Wednesday 7 December 2016

Canada`s largest Hardware Retailers of the time.

WOOD VALLANCE LTD HOCKEY CLUB.

Here we have another example of a sponsorship between a retailer and a local hockey team. But some businesses were so big they were able to form their own leagues and have individual teams formed from different departments, I will write about examples of these in a future blog.
          The more I research the more I have become aware of the vast numbers of leagues and teams that sprang up all across Canada and the US.
Unfortunately a large proportion will just be forgotten, that is why I am trying to collate as much information as I can about these teams before it`s too late.
          Like so many of these teams and leagues it seems not much was written about them and therefore near impossible to research further than a name, but hopefully with help from readers they may know, or know someone who knows some useful information. Maybe a family member played for a local team, or went to see them play many years ago.
The Wood Vallance ltd Hockey Club were champions of the Wholesale Hardware Hockey League on consecutive seasons 1910/11 and 1911/12.
Brief history of Wood Vallance & Leggat.
Andrew Wood fwas from Northern Ireland and was working in Toronto by 1846. By 1856 he was in Hamilton and running his own hardware business, three years into this he joined partnership with a Mathew Leggat.
In 1880 as the Canadian Pacific Railway branched out west, the company set up in Winnipeg.
1885 saw Wood and Leggat reorganize their business by bringing in two more special partners, William Valiance (manager at head office) and Wood`s eldest son William Augustus who had been with the firm since 1872.
As Wood Vallance they became the LARGEST Wholesale Hardware business in Canada.
573 Carrall St Wholesale Hardware 1918.
It`s practice was to order by the car load, for example, 10,000 keg`s of nails from the Ontario Rolling Mill`s Co, 200 ton`s of wire from the Ontario Lead and Barbwire Co, 40 ton`s of twine from the Brantford Cordage Co and 1 million bolt`s from the Ontario Bolt Co.
W. Cordova St 1917 Retail Premises.
These days the Army & Navy store occupies the space, although only the first few metres of the store are original construction, the remainder of the building having been rebuilt in the early 1970`s.
Once again I hope you enjoyed this blog, if you have any interesting material about these early amateur leagues please contact me.





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