Science & Tech
Founded in 1840 on what is now the University of Toronto’s Saint George campus, the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory began as part of a British imperial effort to study magnetic declination. Under Sir John Henry Lefroy, its observations became crucial to showing that changes in Earth’s magnetic field were linked to the sunspot cycle. After 1853 it was expanded by the colonial government, rebuilt in stone, and became Canada’s chief meteorological station and official timekeeper for decades. Despite later interference from urban growth, its work shaped Canadian weather forecasting, timekeeping, and astronomy, and the rebuilt observatory still stands as a landmark in Canadian science.
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