Before colonization, the area was considered by the surrounding indigenous communities to be a "neutral" zone. On selected dates members from these communities would meet and trade goods by the Speed River.^{[citation needed]}

Guelph was selected as the headquarters of the Canada Company, a British development firm, by its Canadian superintendent John Galt, a popular Scottish novelist who designed the town to attract settlers to it and to the surrounding countryside.^[4]

Galt designed the town to resemble a European city centre, complete with squares, broad main streets and narrow side streets, resulting in a variety of block sizes and shapes which is still in place today.^[5] The street plan was designed to resemble a lady's fan, many of the streets forming triangles (the segments of the fan)^{[citation needed]}. This technique had been used in other planned towns such as Buffalo, New York.^[4]

Guelph was founded on St. George's Day, April 23rd, 1827, the feast day of the patron saint of England.^[5] The town was named to honour Britain's royal family, the Hanoverians, who were descended from the Guelfs, the ancestral family of George IV, the reigning British monarch; thus the nickname The Royal City. The directors of the Canada Company had actually wanted the city to be named Goderich, but reluctantly accepted the fait accompli.

The city is home to the University of Guelph and Sleeman Breweries Ltd.. The Ontario Agricultural College (OAC), the oldest part of University of Guelph, began in 1873 as an associate agricultural college of the University of Toronto. Guelph's most famous landmark is the Church of Our Lady Immaculate.

source: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guelph)