and New Zealand with British colonization. There are lots of glebes today in the USA and around the world.
When England defeated France in the Seven Year's War (1757-63) and took control of what is now Canada, they were faced with a dilemma. The French aristocracy returned to France, leaving only the clergy as a moral authority for the conquered habitants. In order to co-opt the clergy in Quebec, the British left the Catholic Church in charge of all its lands and allowed Catholic churches to continue operating freely.
This was quite astute, and was likely a factor in moderating Quebec nationalism until the 'Quiet Revolution' of the 1960's. However, there was a tremendous backlash in England to this tolerant policy, and there were riots against 'popery' and what was seen as a Catholic ascendancy.
To placate the British populace in England, the government decided on a policy of setting aside every 7th surveyed lot in what is now Ontario to support a Protestant clergy. These were called 'Clergy Reserves'. These were rural lots of about 200 acres. 'Protestant' at first was interpreted as 'Anglican' as the Church of England was the established church of the United Kingdom, but after fierce lobbying by Presbyterians (who were the main Protestant denomination in early Ontario), they were also included in the disbursement of clergy reserves.
Although many clergy reserves were surveyed, very few were actually granted, for a variety of political reasons I won't bore you with here. In 1837, about 40 clergy reserves were granted to support Protestant clergies. St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church downtown at Kent and Wellington was granted the reserve which currently extends from Bronson Avenue on the west to Main Street on the east (these were concession roads in the early survey) between what is now Glebe Avenue and Fifth Avenue. So this area became known as 'the glebe lands of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church'. When the area opened for subdivision development in the 1870's, real estate agents called it 'The Glebe'. This term came to refer to all of the land (about 600 acres) bounded by the canal and the Grand Trunk Railway (where the Queensway is now).