Whitby, Ontario (1921 census)

Name: Whitby (1921)
Address: Ontario, CA

Whitby was a census subdivision in Ontario, recorded in the 1921 Census of Canada with a population of 3,119. The community is grounded to Wikidata Q7994182. The administrative centroid was at approximately 43.934°N, 78.966°W.

Population

In 1921, Whitby had a population of 3,119: 1,601 male and 1,518 female residents.

Population trajectory across census years

Year	Population
1851	7,996
1861	2,697
1871	2,732
1881	3,140
1891	2,551
1901	2,050
1911	1,875
1921	3,119

Cross-year identity established by spatial polygon overlap (SAME_AS chains across the Canadian Census Subdivision boundary files).

Neighbouring Census Subdivisions in 1921

In the 1921 census, Whitby shared boundaries with:

Full census record, 1921

The 1921 census recorded 46 measurements for this Census Subdivision across 3 categories.

Population & families (1921). This community's record includes 3,119 total population, 1,601 males in the population, 1,518 females in the population, 1,222 females born in Canada, 1,167 males born in Canada, 345 males born in the British Empire (excluding Canada), 252 females born in the British Empire (excluding Canada), 89 males born outside the British Empire, 44 females born outside the British Empire. (Source: 1921 Census of Canada, V1T16.)

Ethnic origin (1921). This community's record includes 2,243 persons of British origin (English), 363 persons of British origin (Scotch / Scottish), 316 persons of British origin (Irish), 32 persons of French origin, 29 persons of Dutch origin, 24 persons of German origin, 22 persons of Austrian origin, 18 persons of Russian origin, 13 persons of Polish origin, 8 persons of Italian origin, 5 persons of other European origin, 4 persons of Finnish origin, 4 persons of Scandinavian origin, 2 persons of Chinese or Japanese origin, 2 persons of Greek origin, 1 persons of British origin (other), 1 persons of other Asian origin, 1 persons of Syrian origin, 1 persons of Ukrainian origin. 24 persons recorded under the 1921 official census category "Hebrew" (origin/ethnicity); now described as Jewish origin. (Source: 1921 Census of Canada, V1T27.)

Religion (1921). This community's record includes 1,291 Methodists, 735 Presbyterians, 536 Anglicans (Church of England), 247 Roman Catholics, 93 Baptists, 60 Protestants (general / no denomination specified), 26 Jews, 21 adherents of other sects (residual category in 1921), 14 Christians (general / no denomination specified), 11 Congregationalists, 10 Lutherans, 7 Disciples of Christ, 7 Greek (Orthodox) Church adherents, 7 Salvation Army adherents, 6 persons whose religion or origin is unspecified, 2 adherents of Eastern religions, 2 Brethren. (Source: 1921 Census of Canada, V1T27; V1T38.)

People with Dictionary of Canadian Biography entries

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography includes biographies of 35 people connected to this place who were alive in 1921, listed below by birth year. Each name links to that person's DCB entry.

Name	Lifespan	Connection
Mary Thompson	b. 1801	born here
C. A. (Charles Augustus) Semlin	1836–1927	born here
Hannah Grier Coome	1837–1921	born here
Margaret O’Neill	1842–1927	born here
Elizabeth Bingham	1843–1934	born here
Sir Edmund Boyd Osler	1845–1924	born here
Adam Henry Wright	1846–1930	born here
Daniel Hunter McMillan Canadian politician (1846-1933)	1846–1933	born here
Marion Fairweather	1846–1923	born here
George Henry Ham	1847–1926	born here
Henry James Grasett	1847–1930	born here
Arthur Jukes Johnson	1848–1921	born here
Thomas Joseph Workman Burgess	1849–1926	born here
Benjamin Fish Austin	1850–1933	born here
Thomas Henry Best	1850–1928	born here
James Albert Manning Aikins	1851–1929	born here
John Wilson Bengough	1851–1923	born here
James Carruthers	1853–1924	born here
Robert Allan Pyne	1853–1931	born here
Alice G.	1854–1938	born here
Robert John Fleming	1854–1925	born here
George Frederick Galt	1855–1928	born here
Levi Thomson	1855–1938	born here
Margaret Ruttan Boucher	1855–1931	born here
Anna Bella Peel	1856–1933	born here
Caroline Louisa Josephine Irwin	1856–1939	born here
George Tate Blackstock	1856–1921	born here
John Stoughton Dennis	1856–1938	born here
Patrick Burns	1856–1937	born here
Sir Frank Stillman Barnard	1856–1936	born here
Caroline Sophia Brown	1862–1936	died here
Norman Bethune	1890–1939	born here
Frederick Grant Banting	1891–1941	born here
Donald Grant Creighton	1902–1979	born and died here
George Parkin Grant	1918–1988	born here

Identifiers

TCP UID: ON133010 — year-scoped identifier from the Canadian Census Subdivision boundary file
Persistent place ID: PLACE_ON133010 — computed from spatial-overlap chains across census years
Wikidata: Q7994182
Wikipedia (EN): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitby_Township

Sources

Census tabulations from the 1921 Census of Canada, transcribed and georeferenced by the Canadian Peoples / TCP project, hosted at the HGIS Lab, University of Saskatchewan. Persistent place identity computed from spatial-overlap chains across all available census years (1851–1921). Identity grounding to Wikidata performed via the HGIS Canada Knowledge Graph project's MCP-assisted disambiguation pipeline. See the About / Methodology page for the full data pipeline.

Cite this page

Clifford, J. (2026). "Whitby, Ontario (1921 census)" in HGIS Canada Knowledge Graph. Retrieved from https://jimclifford.ca/hgiscanada/places/on/whitby-on133010-1921/.