Massey Manufacturing

Massey Manufacturing built its business on farm machinery, growing through the 19th century under Hart Massey into one of the largest agricultural equipment makers in Canada, headquartered in Toronto. A merger with rival manufacturer A. Harris, Son and Company in 1891 created Massey-Harris, a company that went on to dominate Canadian farm equipment manufacturing and later, as Massey Ferguson after a further merger, became a genuinely global agricultural machinery brand.

A fortune turned into landmarks

The wealth the company generated funded some of Toronto's most enduring cultural landmarks: Hart Massey built Massey Hall, which opened in 1894 as a gift to the city, and later generations of the family endowed Massey College at the University of Toronto in the 1960s. The Massey name, attached to a concert hall and a graduate college rather than to the manufacturing business itself, is now far better known to most Torontonians than the farm equipment company that paid for both.

Sources

• The Canadian Encyclopedia — Massey-Harris Company
• Wikipedia — Massey Ferguson

Continue reading

Massey Hall

Built by an industrialist in memory of his son, Massey Hall has hosted everyone from the 1953 "greatest jazz…

Robertson Davies and Massey College

As founding Master of the University of Toronto's Massey College from 1963 to 1981, novelist Robertson Davies…

Toronto's Craft Beer Scene

A city that drank mostly big-brand beer for most of the 20th century now supports more than 70 independent…

Black Creek

Black Creek, a tributary of the Humber River, lent its name to both Black Creek Pioneer Village and the Jane…