Pain Court, is an primarily french-speaking agricultural village in southwestern Ontario, Canada, in the municipality of Chatham-Kent. It was established in 1854, as one of the earliest French-speaking settlements in southern Ontario. Pain Court was founded when English and French-speaking squatters from the Detroit, Michigan, area began to settle the indigenous lands along the lower Thames River in the region in the 1780s. It derived its name from the small loaves of bread which the impoverished parishioners offered to Roman Catholic missionaries. By the 1820s in the nearby "Pain Court Block", one of the earliest French-speaking communities in southern Ontario had developed. Named Pain Court by Catholic missionaries in reference to the small loaves of bread which was all the impoverished parishioners could offer, the settlement was surveyed in 1829. In 1852 a chapel was built and two years later construction of a church commenced. It quickly became the cultural and educational centre of French-speaking Catholics in the area. By 1866 when a post office was established, a small village had developed. Joseph Caron, the former Canadian diplomat, was raised in Pain Court. He served as Canada’s ambassador to China, with concurrent accreditation to North Korea and Mongolia, and was ambassador to Japan until the fall of 2008 when he was appointed High Commissioner to India with concurrent accreditation as Ambassador to Nepal and Bhutan. Located in Pain Court, Laprise Farms Ltd has become the largest producer of Brussels sprouts in Canada as of 1998. The 2018 International Plowing Match was held in Pain Court.
Education
The Conseil scolaire catholique Providence operates Francophone Catholic schools serving the community. It maintains its Chatham-Kent regional office in Pain Court. Pain Court has an elementary and a secondary French-language school. École Sainte-Catherine is a small elementary school located directly across the street from its sister school, École secondaire de Pain Court, a small high school with 270 students.
