Researching John Scadding

Scadding arrived in Upper Canada with Simcoe in 1791. Scadding was granted a lot on the east side of the Don River in 1793. He built the log cabin now known as Scadding Cabin in 1794, to fulfil his settlement duties to the Crown. Scadding left York in 1796 for England with Simcoe and did not return until 1818. While in England, Scadding managed Simcoe's estate. Scadding married Melicent Triggs (1768 - February 26, 1860) in about 1806, and they had three sons, John Scadding (March 5, 1807 - June 18, 1845), Charles Scadding (October 10, 1809 - June 19, 1892), and Henry Scadding (July 29, 1813 - May 6, 1901). His son Henry became a prominent Toronto figure and a well-known historiographer of York and early Toronto. Simcoe died in 1806 and Scadding continued to manage the estate for a few years afterwards during which the sons were born.

Scadding returned to York in 1818. Scadding built a larger log house and numerous other buildings farther north on his property near Broadview and Gerrard St. including a large barn, and sold the southern portion of the lot and the original log cabin to William Smith. The rest of the Scadding family followed in 1821. Scadding died March 1, 1824, when a large tree being cut down fell on him. The remaining portion of the Scadding original land grant, located north of Gerrard, was purchased by the City of Toronto in 1856 and the later buildings demolished for the Industrial Farm and later the Don Jail. The original log cabin was dismantled in 1879 by the York Pioneers and re-erected on the grounds of Exhibition Place, where it still stands.

He was born in north London, the son of John William and Jessima Alice (née Guyett) Scadding.

He was appointed physician at the Brompton Hospital, London from 1939 to 1972 and at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, from 1946 to 1972. He was also Dean of the Institute of Diseases of the Chest at London University from 1946 to 1960, their Director of Studies from 1950–62 and Professor of Medicine (Emeritus) from 1962 to 1972. In 1946 he became a founder member of a Medical Research Council Committee set up to study the treatment of tuberculosis by newly discovered drugs. He was best known for his seminal work on sarcoidosis and his studies in fibrosing alveolitis.

During the Second World War, he served as Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of a medical division in Egypt, and assisted with the treatment of Winston Churchill for pneumonia at U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower's villa in Carthage.

He was Editor of Thorax from 1946 to 1959 and delivered the Bradshaw Lecture at the Royal College of Physicians in 1949 on sarcoidosis. President of the British Tuberculosis Association, 1959–61 and President of the Thoracic Society, 1971-72 he was a major influence in the 1982 merger of the two societies (by which time the British Tuberculosis Society had evolved into the British Thoracic Association) as the British Thoracic Society.

He died at Beaconsfield in 1999. He had married Mabel Pennington and had one son and two daughters.