Canadian Stock Broker Sir Henry Pellatt
Financial Investments, Market Manipulation, and Casa Loma
Sep 28, 2009
Born in Kingston, Ontario in 1859, and raised in Toronto, Henry Mill Pellatt was one of six children.
Stocks in Canada
Following a brief period at Upper Canada College, he toured Europe. In 1876, Pellatt started work in the brokerage business of his father Henry and E. B. Osler. He also joined the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada that year.
In 1882, Henry replaced Osler as his father’s partner in the firm that became Pellatt and Pellatt Stock Brokers. During that same year he married Mary Dodgson, a member of Toronto’s upper society with whom he had one son, Reginald.
He accumulated a great deal of money through heavy investments in the Northwest Land Company and the new Canadian Pacific Railway. After his father’s retirement in 1892, Henry had full control of the brokerage company.
Investments and Management
He was involved financially and personally in many aspects of Canada’s economic development. By 1901, Henry Pellatt was chairman on boards of 21 major companies and, as an individual, controlled 25% of Canada’s economy.
- 1883 - Toronto Electric Light Company
- 1891 - Toronto Railway Company
- 1895 - Electric Development Company of Ontario
- 1897 - As Major of the Queen’s Own Rifles, commanded the Colonial Guard of Honor for Queen Victoria (her Diamond Jubilee) in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, England
- 1901 - Brazilian Light and Traction Company (now named Brascan) with a 40-year monopoly
- 1903 - Home Bank of Canada chartered
- 1905 - Received a knighthood from King Edward VII
- 1906 - Royal Commission on Insurance - Sir Henry implicated (with others) in transactions that were covert and/or technically illegal
- 1906 - Cobalt Lake Mining president
- 1911 -1912 Home City Estates, Toronto City Estates, and British Colonial Land and Securities incorporated
- 1916 - Mining Corporation of Canada president
- 1921 - Granted rank of Major-General, Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada on retirement
Financial Problems and Casa Loma
Henry Pellatt partially fulfilled his life-long dream to build a castle. Construction of the complex in Toronto known as Casa Loma began in 1906. Sir Henry and Lady Pellatt lived there in the grand style for about ten years, beginning in 1914.
Increased taxes, cost of upkeep, salaries for 40 servants, and his firm’s indebtedness of nearly $2 million forced them to leave the castle in1923. They moved to their King Township horse farm where Lady Pellatt died in 1924.
When the Home Bank failed in 1923, Pellatt and his fellow directors were charged with falsifying the accounting. As a result of civil actions, they were required to pay damages. Sir Henry Pellatt was described as a charming and manipulative man. It was said that his methods were not always ethical or legal. He lived in the home of his former chauffeur until his death in 1939.
The unfinished castle was taken over by the City of Toronto for back taxes in 1924. Since 1937, under a license agreement, the Kiwanis Club of West Toronto has operated the popular tourist site for charitable purposes.
Cobalt Lake Silver Mining
In 1906, Sir Henry Pellatt’s Cobalt Lake Mining syndicate paid more than $1 million to Ontario’s provincial government. With that, they obtained exclusive rights to mine the 47 acres of Cobalt Lake for silver. In 1913, the lake was drained for mining under the lakebed.
As explained by Charlie Angus and Brit Griffin in their book, We Lived a Life and Then Some: The Life, Death, and Life of a Mining Town, Cobalt’s town councillers “were no match for the collusion of money and government.” They could not tax the mining revenue because provincial policy assessed companies only at their head offices. Many companies whose head offices could not be located avoided paying taxes.
The book’s authors state, “the only visible sign of Cobalt’s wealth is in Toronto, where a garish castle built with profits from Sir Henry Pellatt’s Cobalt Lake mining operations continues to draw thousands of tourists every year”. They surmise that the tourists probably don’t know about the lake in northeastern Ontario that was left for dead when the mining finished.
Sources:
Sir Henry Pellatt, King of Casa Loma by Charles (Carlie) Oreskovich, Published by MacGraw-Hill Ryerson, c1982
We Lived a Life and Then Some: The Life, Death, and Life of a Mining Town by Charlie Angus, Brit Griffin, Published by Between The Lines (Toronto) 1996
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