The Winnipeg branch of the Brantford based Waterous Company opened in 1883 to market its products to the rapidly opening Western part of Canada was, by 1929, passed by the growth areas of the country. The action was now further west in the far Prairies and Alberta and it was decided to move their Western Read More
From 1947 to 1952, I served an engineering apprenticeship with Ruston & Hornsby Ltd., a major manufacturer of diesel engines. My last year was spent at the Anchor Street plant, (one of five plants the company had in Lincoln, England) where the newly formed gas turbine division was housed. There, I worked in the tool Read More
In today’s “protected” world, the hard sell is severely crimped by the need to only promise what you can guarantee to deliver, under penalty of legal attack. No such restrictions were recognised in the era of rapid mechanisation of all industries, especially farming. Manufacturers let loose their best works in the writing of advertisements for Read More
Driving along number three highway to the lake each weekend, just east of Sheddon, I found myself looking each time at the old thirties era steel wheeled Case tractor, complete with two furrow trailing plow showcased on a small artificial hillock. Perched on the driver’s seat, the old farmer in his faded coveralls had his Read More
Over the last few years, the remaining factories of Brantford’s great industrial past are being demolished one by one and with them go physical ties to the memories of thousands of the city’s workers of yesteryear. Just prior to the turn of the millennium, the “brownfields” between Greenwich and Mohawk Streets still contained the factories Read More