The History of the Kemp Manufacturing Co., Toronto

For nearly a hundred years, the Kemp Manufacturing Company of Toronto and its predecessor and successors manufactured household metal products. Its rise, growth, and leadership is an interesting chapter in Toronto history.

The Sheet Metal Products Company (right), successor to the Kemp Manufacturing Company, looking west from the Gerrard Street Bridge.
Credit: City of Toronto Archives

The Beginnings

In 1867, Thomas McDonald founded his Dominion Tin & Stamping Works, operating out of 153-159 Queen Street East near George Street. McDonald was joined by Quebec-born Albert Edward Kemp in 1885 to form the McDonald, Kemp, and Co.

The new partners moved the business to the southeast corner of River Street and Gerrard Street East in then working-class Cabbagetown, eventually taking the street address 199-207 River Street. The joint venture between Kemp and McDonald did not last long as the men had a falling around 1888. Kemp bought out McDonald and brought in his brother William from Quebec as his new partner. Together, the brothers formed the Kemp Manufacturing Company. McDonald moved to Montreal in 1893 where he ran another iron and tinware business; he passed away four years later.

The Kemp Manufacturing Company in 1885 from “The Kemp Manufacturing Co.” The Globe, April 21, 1894.
Credit: Globe and Mail Archives.

Growth & Expansion

From a structure at the corner of River and Gerrard, the Kemp Manufacturing Company grew to house a grand complex that spanned an entire city block. In 1894, The Globe toured the factory and described it as having a main building that extended from the Don River to River Street on Gerrard containing workshops, warehouses, and shipping departments. Offices were located at the corner of streets. Storerooms containing pig tin and plates, rod iron, hoop do., iron and steel sheets, zinc, spelter, copper, and more were located on the other side of a laneway separating the building and covered bridges connected departments.

“The Kemp Manufacturing Co.” The Globe, April 21, 1894.
Credit: Globe and Mail Archives.
The Kemp Manufacturing Co from The Insurance Plan of 1889. This likely was the layout the Globe toured through in 1894. Note the labelled old course of the Don River; the lower Don River was straightened in the latter half of the 1880s.
Credit: Goad’s Toronto

The decades that followed effectively resulted in the annexation of nearly the entire block from Gerrard Street East to Oak Street and River Street to the Don River:

  • May 1895: The company asks for a lease of a site on the Don for the new enamelled iron and steelworks, and for exemption for the building to be erected there
  • July 1895: Kemp purchases the balance of the whole block of Gerrard to Bell Street and from River street to the Don; this new site will be occupied by a fully equipped factory specially adapted for their new Diamond specialties of enamelled goods
  • June 1896: Kemp expresses his intention to make some extensions to its premises as soon as it knows what the policy of the new (federal) Government
The Kemp Manufacturing Co. from the Klondike Official Guide, 1898. There is likely some artistic license on the layout and scale of the factory.
Credit: Klondike Official Guide, Google Books.
  • April 1898: The company applies to lay a 12-inch water main at its own cost from the Don for fire protection
  • June 1898: The company, now occupying the block bounded by Gerrard, River, and Bell Street, makes an application to the Assessment Commissioners department for the terms in which they may get city property at the east end of Bell Street to the road on the Don Flats and north to the Gerrard Street Bridge. It was awarded to another company the following month.
Goad’s Atlas of the City of Toronto, 1903.
Credit: Goad’s Toronto.
Southeast corner of Gerrard and River Street,1921. The company offices are on the left. Note the covered alley separating the two buildings.
Credit: City of Toronto Archives.
  • October-November 1902: The Kemp Manufacturing Co ask Mayor Howland and Council to purchase a portion of Bell Street and the Don Terrace to extend their works to the south and east and give them a railway connection. The Assessment Commissioner favoured the purchase but fixes the sale price at $5000. A.E. Kemp, now MP, argues that a new building would not disturb the houses remaining on the street.
  • April-October 1903: The Kemp Manufacturing Co was permitted to erect a bridge from the east side of their factory to Gerrard Street, and to construct a siding running from the Grand Trunk Belt to their property.
The Kemp Manufacturing Co, 1906.
Credit: Toronto Public Library
Goad’s Atlas of the City of Toronto, 1910. Note the southern and eastern expansions. The straightening of the Don River two decades earlier allowed the latter addition.
Credit: Goad’s Toronto.
  • November 1906: AE Kemp denies intending to build an automobile factory opposite the company overlooking Riverdale Park. The land was bought for the Kemp Mfg Co by Victoria Harbor Lumber Co.
  • June 1920: The Sheet Metal Products Co. applies for a title to the land consisting of the remainder of Bell Street and the north side of Oak Street.
Goad’s Atlas of the City of Toronto, 1922. Only a row of houses on River Street at Oak Street was not owned by the company.
Credit: Goad’s Toronto.
The Sheet Metal Products catalogue, 1922.
Credit: Toronto Public Library.


An ambitious leader

Edward Kemp was the ambitious head of the Kemp Manufacturing Co. and Sheet Metal Products. In addition to the savvy business moves that expanded the company’s footprint in the River and Gerrard Street area, Kemp added factories in Winnipeg and Montreal in the early 1900s. Kemp and his brother also purchased the MacDonald Manufacturing Co. located at 401 Richmond Street West at Spadina Avenue, adding it as a subsidiary.

The Sheet Metal Products catalogue, 1922.
Credit: Toronto Public Library.
A.E. Kemp.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons

At the turn of the century, Edward Kemp took a step back from the company as he pursued a political career. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1900 as the Conservative Member for East Toronto. In 1916, he was appointed Minister of the Militia. He was knighted after World War I for his political efforts in the conflict. Kemp was also appointed to the Senate in 1921.

While Kemp was keen on growing his prosperity, he also furthered general Toronto and Canadian manufacturing interests. He was President of the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association in 1895 and 1896; President of the Toronto Board of Trade in 1899 and 1900; and Director of the National Trust Company, the Imperial Life Assurance Company, and other high-profile corporations.

Toronto Board of Trade Building, Yonge and Front Streets, 1900.
Credit: Toronto Public Library.

Unsurprisingly, Kemp and his wives (he married in 1879 and remarried in 1925) were part of high society in Toronto. He was listed in the Toronto Society Blue Book of the city’s ‘elite’ on multiple occasions. In 1902, he built his massive estate ‘Castle Frank’ after previously living at 106 Winchester Street. He was a member of the National Club, Albany Club, York Club, and other prestigious exclusive organizations.

A.E. Kemp’s ‘Castle Frank” formerly at 72 Castle Frank Road. It was named for the ancient Simcoe family home once located near the Kemp estate.
Credit: Toronto Public Library.

In 1929, Edward Kemp died suddenly in his summer home near Pigeon Lake of reported “acute indigestion”. It was only hours after his seventy-first birthday. The Globe described his success as “bound up in the growth of Toronto.”

SMP Quality

The Kemp Manufacturing Co. and later the Steel Metal Metal Products Co. were renowned for their household goods. A 1922 SMP Catalogue offers an interesting insight into the product line, which was divided into types of products by material, all with quality assurances!

Products ranged from baby baths to chamber pails to ash sifters, and of course, lanterns.


A dedicated workforce

A worker looks out the window of the East Wall of the Steel Metal Products factory, 1922.
Credit: City of Toronto Archives

Workers of the Kemp Manufacturing Co. lived on Sumach Street, River Street, and Oak Street, among others. Injuries such as limp lacerations and crushing were reported in the newspapers. Notable is the young age of some of the injured men, which were between seventeen and nineteen years.

As described in Sojourners and Settlers, Macedonians made up the highest proportion of the Kemp Manufacturing and Sheet Metal Products Co.’s workforce. A noted number of Ethnic Macedonians arrived in Toronto around 1910 and worked hard manufacturing jobs. The Globe noted two unfortunate events involving Macedonian employees of the company: in 1909, Peter Dassil, aged 17, was instantly killed after being jammed between the floor of a freight hoist and the ceiling; and in 1910, Christo Tomie, aged 22, drowned in the Don River near Riverdale Park.

In 1896, The Globe described an ‘old fashioned tea meeting’, organized by Mr Thomas A. Scott, ‘a colored man’, held at the African Methodist church. He was employed by the company for twenty years. The event had members of the Kemp Manufacturing Co. and the Wrought Iron Range Co.

The End of an Era

In 1927, Steel Metal Products Co merged with the McClary Manufacturing Co. and the Thomas Davidson Manufacturing Co. to form General Steel Wares Limited. The new company continued to operate the River Street plant for another fifty years. A. E. Kemp did not head the new company.

Aerial view of the lower Don River, 1947. The General Steel Wares Co. is at centre-left.
Credit: Toronto Public Library.

General Steel Wares closed the River Street plant in 1964 and shifted production to Montreal, Fergus, and London. The building sat vacant until the construction of a 3-tower, 984-suite apartment complex requiring Ontario Municipal Board approval was built on the site. It makes up part of today’s Regent Park neighbourhood.

View of the former site of the Kemp Manufacturing Co., 2021.
Credit: Google Maps.
The southeast corner of Gerrard Street East and River Street, 2019.
Credit: Google Maps

Scenes From The Toronto Necropolis

I sometimes avoid telling people that I’m interested in cemeteries, particularly the famed, old ones like the Toronto Necropolis. To history buffs and genealogists, they get it. To other people, not so much. Why would you go to a cemetery when you’re not visiting a loved one?

Well, for starters, the Necropolis is Toronto’s second non-denominational cemetery. It opened in 1850 after the closing of Potter’s Field in Yorkville and (some of) its inhabitants were moved to this one.

Toronto Necropolis Chapel
The two buildings that front the cemetery, found at the end of Winchester Street, are the 1872 Gothic Revival Chapel and the Victorian Gingerbread-style former gravekeeper’s residence (now offices).

Toronto Necropolis Chapel plaque

Toronto Necropolis office
A peek inside the cozy chapel produces a stunning stain glass window and vaulted ceiling.

Toronto Necropolis chapel inside (1)              Toronto Necropolis chapel inside (2)

It doesn’t take much wandering to realize that there’s nothing too orderly about the Necropolis. Graves with varying lifetimes are placed next to each other in a fashion that isn’t the row-on-row fashion that dominates our mental image of what a cemetery looks like.

Toronto Necropolis (2)
That’s because the Necropolis exists in a quasi-parkland sort of setup that was part of a broader 19th century movement to make cemeteries more inviting. It certainly achieves that. It’s also an inviting place for the information it tells us about our society.

The Necropolis is rich in its story-telling potential: from macro political tales of the 1837 Upper Canada rebellion & the founding of Canada to the individual profiles of the first black mayor of Toronto or the first black doctor in Canada. It also gives us a chance to talk about everyday existence as it pertains to life and death of people throughout time.

Beginning just ahead of the chapel and roughly circling clockwise around the cemetery, amongst the notables I see are:

George Brown, founder of the Globe &  father of Confederation.

Toronto Necropolis George Brown (2)
A monument to the only two men hanged for the 1837 Rebellion. It purposely looks broken to signify a life cut short. The original gravestone stands in front.

Toronto Necropolis 1837 Rebellion (3)

Toronto Necropolis 1837 Rebellion (2)             Toronto Necropolis 1837 Rebellion (1)

The Lamb family, of which Daniel Lamb, who founded the Riverdale Zoo, was a member (although he is curiously buried elsewhere).

Toronto Necropolis Lamb Family (1)
The Ward sisters, of which Ward’s Island is named, who drowned tragically in the harbour. Their stone, like many in the cemetery, is very weathered and illegible.

Toronto Necropolis Ward sisters
Anderson Ruffin Abbott
, the first black doctor in Canada. He tended to Abraham Lincoln on the night of his death.

Toronto Necropolis Anderson Ruffin Abbott
William Lyon Mackenzie, the leader of the previously mentioned rebellion, Toronto’s first mayor, and newspaper publisher. (I hope he’s not writing too critically about us down there.)

Toronto Necropolis William Lyon Mackenzie
A couple of familiar Toronto street names in Yorkville’s Joseph Bloor(e) and Willowdale’s John Cummer Sr. of the Cummer family. The former possesses the creepiest portrait of any Toronto historical figure, while the latter were industrious North York pioneers with the giddiest name.

Toronto Necropolis Joseph Bloore        Toronto Necropolis John Cummer Sr

And most recently, former NDP leader Jack Layton with his smiling bust as sculpted by his widow, Olivia Chow.

Toronto Necropolis Jack Layton
But beyond the notables, it’s interesting to walk around and take in the kinds of stones, the tributes families have laid out for their loved ones, and the contours of the land.

There are garden-like walkups, ‘fenced’ off monuments, and beautiful sculptures. And lots of obelisks.

Toronto Necropolis (3)

Toronto Necropolis (4)              Toronto Necropolis (5)

The Necropolis has some public art, one of which is entitled ‘Onwards’ – a reminder to move one with one’s life while also honouring those who have left us.

Toronto Necropolis Onwards (1)
As I make my exit out of the Necropolis and get a final look at the chapel and cottage, I’m pretty convinced about the intrigue, beauty, and cultural significance of the Necropolis and places like it. Next time I’m asked Why?, I’ll be more inclined to say back Why not?.

Toronto Necropolis (6)

Toronto Necropolis (7)

Toronto Necropolis Chapel Back
For the final find of the afternoon – another buried tribute of sorts – there’s also a time capsule buried in front of cottage, one of quite a few in the city. Sadly, I don’t know if any of them will be opened in my lifetime.

Toronto Necropolis time capsule

Scenes From Riverdale Farm

My welcome into Riverdale Farm comes with a new-ish, yet old-timey looking gate, however I bypass it to round around to the Winchester Street entrance.

1 Riverdale Farm sign
The farm’s main building, the Victorian-style Simpson House, is home to the Cabbagetown Regent Park Museum, which is open for business today. It’s unique in that it’s the only museum in Toronto devoted to telling the story of a specific city neighbourhood. I have a soft spot for the museum for the time I volunteered there.

2 Riverdale Farm Simpson House
My time at the museum has taught me of the Riverdale Farm area’s long past: From the pristine valley the Aboriginals encountered (the Algonquian word for the Don itself was Wonscotonach, meaning ‘burnt back grounds’), to the land granted to John Scadding by Mr. John Graves Simcoe which was eventually purchased by the City for parkland, to the zoo Daniel Lamb (whose family is buried in the neighbouring Toronto Necropolis) established here in 1888, and finally, to the heritage farm we now know and have enjoyed since 1978. Walking through the farm, I get a sense of each layer.

4. Riverdale Farm
My first stop is the Pig Barn to take in, among others, some turkeys and bunnies that would have existed in a farm around the turn of the 20th century.

5. Riverdale Farm bunny

6. Riverdale Farm turkey
From there, it’s off to see some goats and sheep, although the latter are sadly M.I.A.

8. Riverdale Farm goats
9. Riverdale Farm
Following the path all the way down, I come to the Residence. This is the first of a handful of remaining buildings that are original to the zoo. This one was, in fact, the keeper’s home. It was also a morgue and an animal hospital as well during its tenure.

11. Riverdale Farm Residence
My favourite feature and tidbit of the Residence is the use of clinker bricks in its construction, which incidentally was conducted by Don Jail inmates as a work project. I’ve heard stories of prisoners interacting with children, and how it was the happiest time for the inmates during their sentences because of it.

12. Riverdale Farm  Residence clinker bricks

13. Riverdale Farm Residence
Backtracking, I do some wayfinding and try to determine whether north is actually north (it isn’t), before finding myself at the cows.

14. Riverdale Farm directions

16. Riverdale Farm cows
Above the cow paddock is the Donnybrook Ruin, a towering structure whose original purpose, as far as I know, is a mystery. I was delighted to spot some clinkers in its walls too.

17. Riverdale Farm Donnybrook ruins

18. Riverdale Farm Donnybrook ruins clinkers
I forge on down the Lower Road and come to the Riverdale Farm Ponds. These  algae covered water bodies are important bird and wildlife sanctuaries, and serve as vibrant ecosystems. They also help in renaturalizing the Don River Valley and bring it back to a time before the river was channelized and rerouted.

19. Riverdale Farm  ponds

20. Rivedale Farm pond
Before meandering across a bridge, I note a barrier to the side which warns of the crossing’s occasionally flooding. Yuh oh. Although I can’t be sure, the bridge itself looks like a left-over from the zoo days.

22. Riverdale Farm bridge

29. Riverdale Farm  bridge
The monkey cage is most definitely a relic, however. Much is made of the ethics of keeping animals in cages for viewing pleasure; even more is made of the state of early zoos and the sizes of the holding cells. The Riverdale Zoo closed and moved to Scarborough in part because its very inadequate facilities. (Also, a zoo next to a growing metropolis isn’t the best of ideas.)

25. Riverdale Farm monkey cage

26. Riverdale Farm monkey cage
Mustering the uphill climb back, I take a peek down the Middle Road, which doesn’t really lead to anything, but allots for a good view of the Meeting House.

31. Riverdale Farm                33. Riverdale Farm

My exit from the farm includes some horse-inspired art outside of the Simpson House. I quizzically study it for a second, eventually giving my due to the effort that must’ve went into its construction. Then, I’m off on my way, this time passing under the new-old sign I shunned before.

34. Riverdale Farm  horse art
This isn’t the end of my Riverdale Farm themed encounters, however. This charming little Bell Box Mural located Parliament on Winchester boasts a great tribute to our barnyard friends.

35. Riverdale Farm Winchester Bell box mural