About Andrew Bell Jardine

Head of the firm of A. B. Jardine & Co., Hespeler, Ontario, died February 21, eighty years old. Mr. Jardine was born near Glasgow and emigrated to Canada in 1854, settling first in Montreal. He went to Hespeler in 1862, working as a millwright and machinist, and started a small shop in 1869. The business grew rapidly, developing a large Canadian and export business in blacksmiths’, boilermakers’ and machinists’ tools.

Andrew Bell Jardine, a native of Perthshire, Scotland, was christened on 28 Dec. 1823. He visited Hespeler, in what was then known as Canada West (now Ontario), in the early 1850s. He returned to Scotland, and in about 1854 brought his family to Canada, first to Montreal and then, in 1862, to Hespeler. This was the same year that Jacob Hespeler opened his big mill. Both the A.B. Jardine factory and Jacob’s mill still stand today!

Jardine’s son, Andrew Bell Jardine, Jr., was born that same year, 1862. In 1870, Jardine Sr. founded A. B. Jardine Co. A. B. Jardine, Jr., joined the company at some point, and eventually took over operations. Jardine, Sr. died in 1903, and Jardine, Jr. died in the late 1930s.

A. B. Jardine Co. primarily made blacksmiths’ supplies, including post drills, drill presses, taps and dies, hub borers, forge blowers, “Canadian Giant” power hammers, tire upsetters, tongs, vises, and wrenches. They also made water pumps: the kind with the handle, used for pumping household water from a well. Around 1900 they made Ridgid pipe wrenches under license from Ridgid. They also had considerable success with pipe cutting and threading tools, built on their own patented designs.

At some point the company name changed to A. B. Jardine & Co.; such a change was commonly made when additional partners (such as a son) joined the firm. In patent records dating from 1920 onwards the company was A. B. Jardine & Co., Ltd.

Andrew Bell Jardine, Jr. had four sons: James, John, Wallace, and Harry. The two eldest sons, James and John, took over the company after World War I. The company apparently met its demise shortly after World War II, a casualty of the depressed economy of Hespeler at that time.