Provinces in 1871
The 1871 Census of Canada covered the four established provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec, which had been united as the Dominion of Canada in 1867. Manitoba and Rupert’s Land (later the North West Territories), added to Canada in 1870, had been enumerated in a very basic census in that year. British Columbia and Prince Edward Island held their own independent censuses in 1871. British Columbia joined Canada towards the end of 1871, and Prince Edward Island entered in 1873.
Gathering comprehensive statistics on the condition and nature of the new Dominion was a major purpose of the first federal census. Surveys of population and agriculture formed the core of the census exercise, but the enumeration of industrial establishments was also regarded as important.
For the purposes of taking the 1871 census, the four provinces of Canada were divided into 206 Census Districts and 1,701 Census Sub-Districts. Details of these areas may be found under Places and Maps.
Users may read about the geographical organization of the 1871 census, search lists of census geographical units and view maps of all census areas.
Processes
The 1871 industrial census results, digitized in the CANIND71 database, show an emerging industrial economy processing a range of raw materials into a variety of items which were fabricated or transformed into final products. Industrial activities were carried out in many different types and sizes of establishments or workplaces. The vast majority were single-person workshops. But there were also very large enterprises such as the Grand Trunk Railway complex in Montreal that employed 790 workers.
George Cook(e)’s sawmill at Esquesing, near Georgetown, Ontario was typical of hundred of basic processing establishments. Pine logs were sawn into boards in the steam-powered (25 horsepower) mill. Shingles were also produced and the waste wood fueled the steam boiler or was burned for ashes. The boards, mostly intended for building construction, were taken by wagon to the nearest railway station at Georgetown. Thirteen males and one female were employed in the mill, which had an annual wage bill of $3,140. The total value of the 1.25 million board feet of lumber and shingles was $11,500. Users may search for types of establishment recorded in natural language.
In transcribing and digitizing the original records, each establishment was assigned a Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code. This was based on the 1970 Dominion Bureau of Statistics Manual, modified as necessary to suit the industries of a century earlier. The original words or “natural language” of 1871 were also retained in the database and, through the comprehensive Glossary, provide a unique historical resource of industrial terminology of the time. French language was used in 536 of the 1,701 Census Sub-districts, and in 38 other CSDs there was a mixture of French and English. The original language of enumeration was kept in the digitized records. The CANIND71 team produced a French-English dictionary of industrial language.
Production
Canadian industrial establishments in 1871 made a wide range of products. The transformation of basic commodities such as wood and farm produce into usable primary products for home consumption of export was a major part of industrial production at the time. Many establishments made food products, clothing, footwear, furniture and building materials. Other establishments made tools, implements, machinery and vehicles. Blacksmiths mostly engaged in repair and some local fabrication, had the most ubiquitous establishments. Users may search for a wide range of raw materials and an impressive array of products recorded in the 1871 census.
Power
The application of inanimate energy to virtually all manufacturing processes was one of the key features of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century. While most of Canada’s smaller establishments in 1871 relied on hand or manual power, the mills and larger factories were powered by water or steam. Although recorded in the manuscript census schedules for each establishment, none of the information on source or scale of power capacity (measured in horsepower units) was published at the time. Please use our guide to Complex Search Strategies to search for details of types of power and numbers of horsepower--also possible in combination with other variables.
Barber Bros Woollen Mills, Streetsville.
Source: Illustrated Atlas of the County of Peel, p.37
The Toronto Woollen Mills, owned by Barber Brothers, was a classic water-powered textile mill. A water wheel of 150 horsepower generated mechanical power from the Credit River, which was used for driving the carding, spinning and weaving machines in the factory. Steam produced in the small boiler house was used only for heating and drying purposes. In 1871, the mills employed 79 males and 40 females in the workforce to produce woolen cloth worth $175,000. The mill complex was located in Toronto Township, south of village limits of Streetsville, Ontario. The mills are described in some detail in Illustrated Historical Atlas of Peel County (Toronto: Walker & Miles, 1877; reprinted by Cummings, 1977), p.62.
People
Family names of some 45,000 people are captured in the 1871 Census of Canada manuscripts as proprietors of industrial establishments. Searching the CANIND71 database can add another dimension to biographical and genealogical studies. Users may search our index of the thousands of proprietors' names recorded in the census manuscripts.
In 1871, David Allan was recorded as owner of a water-powered flour mill and a steam-powered distillery in Guelph, Ontario. These two establishments had production valued at $300,000, with only 26 workers employed. David Allan (1808-1905) was one of the first generation of industrial entrepreneurs in Ontario. Born in Scotland, he had learned the trades of millwright and miller in Sweden, where his father had built and supervised the large new water mills at Trollhattan in the 1820s. The family moved to Canada in 1831, and settled in Guelph the following year. Water rights and the first mill site on the Speed River were acquired at this time. For the next two decades, Allan’s Mill was the largest industrial establishment in the town. The business was wound up in 1877 when David Allan became incapacitated.
The CANIND71 database also provides evidence on the significance of women in industrial enterprises. In 1871, 2,779 female proprietors were active, not only in the traditional female occupations of clothing, millinery and textile work but also as owners of saw mills, flour mills, tanneries and brickyards. Mary Ann Platt, for example, was owner of the Tecumseh Salt Works in Goderich, Ontario, employing 19 men to produce 50,000 barrels of salt in 1871. Read more on the role of women in industry in 1871. Enterprises headed by women may be found by searching for "F" in the PROP variable.
Places
Canadian industrial establishments in 1871 were recorded in localities that stretched in a wide arc from Sault Ste Marie in the west to Main-�-Dieu on the east coast of Cape Breton. In the former place there were small-scale barrel makers; in the latter a brickyard and blacksmith shops. Most industrial establishments (77 per cent) were located in rural areas. But incorporated urban centers, especially in Ontario and Quebec, already accounted for more than half the value of national industrial production. Montreal (population 107,225) was by far the largest industrial center, with 1,150 establishments producing 15 per cent of the national value of output.
Whitevale, Township of Pickering, Ontario County, was typical of many rural communities at the time. Lovell’s Directory (1871) described Whitevale as: “A Thriving village… [with] extensive flouring and woolen mills … Montreal Telegraph Co. has an office here. Distant from Whitby, the county town, and a station of the Grand Trunk Railway, 13 miles. Mail daily. Population about 250.”
Truman P. White had acquired the water rights at Majorville on Duffin’s Creek in 1845, and developed a grist mill, a saw mill and, later, a woolen mill. By 1871, the census enumerators found six significant industrial establishments employing 66 workers and with a total value of production amounting to $125,000. The transition from waterwheels (70 horsepower) to steam engines (66 horsepower) was already apparent in the village by this date. In common with its counterparts across the country, Whitevale’s basic industrial activities were closely associated with the local agricultural area. There was also considerable economic integration, apparent in the ownership of several establishments by Truman P. White, and in the making of staves in the sawmill for the cooper shop, which in turn supplied the flour mill with basic containers for transporting the flour to market.
The 1871 census probably recorded Whitevale close to its peak of industrial significance. Small flour mills lost ground in the technological and economic changes, and rural woollen mills were subject to great competition from larger mills and foreign sources. The 1971 census, a century later, recorded a population of only 273 in the unincorporated settlement. Much of the surrounding land was acquired as part of the site for the planned Pickering airport and new town in 1972/3. Both projects were subsequently abandoned.
Whitevale, like all similar unincorporated communities in rural areas, was not directly identified in the 1871 census. All the enumerators’ records were aggregated together within the larger Pickering Township (Census Sub-District 48A). Lovell’s and other directories have to be used to determine the more precise location of establishments within rural townships. Pickering Township included not only Whitevale but also 15 other rural communities with a post office in 1870/71. The post office function is used as a key indicator for the Central Place Index as an aid to locating places within the large rural Census Sub-Districts. Users may search for known names of central places in 1871, to find the census units in which they were located.
Suggested Citation of CANIND71
The source of all data, documentation or programs derived from the CANIND71 database should be acknowledged as:
Canadian Industry in 1871 Project (CANIND71), University of Guelph, Ontario, 1982 - 2008. After the first reference to the full citation in each work by a user, the short form "CANIND71" 8may be used for subsequent references.