Southwold was named in 1792 after Southwold in Suffolk, England. The municipality was incorporated in 1852.
Shedden's growth occurred when the Canada Southern Railway was built, bypassing Fingal. Later it was joined by the Pere Marquette railway, boosting Shedden's importance further still. Both railways are now defunct. Talbotville is situated at the intersection of highways 3 & 4, two of the oldest roads in the region.
The township is home to the Green Lane Landfill, a large garbage dump site purchased by the City of Toronto in 2007.[3] Toronto began shipping waste to the site in 2010. Southwold was also home of the Ford St. Thomas Assembly plant until its closure in 2011.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Southwold had a population of 4,851 living in 1,713 of its 1,760 total private dwellings, a change of 9.7% from its 2016 population of 4,421. With a land area of 301.38 km2 (116.36 sq mi), it had a population density of 16.1/km2 (41.7/sq mi) in 2021.[4]
Canada census – Southwold, Ontario community profile