After the destruction of the original parliament buildings during the War of 1812, the same site was used for the construction of the larger, brick structure pictured above, completed in 1818. Government business was temporarily moved to a building on Wellington Street. The new parliament buildings were accidentally destroyed by a chimney fire on the night of December 30, 1824.

While construction began on yet more buildings, parliament met in a brick hospital on King Street. The first two sets of legislative buildings of Upper Canada burned to the ground, the first at the hands of the invading Americans in 1813 (the U.S. and Britain were fighting the War of 1812), the second of natural causes in 1824.

Construction on the above buildings began in 1825 or 1826, with parliament meeting temporarily (what's new?) in the York General Hospital and the Court House. In 1830 the central block was completed, and the two wings were completed in 1833. A cholera epidemic in 1834 was so bad that the hospital was full and patients were put into the legislative buildings.

Parliament vacated the buildings for most of 25 years beginning in 1841 when Upper and Lower Canada were united. The capital of the nited Canada moved from Kingston (1841) to Montreal (1844). But a riot in Montreal in 1849, during which the parliament buildings were destroyed by fire, led to a further change: it was decided that the current session would be finished in Toronto, after which the set of government would alternate every four years between Toronto and Quebec.

While parliament was in Quebec, the Toronto buildings were used as law courts, a university, a barracks and an asylum for the insane. The alternating-capital arrangement continued until the government located at Quebec in 1859 and continued beyond it four-year term. In 1865 Ottawa became the capital of Canada. Upon the creation of Canada in 1867, the Ontario legislature moved into the Toronto buildings, remaining there until 1892, when the present site at Queen's Park was completed.

When Upper Canada was created (Quebec Act, 1791), the government was to include a Legislative Council of at least seven members appointed by the Corwn and an elected Assembly which had to consist of a minimum of sixteen members called at least once per year.

Governor Simcoe held the first session of the Legislative Council in 1792 in Navy Hall at Niagara (renamed Newark to make it sound more British; now known as Niagara-on-the-Lake), before a more permanent site was chosen for the new capital. After Simcoe's opening speech, parliament moved outdoors, near the mighty Niagara River, where the recording clerk used a boulder as a desk. On the following May 28, 1793, both Houses of Parliament, the Legislative Council and the Assembly, met for a session lasting six weeks.

Simcoe selected Toronto (renamed York to make it sound more British) as the site where he would build his new capital in the summer of 1793. In his tent on August 31, 1793 he held the first meeting in York of the Legislative Council. In September he returned with his government to Newark for the winter.

Construction began on the government buildings in 1794. Located on a spot overlooking the eastern end of the harbour, surrounded by forest, they consisted of two large wood halls and various offices for the legislature and the courts of justice. They were completed in 1796 and occupied in 1797. Until then, legislative business continued at Newark.

When an invasion force of Americans occupied York in 1813, they burned the legislative buildings with all their records and documents, as well as pillaging the public library and robbing the church. A few months later the British sent a force to Washington, for retaliation, and burnt the public buildings of the American government.