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• 1 2025-07-21T18:42:12+00:00 J. Oliver & Sons Factory 13 Residents plain 2025-10-08T15:29:54+00:00 The furniture company J. Oliver and Sons began as Holgate and Oliver, a joint venture of William Holgate and John Oliver. Both these men were skilled cabinet-makers. They built their business on Victoria Island in 1862. They were near the McKay flour mills. When William Holgate decided to retire a decade later, John Oliver took on his son James Oliver and the company became Oliver & Son. The company was particularly busy around that time because they received many orders for hotel and store furniture during the Ottawa Provincial Exhibition. The factory moved to Duke St. shortly after 1879.
  
  The factory buildings kept burning down, mostly without insurance, and the fires were often the catalyst for moving the company. The LeBreton Flats location burned down in 1899, coinciding with John Oliver’s retirement. James Oliver decided to move the company to Hintonburg. The company bought a five acre plot from the Nicholas Sparks estate for $4, 200—worth well over $100,000 today. The lot was on the corner of Second Avenue and Oliver Street (which are now Loretta Street and Gladstone Avenue, respectively). Their factory was mercifully spared from the Great Fire of 1900, and the factory was completed by the end of the month. At this point, they employed around forty men.
  
  After the factory was fully built, they quickly added an office, a shipping centre, warehouse, and finishing facility. Their company grew and grew; and their facilities grew with them. In 1901, they built another three-story building with tracks which led to both the Canadian Pacific Railway and Grand Trunk Railway. Eventually they employed more than one hundred men, with offices from Winnipeg (which serviced the north-west of Canada) to the Maritimes. James Oliver’s sons joined the company: by 1913, H. J. Oliver (by then living in 146 Bayswater) was the superintendent and W. A. Oliver was the secretary-treasurer. An Ottawa Citizen article from September 10, 1913 provides a short resumé of the company, mentioning with particular pride that good furniture plays an important part in the moral welfare of a country and surely this Ottawa-based company is among the best in the country. Their furniture was in many schools across Canada.
  
  
  An Ottawa Citizen article from January 6, 1913 describes a banquet which Oliver & Sons gave to all their employees. It was in celebration of the completion of another three-story building, and the banquet was held in the top story. H. J. Oliver proposed a toast to all the employees and the whole company sang several songs together including a parody of Vive la Compagnie.
  like a patient etherised upon a table
  let us go through certain half deserted streets
  the muttering retreats of restless nights in one night cheap hotels
  or sawdust restaurants with oyster shells
  streets that follow like the insidious intent that lead you to an overwhelming question
  of, do not ask what is it
  let us go and make our visit
  in the room the women come and go
  talking of michelangelo
  
  During WWI, they switched from producing home and school furniture to only manufacturing items for the war effort. These articles include saddle bars, shell boxes, hospital furniture, and tent supplies—for a three-month period, they solely manufactured tent pegs. As soon as the war was over, they returned to school furniture. In 1923, Ernest J. Oliver, great-grandson of John Oliver and presumably nephew of H. J. Oliver, took over management of the firm. Just a year later, H. J. Oliver submitted a tender for school furniture to the Ottawa School Board but it was late and the Board dismissed it. The company did, however, have a contract with the Toronto School Board and provided all of their furniture.
  
  The Great Depression eventually drove the company to bankruptcy. A bankruptcy sale was held in the A. J. Freiman store in November of 1934, and that company received ownership of J. Oliver & Sons in February 1935 when the bankruptcy was finalised. James Oliver died two years later.
  
  Different buildings from the factory complex were sold to different companies. The South building was sold to the General Supply Company in October 1942, which sold large and small machinery, before being sold and later demolished by the RMOC. The north building was sold to Lyle Blackwell in 1947, who demolished it to build his laundry house. Finally, the last building was sold in 1947 to Cecil Leach & Co., which coincidentally also sold furniture. This building was demolished in the late 60s.
  
  
  
  Though the company did go bankrupt after 70 years, it nevertheless had a significant impact on Ottawa in the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries. Their furniture was found all over the country, from Vancouver to the Maritimes. Additionally, the Oliver family clearly became quite affluent from their company: both James and H. J. Oliver owned cottages, and H. J. Oliver sold and rented many properties. On the site of the factory now stands a small office building.
  
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