We used to make things in this country. #117: Automotive Hardware Limited, Toronto, Ontario

Automotive Hardware Limited (AHL) of Toronto was a large Canadian manufacturer of fasteners.  

It has a connection with Russell, Burdsall and Ward, one of the largest U.S. fastener manufacturers out of Cleveland, Ohio.  This latter company had begun in 1845 as wood screw manufacturer in Port Chester, New York. The founders were Ellwood Bursall, a stove foundry clerk, and William E. Ward, a mechanic for a novelty company.  Ward subsequently invented the first cold header and automatic feeder for a bolt machine.  The company rented space in a button factory operated by Russell, Mackay and Beach, and they later bought out McKay and Russell, forming, Russell, Burdsall and Ward in 1851.)  In 1981, Lamson & Sessions, another very large American fastener manufacturer also out of Cleveland, terminated its fastener manufacturing operations due to continued operating losses.  Russell, Burdsall & Ward then purchased most of Lamson's manufacturing equipment, and simultaneously sold controlling interest (50.1 percent) in their own company to Automotive Hardware Ltd.  The following year, Automotive Hardware Limited had a very bad year, posting a loss of $5.9 million during a 9-month period, which included losses from Russell, Burdsall & Ward.  In response, AHL reorganized, amalgamating with three of its wholly- owned subsidiaries   (Automotive Hardware, Automatic Screw Machine Products and Federal Bolt & Nut) to became a single unit - Federal Bolt & Nut. The new company operated with three units:  Docap, Federal Bolt and Nut, and Arrowhead Metals Limited.  (The last company was at the time Canada's leading manufacturer of copper and copper alloys. It had started as J.F. Brown's Copper and Brass Rolling Mills in Toronto in 1919, but was acquired by the American Anaconda company in 1922.  According to the New Toronto Historical Society, they were remarkably good corporate citizens, but as Arrowhead Metals they closed their doors in 1989, leaving as their immediate legacy a controversial brownfield site.)

AHL also sold back its controlling interest in Russell, Burdsall & Ward to that company for the same amount it had paid originally.  In 1983, the Cleveland company changed its name to RB&W, and through the late 80's continued to have a nut manufacturing plant in Toronto.  In 1985, Montreal-based Ivaco, a steel producer, bought controlling interest in AHL from the executors of the estate of Irwin Goldhart (an inductee into the National Industrial Fasteners Expo 'Hall of Fame'!).  Ivaco is now owned by Heico Holdings Inc.  AHL has vanished.  In light of this, their logo seems especially appropos:  a courtly gentleman tipping his hat as he vanishes into history.