Background
Born in Scole, Norfolk, England, the son of James and Sarah Gooderham, Gooderham emigrated to York, Upper Canada, in 1832 to invest and partner in a wind powered flour mill with his brother-in-law, James Worts.
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Born in Scole, Norfolk, England, the son of James and Sarah Gooderham, Gooderham emigrated to York, Upper Canada, in 1832 to invest and partner in a wind powered flour mill with his brother-in-law, James Worts.
Briefly operating as Worts and Gooderham until Worts death in 1834, Gooderham continued to operate the mill as the William Gooderham Company. In 1837, he added a distillery to make efficient use of surplus and second-grade grain. Expanding their business, they introduced gas for illumination, expanded the use of steam power in the plants and built their own wharf to ship their consignments - by the 1860s they owned schooners on the Great Lakes.
During the 1860s and 1870s, Gooderham was a community and business leader in the Toronto industrial landscape and in transportation and financial services, as well as on the stock exchange, and in the council and the board of arbitration of the Toronto Board of Trade.
A marble memorial for Gooderham is mounted on the west wall inside the church. In 1864, he was appointed president of the Bank of Toronto.