In 1896, the year when Wilbert Copeland (Bert) Wood was born, Ontarians like his grandfather John and his uncle Charles were still clearing land for farming. In fact, it was on just such a family farm, on December 6, that Wood was born and spent his early years. Later (again like many Ontarians) he trekked to Saskatchewan where the family took a homestead.

Bert was an agricultural engineer with Massey Harris in Toronto when the Great Depression came. Finding himself unemployed in 1930, Bert founded W.C. Wood Company which became incorporated a year later.

Wood saw the introduction of electric power across rural Ontario as an opportunity to save farmers the effort and cost of transporting feed to and from mills for grinding. He had parts cast and tooled at a local machine shop, took them to the back porch of his landlady's house and assembled his first electric grain grinder. With the $150.00 he received from a Brampton-area farmer for this machine, he established his new business.

Wood rented an empty candy shop on Howard Park Avenue in Toronto, bought a lathe and machined his own castings for his electric grinder. His first assistant was a 16 year old boy. From this two-man shop the company developed over the next half century into one of Canada's major appliance manufacturers.
 

Grandfather John Wood and Uncle Charlie clearing family farm in 1897, where Bert Wood was born.

By 1934 W.C. Wood Company moved to a larger factory on Dundas Street north of Bloor. The company expanded its agricultural implement line to include an oat roller and a farm mild cooler to keep milk "sweet." To improve his sales of electrical grinders and of these new lines, Wood bought a car with a large trailer which he used as a travelling display room during the 1930s, visiting all the rural fairs to show his farm machinery products.

It was not until 1938 that the company built its first appliance, an electrically operated food freezer designed for the farm. Little did the founder realize that this product would be a stepping stone on the path from farm equipment manufacturer to appliance manufacturer.

In 1941 the company moved from Toronto to a 25,000 square foot factory at 123 Woolwich Street in Guelph where, for the next 15 years, it grew and prospered, expanding that facility to 40,000 square feet. In 1956 W.C. Wood Company Limited acquired the Taylor Forbes property and moved its manufacturing facilities to 5 Arthur Street South. By 1963 additional space was needed and the first of many additions and plant acquisitions was undertaken which has today brought total plant, office and warehouse facilities in Guelph to 600,000 square feet.

Following the move to Guelph, the company's product line increased to include grain grinders, oat rollers, milk coolers, farm freezers, electric fences and milking machines. In the years after World War II these products were exported to the United States, South America, Europe, and later to the Caribbean, Middle East and Japan.
 

WC. Wood, Founder  of the Company.	Mr. John F. Wood,    President and C.E.0.	WH. Martin,    Chairman of the Board.

For nearly 60 years, the Wood Company has built a reputation of providing top quality at competitive prices. Year after year employees at all levels have made a conscientious effort to see that their products continue to improve in quality, efficiency and reliability. The company is justly proud of its employees and the way they have worked with suppliers and customers over the years to improve products, costs and the good value which Wood customers receive.

W.C. Wood Company Limited won a National Industrial Design Council award in 1955 for its freezer-refrigerator. C.D. Howe presented the award for the best practical and attractive design, one which had also won wide consumer acceptance. The company's first upright freezer was produced in 1966. In 1977, the year the company produced its millionth unit, it introduced the "energy-saver" freezer with the frozen food insulated by two and a half inches of wall foam. Three years later W.C. Wood Company Limited won an "A for Achievement" Award from the Ontario Ministry of Industry and Tourism for its outstanding contribution to Ontario's economy. By 1983 the company had reached the two million mark with the "fat foam" energy-saving freezer (three inch foam). By that time the company had used a total of 114,500 kilometers of freezer tubing, enough to encircle the world 3.6 times!
 

1. Yesterdays product line showing at the Royal Winter Fair in 1932. 2. Today's product line.

During the recession of 1981-82 the company's top priority was to keep its people busy, and this objective was fulfilled through a series of acquisitions, including Electrohome's line of humidifiers, dehumidifiers and electronic air cleaners in June 1982 and Miami-Carey's line of range hoods, bath cabinets and accessories that December. These products are now well established in the Wood appliance catalogue.

W.C. Wood Company Limited is still a privately owned Canadian company, with the owners continuing to work in the business. Its objective is to see that at the end of each year suppliers, customers, employees and shareholders have gained. The company continues to stress the importance of quality and productivity, for it is through improved quality and higher productivity that all benefit.