Farmers' Storehouse Company
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The Farmers’ Storehouse was Canada's first farmers'
Context
The Farmers’ Storehouse was organized as an unincorporated joint stock company on the 7 February 1824. It was in many ways similar to a large number of consumer-owned community flour and bread "societies" which flourished in England from 1759 to the 1860s. The "Bread societies" which developed in England during the Napoleonic Wars were largely extensions of existing "
Like these English examples, the Farmers’ Storehouse was organized on a joint stock basis to engage in trade on behalf of the poor; they were early co-operatives. These co-operative ventures were increasingly organized under the banner of
Organization
After the Napoleonic Wars, as industrial production in Britain took off, English manufacturers began dumping cheap goods in Montreal; this allowed an increasing number of shopkeepers in York (Toronto) to obtain their goods competitively from Montreal wholesalers. With the consolidation of both the flour and wholesale trades in Montreal, a group of Home District millers and farmers formed the Farmers’ Storehouse Company, to circumvent the control of these new Toronto merchants. The company petitioned the Lt. Governor for a "water lot" on the beach on which to build the storehouse; they received the lot where the St. Lawrence market building now stands (and immediately south of the original market buildings). They built a warehouse 100 feet long by 20 ft. wide, and 20 ft. high. The first president of the Company was Joseph Shepard, a prominent Reform organizer with close ties to William Lyon Mackenzie. The company had 5 board members, a $3000 capitalization, and was operated by a store-keeper.[3]
The Farmers' Storehouse was both a producers and consumer cooperative. Farmers sold their wheat and flour through the company and purchased their needs from its store. They could also obtain small loans equal to the share capital they held.
Management of the Company soon passed to
Politics
Both presidents of the Farmers's Storehouse Company, Joseph Shepard and
Notes
- ^ Harris, Ron (2000). Industrializing English Law: Entrepreneurship and Business Organization, 1720-1844. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 239ff.
- ^ Schrauwers, Albert (2009). Union is Strength: W.L. Mackenzie, the Children of Peace, and the Emergence of Joint Stock Democracy in Upper Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 102–05.
- ^ Schrauwers, Albert (2007). "A Farmers' Alliance: The Joint Stock Companies of the Home District and the Economic Roots of Deliberative Democracy in Upper Canada". Ontario History. XCIX (2): 197–200.
- ^ Schrauwers, Albert (2009). Union is Strength: W.L. Mackenzie, the Children of Peace, and the Emergence of Joint Stock Democracy in Upper Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 118–21.
- ^ Schrauwers, Albert (2009). Union is Strength: W.L. Mackenzie, the Children of Peace, and the Emergence of Joint Stock Democracy in Upper Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 110–18.