John Graves Simcoe

Lieutenant-General John Graves Simcoe was a British army officer, politician, and colonial administrator who served as the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada from 1791 to '96. He founded York, the present-day city of Toronto, in 1793 and was instrumental in introducing institutions such as courts of law, trial by jury, English common law, freehold land tenure, and also in the abolition of slavery in Upper Canada.