Early Life
William Warren Baldwin was born in County Cork, Ireland in 1775 of Robert Baldwin Sr., a Protestant gentleman farmer who went bankrupt in 1788. Despite their new poverty, William graduated from the medical school at the University of Edinburgh in 1797. Faced with the prospect of the uprising of the Society of United Irishmen in 1798, he came to Upper Canada with his father and family, arriving in July 1799. The family moved to Durham County, where he became a lieutenant-colonel in the Durham militia and a justice of the peace in 1800. William found few patients in Durham, so he moved to the town of York (Toronto) and took up other occupations. In 1803, he was admitted to the bar and, in 1809, he became a district court judge. He served several terms as treasurer for the Law Society of Upper Canada.
William married Phœbe Willcocks in 1803. She was the daughter of William Willcocks, and this advantageous marriage helped resolve much of the family's financial woes. Phœbe and her unmarried sister inherited the estate of their father in 1813, and their cousin Elizabeth Russell in 1822. William inherited his father Robert Baldwin Sr's 200 acre estate in 1817. With this wealth they built an estate in 1818 on the future site of Spadina House and laid out the grand avenue, Spadina, that was to link it to the city. The house burned down in 1835 and was rebuilt on the same foundations. The current building was built on the original foundations.
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