HISTORIC SITES AND MONUMENTS BOARD OF CANADA

TITLE: The Rosamond Woolen Company of Almonte

SOURCE: R. Reid, in Ontario History, Vol. LXXV, No. 3,

September, 1983

The Rosamond Woolen Company Of Almonte: Industrial Development in a Rural Setting

By Richard Reid

In 1889 the Royal Commission on the Relations of Capital and labour claimed that Almonte, a small town 30 miles west of Ottawa, on the Mississippi River, "may almost be considered as the seat of the woolen trade in Canada."' Certainly the inhabitants of the region accepted the claim that Almonte was "the Manchester of the Dominion of Canada." More importantly so did the major papers in Toronto. It was heady praise indeed for a town whose population was fewer than 4,000.

Almonte was the leading industrial town in Lanark but elsewhere along the river, in small towns from Galetta to Maberly, nearly two dozen woolen firms flourished making the river valley one of the important textile manufacturing regions in the province.'' The national importance attributed. however briefly, to Almonte and the other river towns, was a product of many factors, perhaps none of greater importance than the leadership provided by a handful of men who exploited the full potential of the area.

Among that group, one family, the Rosamonds of Almonte, dominated. By the end of the nineteenth century they had built up one of the finest mills in the Dominion. The history of their company illustrates many of the regional and national trends within the woolen industry. A study of that industry located in a rural setting can provide a useful balance to previous examinations of industrialization in Ontario. To the extent that economic studies based on original research have been done in the province, when they have focused on industrialization or its effects, they have generally been in an urban setting.' When the focus has been on a rural setting, the economy studied has been agrarian, or that of the small, diversified businessman.' Studies of the textile industry outside Ontario have often dealt with cotton manufacturing companies and therefore do not accurately portray trends in the woolen industry, trends which gave national prominenece to the mills along the Mississippi River. Moreover the history of the firm illustrates a pattern of structural economic change in Canada from 1840 through the 1890s. Merchant capitalism, based on the the staples of fur, wheat, and timber, was increasingly replaced by a family-based patriarchial capitalism exemplified by the Rosamond Company. By the end of the century this system was itself challenged by managerial capitalism as more sophisticated business networks required professional management.

By the 1830s the Mississippi Valley was a region well suited in its physical and human resources to support a rudimentary woolen industry. Along the course of the river there are numerous rapids and falls (the greatest a drop of some 65 feet at Almonte) which supply abundant potential water power for mills. The land along the river, on the edge of the Canadian Shield, is rough and broken, granite rock alternating with swamps and fertile patches of farm land.

While the agricultural potential in this region was sufficient to support a local population, it was restricted enough to ensure a pool of labour unable or unwilling to farm the land. The area, moreover, was, and is, well suited to stock raising, particularly sheep rearing. By the 1830s much of the local population was made up of experienced Scottish textileworkers, particularly the hand loom weavers who had emigrated to Lanark in 1820 and 1821. The abysmal transportation of the time created a real need to produce as much clothing as possible locally. The result, by the 1830s was an active household production of woolen cloth. By the end of the decade a series of carding and fulling mills had been established along the Mississippi to support and exploit the cottage

industry by mechanizing the two most tedious and exacting steps in the production of cloth. Sheared wool could he brought to these mills and carded into long strands or rovings ready to be spun into yarn. It was then taken back home, or to a local weaver who made the necessary cloth. Often it was returned to the mill where it was fulled. In this operation the cloth was soaked in a special solution, shrunk, and beaten to produce a thicker, warmer cloth. It could then be dressed to raise the nap of the material.

One of the persons who established a carding and fulling mill on the Mississippi was James Rosamond, the founder of the family empire. Born in County Leitrim, Ireland in 1804, he emigrated to Upper Canada in 1827. By 1830 he had built his first mill at Carleton Place using the 30 foot drop in the river there to power his machinery. In 1837 Rosamond formed a partnership with Robert Bell, a Carleton Place merchant, to run a sawmill and a grist mill and very soon they added a carding and fulling mill.

Initially, Rosamond, like other local carders, was paid in part or in whole in wool, but by the end of the 1830s, he and some others were demanding cash payments. In March, 1838, a group of six wool carders - Rosamond, Elijah and Isaiah Royce, Edward Bellamy, Silas Warner, and Caven Toshack -- met at Carleton Place. They agreed that while their "prices will be as low as the circumstances of individual establishments will admit of", they would henceforth work "for ready pay only." Whether run on cash or trade basis, these carding and fulling mills, located in all of the towns along the Mississippi, were vital to the domestic production of woolen cloth in the early decades. Indeed, in some of the small villages, such as Galetta, Clayton, Fallbrook, Maberly, and White Lake, these small mills were an essential part of village life until the end of the century.

In July, 1846, however, James Rosamornd announced the establishment of a factory system of woolen production. He was adding to his existing mill at Carleton Place "another new very superior CARDING MACHINE, and also machinery both for SPINNING and WEAVING." He now promised high quality cloth, for sale by the yard, at low prices. It was, he claimed, "the first attempt to establish anything in this district."" It was not the first woolen mill in Eastern Ontario, and may not even have been the first on the Mississippi." Nevertheless, Rosamond very quickly became the dominant miller on the river and in 1850 announced an eight per cent reduction of his woolen prices. At this time he was not engaged solely in the woolen business. Typical of many valley businessmen who would enter the woolen trade, Rosamond was involved initially in a series of co-operative enterprises." In addition to his ''cloth manufactory" valued at £1,500 in 1851 and employing 15 men, Rosamond owned in his old partnership with merchant Robert Bell, the "Bell and Rosamond Grist Mill, worth £.1,600, an oat mill worth £500, and a saw mill worth £200." He and Bell were also involved in the lumber trade. The late 1850s saw Rosamond invest more heavily in the woolen trade, but it was not until well into the 1860s that wool would become the sole economic concern of the Rosamond family.

By 1851 Rosamond had taken the first steps to expand from Carleton Place to Almonte to utilize the latter town's superior water power. In that year, along with two merchants, John Gernmill and John Menzies, plus Daniel Shipman, the owner of a grist mill and saw mill, he established the Ramsay Woolen Cloth Manufacturing Company at Almonte. Despite a promising start, the firm was short lived. The following year the paper reported the "Mill and factory at Ramsayville (Almonte) totally destroyed by fire. Mr. D. Shipman, proprietor of the mill and partner in the (woolen) factory narrowly escaped.

James Rosamond demonstrated his foresight and business acumen when he purchased what remained of the factory and, of far greater irnportance, the water rights, from his partners in the following year. While he continued to expand his Carleton Place Mill, offering more choices at cheaper prices, Rosamond prepared for his move to Almonte in 1857. He was having difficulty renewing his water leases in Carleton Place and he likely realized the potential superiority of the water power at Almonte. He may also have been influenced by the activities of the Brockville and Ottawa Railroad, which began construction in 1855 for both James Rosamond and his son Bennett served as directors of the company.

Rosamond's new Victoria Woolen Mills at Almonte set up as a two-set mill, with an increased number of looms. By 1861, the Rosamond mill was employing 30 persons, equally divided between men and women. Not surprisingly, the wage scales reflected society's view of a woman's role (and perhaps a differing skill level). The males averaged $26 a month and the women $18. While this may have been lower than the provincial rates, it was characteristic of James Rosamond's business dealings that the wages were three dollars more than his major Almonte competitor, John McIntosh, whose Ramsay Woolen Mills was almost as large as Rosamond's.

The production figures of the Victoria Woolen Mills reveal why so many capitalists were being attracted to the woolen industry. The company in which Rosamond had invested $24,000 turned out 8,000 yards of cloth worth $40,000. It used 25,000 pounds of wool worth $2,000 and wages were approxirmately $8,000. Other costs were not given but clearly the profit return was very high and helped explain the increase in woolen firms in the 1860s.

The early 1860s marked the end of the first stage in the growth of the Rosamond family business. James Rosamond had been one of a number who exploited the advantages of the Mississippi Region - good water power, a cheap labour pool possessing some specialized skills, and an active cottage weaving industry. Initially as with his competitors, wool had been only one of Rosamond's financial interests. After the early 1860s, however, the family focused its capital and activities in the woolen industry, directed in the new expansion by James' eldest son, Bennett Rosamond, who had entered his father's otfice in 1859 at the age of 17.

	In 1862 Bennett and his brother William leased the Victoria Woolen Mills from their father under the partnership of B & W Rosamond and emharked upon a programme of rapid expansion. In two years they doubled the capacity of the mill to four sets. In 1866, they brought into the firm, now renamed B & W Rosamond & Co., George Stephen, the man whom James Rosamond had already used to secure market outlets in Montreal. Stephen, who was to become president of the Bank of Montreal and first president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, gave the Rosamond's an invaluable link to Montreal financial circles.He was a powerful figure in the Canadian textile industry, involved in complex interlocking partnerships that often tended to make those mills that were tributary to their Montreal interests function

as an effective unit. William and Bennett were thus introduced into Stephen's Cobourg Woolen concern, and Bennett into the Canadian Cotton Manufacturing Company at Cornwall. It was a measure of Bennett's ability that he never lost control of the company to Stephen and that the Montreal financiers always played a minor role.

In the same year, 1866, a new and much larger factory was started on Coleman's Island at the lower falls - primarily for the manufacture of fine tweeds, a type of textile which was becoming increasingly popular. This new mill was six stories high and 300 by 60 feet. The complex was augmented by a dye house, boiler house, business offices, and a warehouse. The firm also leased a water power on the upper falls upon which they built a two set mill for the manufacture of blankets. In 1870 a new joint stock company, the Rosamond Woolen Company, was established with capitalization of $300,000. While some Montreal businessmen, such as George Stephen, had an interest in the firm, there was never any question where control lay. Bennett Rosamond remained both President and Managing Director until his death in 1910.

While the Rosamonds would continue to develop a wide range of interests, it was this mill which was the key to the family's success.

The 1860s and early 1870s was a period of prosperity for the Rosamonds and for other woolen industrialists along the Mississippi. The Brockville and Ottawa Railroad had opened up potential new markets while the American Civil War increased the demand for Canadian goods generally. The termination of the Reciprocity Treaty in 1866, while hurting some manufacturers, drastically cut Canadian wool sales south of the border. After the very large clip of 1867, Ontario was flooded with cheap raw wool. The coming of Confederation, on the other hand, opened new markets for central Canadian firms. The larger Mississippi woolen companies, such as the Rosamond, whose major selling agents were Montreal-based firms such as William Stephen & Co., (later F. Stephen & Co.), or Cantlie, Ewan & Co., benefitted as a result.

It is worth noting that this prosperity and growth preceded the National Policy. Major expansion in the woolen industry, unlike the cotton industry, occurred before the introduction of protective tariffs. From 1865 to 1870 a number of new, modern mills, were built with the goal of producing a finer quality cloth, a type of textile hitherto supplied to Canadian consumers largely by foreign manufacturers.

The growth of a woolen industry throughout the whole of the Mississippi Valley in the 1860s and 1870s was of great regional importance because it occurred at a time when timbering and lumbering along the river were declining in importance. All of the river towns, from Lanark to Galetta, became increasingly dependent upon the wages and profits of the woolen industry. In 1867 the Rosamond mills alone employed one in seven of all persons in Almonte. By 1881, possibly as many as one-sixth of the population in each town and village along the Mississippi were directly employed in the wool mills. In 1880 there were 16 woolen factories along the River with total net assets (assigned by R.G. Dun & Company) of more than $665,000.

Doubtless, the early 1880s was the period of the region's greatest national importance. Certainly the output from the Mississippi mills formed a very large part of the nation's total production of woolen goods. At the end of 1880 the Monetary Times estimated the value of the annual product of Ontario woolen mills at just under $5,000,000. In the same year the four major mills of Almonte, led by the Rosamond Woolen Company, produced $540,000 with another $211,000 being produced in the six major mills in Appleton, Blakeney, Carleton Place, Lanark and Pakenham, for a total of $751,000. The production from the remaining smaller six mills would raise that final total. Only Sherbrooke, in Quebec, with an output of $640.000 a year, produced more than Almonte; the Canadian Lumberman supported Almonte's claim that the roles would soon be reversed: "When the new worsted factory and Sheard & Thoburn's flannel factory are in operation - and that will be in a month or two - (Almonte) will be ready to change places with Sherbrooke, and take the same place for quantity that (they) now hold for the quality of [their] woolen products."

In 1882 the family once again expanded its activities. The Almonte Knitting Company, with a subscribed capital of $100,000, was opened in Almonte to manufacture undershirts and drawers. Bennett Rosamond, the moving force behind the new firm, had brought together a number of very prominent Montreal businessmen and financiers in order to exploit a rapidly expanding branch of the textile industry. In May, the Canadian Manufacturer announced that: "at a special meeting of the shareholders of the Almonte Knitting Company, the following gentlemen were elected the first directors of the Company - Hon. D.A. Smith, Bennett Rosamond, Jonathan Hodgson, Robert McKay, James A. Cantlie, and John Trumbell." At a meeting of the directors which followed, Smith was elected president. Hodgson chosen vice-president, and Rosamond became the managing director. The company took over and enlarged the old Almonte Iron Works, improving the exterior and adding new machinery. Within five years this three-set factory was employing 60 workers and producing about 300 dozen shirts and drawers per weeks.

Often, when Montreal financiers were involved, control of a company increasingly devolved to the Montreal interests. The case of the Almonte Knitting Company was, if not the reverse, at least not the norm. By 1892 Rosamond had become not only the managing director, but also the vice president and by 1898 he was president. By the following year the company not only had a new selling agent in Montreal, R. Mellis, but also a separate selling agent in Toronto, William M. Angus.

While the years before 1882 had been a period of general expansion and prosperity for woolen manufacturers, certain potential problems were festering. Some mills in Almonte had shut down or were working only half time. Indeed, the vulnerability of the industry had been revealed in the 1870s when the growing textile market in the Maritimes only partly balanced the effect of the cyclical depression which had begun in 1874 and which had dragged on until 1879. Depressed markets would be a feature of each of the succeeding decades in the century. The depression was aggravated by the practice of some American firms of using Canada as a "slaughter-market." Goods were dumped in at less than cost of production in an attempt to destroy Canadian competitors. Mills that persisted in producing coarse cloth in only one or two styles were hardest hit.

The 1870s had also seen an attempt by the Mackenzie Liberal government to negotiate a trade agreement whereby American textiles could enter Canada duty free. Fortunately, for the growing number of Ontario manufacturers who advocated tariff walls, the draft treaty was rejected by the Senate in 1875. The return of John A. Macdonald's Conservatives to power in 1878 and the tariff of the following year, served both to link manufacturers (such as the Rosamonds) to that party, and to fill them with optimism. Woolen mills were particularly well protected. Raw wool and machinery for woolen mills were allowed in duty free, while the tariff on woolen clothing was 25 per cent, ad valorem, and ten cents per pound. As a result, in the summer of 1882, the Canadian Manufacturer's Association struck up a committee which included Bennett Rosamond, and another Almonte woolen industrialist, Andrew Elliott. They were charged to: "set before the electors of Ontario the advantages that have already resulted from the National Policy, and the still greater advantages that will follow if that policy be preserved and firmly maintained."

Under the aegis of the National Policy, the 1880s and 1890s still held out opportunities for the Mississippi firms. They were, however, opportunities which were accompanied by great risk. Only those firms which could specialize, expand, or overcome the increasing problems facing the woolen industry, would still be around by the end of the century. Some of the problems were occasioned by the falling price of North American woolen textiles. In large part, the decline was due to increased competition from other fibers, such as cotton, from new methods of recycling wool rags into cheap cloth called shoddy, and from the application of economies of scale. As well, by 1900 the per capita consumption of wool had fallen drastically while at the same time consumers' tastes in woolen goods had changed. Fine quality softer cloth in a wide range of colours and designs to meet changing fashions were needed if a firm were to survive and prosper. The Rosamond Woolen Company met the test, but many of their competitors were forced to close as woolen production became more and more speculative.

Increasingly, a firm's success depended upon being able to predict and supply the latest fashionable styles and colours. The industry was more volatile and the trade journals began to read like fashion magazines. Foreseeing new demands meant full production; being wrong met lay-offs.

In a world of changing tastes then, and as regional isolation was shattered by new cheap transportation links the secret of a firm's success lay in sound business leadership, efficient operation based on the most modern technology, a trained and stable labour force, consolidation, sufficient capital resources, and specialization. The Rosamond Woolen Company successfully met these challenges in part because of the leadership of Bennett Rosamond.

In addition to diversifying their interests, the Rosamonds had at an early period begun to emphasize the production of fine, soft products rather than the traditional coarser cloths. By the early 1880s a shift in world fashion and in consumers' tastes was underway. Coarser, long-wooled luster goods increasingly gave way to soft, fine-wooled fabrics: "Until a few years ago, fashions ran upon long-wooled fabrics, the proper material for which Canada produced in large supply. But fashion has changed, and now calls for fabrics made of fine soft wool, of which particular kind we produce comparatively little."

When Canada's economy entered a recession in 1883, the hardest-hit woolen manufacturers were those producing coarse goods. The fact that less capital and less skilled labour were needed to produce a lower quality cloth, meant that many small and marginal firms were producing more than the market could bear. The demand for fine quality goods, however, remained high and the Rosamonds were able to run at full production throughout the depression.

Part of the reason some woolen producers in the Mississippi had stayed with coarser products lay with their problems of supply. Canadian sheep farmers raised almost nothing but long, coarse wool sheep, much of it for export to the United States. The constant foreign demand for this type of wool gave Canadians little reason to try costly experiments with new breeds. Bennett Rosamond testified to the problems this caused manufacturers. His firm imported most of their wool and mixed it with a small amount of Canadian wool: "However, even that limited quantity we have great difficulty in procuring of the proper quality. The great bulk of the wool grown in Canada seems to be suitable for only the very roughest and coarsest of tweeds." Rosamond revealed the problems which this presented to woolen manufacturers when he outlined the advantages which a domestic supply of fine wool would produce: "Our Canadian manufacturers would then have the benefit of a class of wool now at all times difficult to procure, and would be able to produce better and more saleable goods, really Canadian, than they now can do, and the money sent out of the country for such wools would be, instead, distributed among our own people."

Despite encouragement from the manufacturers, Canadian sheep growers did not produce a finer wool, and the woolen firms remained faced with the problem of costly, and sometimes erratic, importation of foreign wool. As early as 1876, the Rosamonds had to import from $108,000 to $180,000 worth of South African wool.

The end of the 1880s saw an upturn in the international price of woolen goods, and the Rosamond Woolen Company continued to improve its facilities and maintain the most modern machinery. They had to shut down briefly in 1888 while they added "a mammoth new wool scouring machine". At the same time the Almonte Knitting Company added new equipment to manufacture shirts and drawers, once again capitalizing on a new, and expanding market. Only a few years later, the Company announced plans to expand the mill further. Rosamond had already brought in a specialist from Scotland, J.M. Masson, to design a new part of the big mill, and shortly after announced the installation of: "batteries for lighting a part of their works, the storage of electricity being done when the motive powers of the mills are not otherwise engaged."

Bennett's talents, the continual improvements, and a concern for quality had not only made the business a profitable concern, but had also earned it an international reputation. Rosamond received gold medals at numerous in ternational exhibitions and the Toronto Mail claimed: "'the fame of the Rosamond woolen goods has reached as far as South America, the first shipment of those commodities for Buenos Aires being made some time ago. They were beautifully light fabrics and admirably adopted for wear in a tropical climate." The firm's finished goods continued to win international recognition at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and in Paris, while they broke into new markets in Victoria and New South Wales. In 1892 the mills were called: "the finest in the Dominion, and it is doubtful whether for completeness and perfection of its mechanical applicances it can be surpassed on the continent. There may be larger ones, but it is safe to say there is not one better equipped, better managed, or more prosperous than that of the Rosamond Woolen Company."

The Company was going to need all of these qualities in the next decade because the woolen industry in general and the firms along the Mississippi in particular, faced difficult times in the 1890s. It was a period of consolidation and liquidation and many small firms closed or were swallowed. Until the 1890s success in the Canadian woolen industry, unlike the cotton industry, had been achieved best by the small or moderate sized mill. Yet these same mills were financially unable or unwilling to update their equipment at a time of considerable technological innovation. As a result, they became increasingly vulnerable to the changing conditions of the 1890s. Not only was the per capita consumption of wool falling at this time, and tastes in textiles changing, but another depression began in 1893 at a time when pressure from foreign woolen manufacturers was increasing. An out-migration of the population of the Mississippi region to the Northwest had already begun.

The early regional advantage of cheap water power had passed. More firms had shifted, at least in part, to steam power. Not only did steam allow geographic flexibility but also, as the American Machinist explained: "as water powers are improved they become more costly to the user; as steam power is improved it becomes less costly to the user." Moreover, as the Mississippi region became "logged-out", the water supply became less reliable. In the early summer of 1894, the Canadian Manufacturer painted a bleak picture:

Fortunately, for the Rosamond Company, it was during the 1890s that Bennett Rosamond achieved his greatest national influence. After a series of unsuccessful election tries, Bennett was finally elected on December 31, 1892 to the House of Commons for North Lanark in a by-election held to fill a vacancy created when the incumbent was offered a judgeship. It was a seat he would hold until 1905, first as a Liberal-Conservative (and an "Anti-Remedial"), and then as a Conservative. His political activities probably helped his firm to secure contracts from the government to suppy militia clothing.In addition, Rosamond had been prominent in the Canadian Manufacturer's Association for a number of years and in 1890 he became president of the association. He, now had greater access both to important financial circles and to the inner core of Canadian political power.

As a result, he was appointed a member of the Financial Committee of the Liberal-Conservative Union of Ontario in 1896. In spite of the diversity of his interests, however, Bennett Rosamond continued to expend most of his tremendous energy on the management of his Almonte woolen mills.

Perhaps because of his attention to local concerns, Rosamond appeared to maintain good labour relations for there is no record of strikes at his factories. There is evidence, however, that the Rosamonds paid higher wages than some other firms and that they trained and kept many of their key craftsmen. When the firm moved from Carleton Place to Almonte, these craftmen moved with them. The most serious loss of labour for the Rosamonds occurred when well-trained employees left to set up and manage their own mills.

During much of this period the Rosamonds behaved in the classic pattern of local patriarchs. Bennett held a "'Traditional Chrismas party for his employees featuring a supper, dancing, songs by the mill choir, and a Christmas tree stocked with presents for the children". James Rosamond gave most of the money to build St. Paul's Church in Almonte while Bennett donated a hospital to the town. Not only was the factory, by the standards of the time, modern, efficiently run, and meticulously clean, but the surrounding grounds were maintained with grass and flower gardens and "a spacious croquet lawn for the recreation of the hands when the work hours were over." On the other hand, Toronto papers accused Rosamond of attempting to intimidate his workers at election time.

Adept leadership by itself was no guarantee of continued prosperity for a woolen firm. The first decade-and-a-half of the twentieth century saw a further decline in the woolen industry both along the Mississippi and elsewhere in Canada. Even the Rosamonds were hurt in this nation-wide phenomenon. In 1871, the woolen cloth industry had ranked third in importance among 140 manufacturing categories in Ontario. By 1911, woolen goods ranked thirtieth out of 170 categories. Output fell from $14 million worth of goods in 1899 to $7.6 million in 1909. Tastes had changed once again and British competitors were carving into a shrinking market. While one witness after another appearing before the Fielding Tariff Inquiry Commission of 1905 complained that British rival firms "are here like bees from England now", many did point to the Rosamonds as a Canadian firm which could compete successfully with the foreign competitors. Groups such as the Toronto Board of Trade, which argued against a higher tariff, believed that when properly run "Canadian mills have all of the business they can take care of, and show all signs of prosperity.'" Firms such as Rosamonds were successful because they kept "up with the time" in both equipment and ideas. Firms smaller than the Rosamonds were not efficient as the British Agents' Association of Canada's representat:ve argued:

The strength and leadership of the Rosamond Woolen Company had come from Bennett Rosamond for nearly 50 years, and his death in 1910 deprived the firm of exceptionally effective business abilities at a time when the company was becoming increasingly vulnerable. His death was not unexpected, but it was still a serious loss. Moreover, it created problems of the firm's future direction, of control, and of capital dispersion. Bennett's total estate amounted to $296,737, made up primarily of $245,680 in stocks, mostly in the Rosamond Woolen Company.

Well before Bennett's death, the company had been preparing for a transfer of leadership by grooming Alexander Rosamond, Bennett's nephew and James' son, to take over. After completing high school, Alexander had worked with the firm for some time before taking a four-year course at the Yorkshire Textile College at Leeds. On his return, he became assistant managing director until his uncle's death at which time he became president and managing director of the Rosamond Woolen Company and director of theAlmonte Knitting Company. The companies, however, were not prepared for his death in France in September, 1916, while leading a platoon of the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry. While his two brothers, William, who was also in France, and Archibald, who was interim managing director, survived him, Alexander's death was a blow from which the company did not recover. For a while, largely as a result of war-time contracts, the firm's financial position looked good. Indeed, at the time of Alexander's death, the company had cash on hand or in the bank totalling $195,489, other investments totalling $145,021, and six months profits of $73,384. Prosperity ended with the Armistice, however, and by 1920 all woolen firms faced a recession.

It was the beginning of a long slow death for the Rosamond Woolen Company. Although the Rosamond credit remained high throughout the 1920s, their Almonte Knitting Company was forced to close in early 1932. The family maintained control of the Rosamond Woolen Company, despite problems during the 1940s, until they were forced finally to sell to Artex Woolen Limited in 1952.

During the nineteenth century, the history of the family's activities not only outlined the rise and the decline of both the regional and national woolen industry, but also illustrated how important the "one-family firm", functioning in a rural environment, could be in Ontario's developing industrial base. By the twentieth century, at a time when the Canadian woolen industry was in decline, the early advantages of the Mississippi region - good water power, craft skills, cheap raw material, and a protected local market - were largely gone. Moreover, modernization, consolidation, large foreign competitors, and increasingly sophisticated financial management created more difficult problems for the family firm to overcome. The structural changes which were occuring throughout most industries in North America undercut the family firm and led to the solidification of corporate power. Organizational and technical changes, the increased application of scientific knowledge and new energy sources, the development of railroad and telegraph systems and high-volume manufacturing processes dramatically increased the rate, volume, and regularity of production and distribution. Exploiting these new opportunities for increased profit required more effectively managed coordination and planning across both regions and industries. In response, new bureaucratic enterprises emerged. The quest for efficiency produced managerial capitalism and ended the era of the family-based patriarchal capitalism. It had become impossible for one person to become an expert in all aspects of the industry and few families could maintain a high level of the entrepreneurial leadership over several generations. Because the Rosamond firm had been well led and efficiently run, it was more able than other companies on the Mississippi to stave off outside takeovers or liquidation. Nevertheless the trend in industry ran against them.

Further reading: Shoddy Mill Changed Hands by Gerry Wheatly