William Peyton Hubbard (1842 - 1935), City of Toronto Alderman from 1894 to 1914, was a popular and influential politician, of particular historical note as the city's first politician of African descent.
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Born in Toronto, Hubbard was the son of American slaves who escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad. He became a baker by trade, and one well-known for his strong political opinions. Armed with a sharp wit and a powerful oratory skills, and encouraged by the mentorship of George Brown that began when Hubbard rescued Brown from nearly drowning in the Don River, he eventually found his way into politics.
He was first elected in 1894 in a quiet, tree-lined ward of grand homes that happened to be one of the wealthiest and whitest wards in the city (encompassing an area between University Avenue and Bathurst Street).
Hubbard was known for his strong sense of public duty, and made a name for himself fighting the privatization of Toronto's water and hydroelectric supplies. He was elected to the powerful Toronto Board of Control in 1904 and topped the polls in the city-wide election to the Board in 1906. He was re-elected in 1907 but defeated in 1908.
Hubbard was the first visible minority -- and the first black citizen -- to be elected to public office, at either the local, provincial, or federal level, in a Canadian city. (While two black councillors had been elected in local elections prior to Hubbard, both were from smaller towns with populations of less than 4,000 each. Indeed, one of them was on Vancouver Island which at the time was still a British colony -- since British Columbia had not yet joined Confederation and was not yet a part of Canada).
Losing an election in 1915, Hubbard retired to the Riverdale area of the city building a home that he would spend his remaining days in until he died at the age of 93. Coincidentally, the alderman dubbed the Grand Old Man by Toronto press in his political days, serving well into his 70s, was the quite literally the oldest man in the city for a short period before his death.