Canadian General Electric

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Canadian General Electric
Industryelectrical
Predecessor
  • Edison Electric Light Company of Canada
  • Thomson-Houston Electric Light Company of Canada
Founded1892; 132 years ago (1892)
Defunct1989; 35 years ago (1989)
FateRe-named as
electrical products all over Canada
.

GE Canada was preceded by the company Canadian General Electric (CGE), a Canadian manufacturer of various electrical products which acted as the Canadian counterpart of the American company General Electric. CGE became General Electric Canada in 1989, and is now known as GE Canada.

History

The company's 1908 headquarters building at 212 King Street W in Toronto, designed by Darling and Person

Canadian General Electric Co. Limited (CGE) was incorporated in Canada in 1892 as a merger of Edison Electric Light Company of Canada (of Hamilton, Ontario) and Thomson-Houston Electric Light Company of Canada (of Montreal, Quebec), both incorporated in Canada in 1882.[1]

The Canadian merger occurred in the same year as the merger of parent companies

Thomson-Houston Company (of Lynn, Massachusetts) into General Electric, which continues to the present day as a major international conglomerate.[2]

CGE had about 500 employees at inception and was already producing

motors, wire and cable, and lighting products for consumer and industrial products.[2]

CGE existed as the Canadian counterpart of the American-based General Electric. In 1989, CGE became General Electric Canada, and is now known as GE Canada.[citation needed]

Milestones

General Electric has had a long manufacturing history in Canada, beginning as CGE and existing today as GE Canada.[2] In 1892, CGE is founded and opens engine/motor plant in Peterborough, Ontario[3] Between 1892 and 1899, the Canadian General Electric electric car is produced, for model year 1899 only, in Peterborough. The car is essentially a Woods Electric.[citation needed]

In 1911, CGE acquired Sunbeam Lamp  company of Toronto, Ontario. In 1912, the company established a lamp plant in Montreal, Quebec. In 1921, vacuum tube operations began in Toronto. In 1922, Canadian Edison Appliance Company was established.[citation needed]

In 1945, the company opened a small appliances plant in Barrie, Ontario. The next year, a plastics plant was opened in Cobourg, Ontario and a lighting plant was opened in Oakville, Ontario. In 1947, the company opened an electric meter plant in Quebec city.[citation needed]

In 1971, the

household appliances with brands such as McClary, Easy, and Moffat, the two companies merged to form Camco (later known as Mabe Canada).[5] In 1989, CGE became wholly owned by General Electric, and was renamed General Electric Canada.[2]

In the 1990s, electric lamp operations in the Oakville factory slowly began to get transferred to lamp plants in

incandescent lamp production lines in the Oakville plant were stopped. Production is transferred to Winchester, Virginia.[citation needed
]

The Oakville lamp plant closed in 2010 and the remaining incandescent lamp operations were transferred to Mexico and China. A few products were outsourced from

]

In 2018, the Peterborough plant shutdown

Welland, Ontario,[7] to replace an existing factory in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The reason for moving to Canada from the US was a lack of export financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank.[8][9]

References

  1. ^ Fred Kee. "Electricity - The Magic Medium, chapter: The Electrical Manufacturing Industry, page 1" (PDF). Retrieved 27 June 2010.
  2. ^ a b c d Radiomuseum.org. "History of the radio manufacturer Canadian General Electric Co. Limited (C.G.E.)". Retrieved 27 June 2010.
  3. ^ "General Electric shutting down Peterborough plant in 2018 | Globalnews.ca".
  4. ^ "Pakistan 2020".
  5. ^ "Mabe buys Camco | CBC News".
  6. ^ Week, Taylor Clysdale Peterborough This (30 November 2017). "The history of General Electric in Peterborough". The Peterborough Examiner. Retrieved 23 February 2024.
  7. ^ Johnson, Nathaniel (1 March 2018). "GE Welland Brilliant Factory ready to go this summer". Welland Tribune. Welland, Ontario. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  8. ^ Kellner, Tomas (27 September 2015). "GE to Build New State-Of-The-Art Engine Plant in Canada to Fill Gap from Ex-Im Bank Lapse". GE Reports. General Electric. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  9. ^ Rappeport, Alan (19 April 2018). "Trump Wants to Close Trade Gap, but Leaves Export Agency in Limbo". New York Times. Retrieved 19 April 2018.