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Settling the Canadian Colonies: A Comparison of Two Nineteenth-Century Land Companies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Anatole Browde
Anatole Browde
Affiliation:
ANATOLE BROWDE is adjunct professor at theJohn E. Simon School of Business of Maryville University in Saint Louis.
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Abstract

Two British land companies, the Canada Company and the British American Land Company (BALC), were active during the nineteenth century in settling what are now Ontario and the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Both purchased large tracts of land from the British government, with two goals: to provide funds for the governors of Canada and to relieve Britain of its surplus population. The Canada Company worked closely with the government to meet these objectives, whereas BALC indulged in land speculation and made immigration a secondary priority. One was successful, and the other struggled throughout its existence. Their success or failure was the directresult of how well they dealt with both the changing economic climate and the British and Canadian political situation.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , Summer 2002 , pp. 299 - 335
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2002

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References

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13 Public Record Office, Kew (PRO) CO 42 396, Colonial Office. The name “Canada Company” was first used officially on 13 Sept. 1824.

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24 London Times, 15 June 1831. This meant that a stockholder who was asked to pay additional capital of £1 10s. per share in return received £1 8s. in interest and dividends, for a net outlay of only 2s. per share.

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34 McGillivray at that time was a director of the Canada Company, a position that he would not relinquish until 1829.

35 The list of proprietors and their holdings shows conclusively that such an investment was never made.

36 NAC, MG 24 I 54, vols. 1, 5. The meeting to consider this was held in London Tavern on 9 Feb. 1832.

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51 This would become an issue in 1839 and 1840, when both Lord Durham and Poullett Thompson would reject the BALC claim that it was experiencing local opposition that could not be foreseen when the company was formed.

52 Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., vol. 25 (9 Mar. 1835).

53 Debate on the Affairs of Canada, 9 May 1837, Hansard Parliamentary Debates, vol. 38.

54 Gosford to Glenelg, 17 Mar. 1836, NAC, RG 7 G 12, vol. 50A.

55 Extracted from Parliamentary Papers, Canada, vol. 33 (1847).

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70 In 1825 BALC claimed subscriptions of 2,102 shares from Canada, but few are in the list of proprietors of 1834.

71 House of Lords Record Office, original document of the British American Land Company Act of 1847 as amended. Also notices in the London Gazette carried advertisements by BALC detailing the expected vote of £5 calls for increased capital every year from 1834 to 1839 and a £2 10s. increase in the last year. The capital available to BALC before a payment to their stockholders was indeed £198,000 during the period in question. Yet the calls were fewer than permitted by the charter, which enabled £10 calls every six months.

72 The act called for cessation of these payments, which presumed that they were continuing through 1847. However, an additional £2 10s. was to be paid in July 1840 and seems to have been collected. By the time the 1871 Act was passed, the capital per share paid in was £44.

73 Amount paid by the British American Land Company, dated l Apr. 1837, Parliamentary Papers, Canada.

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80 Ibid., 4 Sept. 1838.

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82 Implied in Bruyeres proposal is that BALC really would make no further expenditure for improvements during the year. So much had been spent in past years that, by bookkeeping adjustments, it would be made to appear that the expenditures had been made in the current year.

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