A SENSE OF URGENCY - C.L. BURTON

 Although I have vague memories of visiting my paternal great-grandfather, Charles Luther Burton, in his old house in Toronto, I was only 2½ years old when he died. Anything I actually know about him has been learned through family stories and his own autobiography, entitled A Sense of Urgency, augmented by a plethora of information researchable in the public domain.

Charles Luther Burton, known to friends and family as Charlie or C.L., was one of Toronto’s ablest and most colourful business leaders. His working career spanned eight decades, from the time he was a boy in the 1880s until his death at age 84 in 1961. He spent a lifetime in wholesale and retail trade in Ontario, at first helping his parents George and Eliza Barclay Burton run their small Green River Store in the Township of Pickering, and then their Toronto store at the corner of Oxford and Augusta streets. He was actively associated with H.H. Fudger Wholesale Fancy Goods and The Fancy Goods Company of Canada from 1891—1912, and with the retail department store The Robert Simpson Company for nearly 40 years, where he presided over its greatest period of expansion. Even though C.L. was a very successful businessman, his personal interests extended far beyond his working life, and he gave even more generously of his energy to community, charitable and welfare work.