This Day in UU History

May 26

Joseph Workman

1806 – Joseph Workman was born in Dunmurry, Ireland. He was the main founder of the First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto, Canada (1845). His brother, Benjamin, helped found the Unitarian Church in Montreal. He was a merchant in Toronto for 10 years. He established a hospital for poor immigrants and fought for free, nonsectarian yet Christian education. Workman considered exclusion of women from any branch of learning to be barbaric. Known as the “father of Canadian psychiatry,” he served as superintendent of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum.

Copyright Skinner House Books, 2004. This Day in Unitarian Universalist History by Frank Schulman is available at www.uuabookstore.org