Thomas W. Bishop (Ridgeville, Ont)

{Source unknown – Compiled by “S”}

There is as much real romance in industry as there is in any other walk of life. Underlying many a brief announcement of this or that change in an industrial organization there lies a story of achievement if properly told, would compel the admiration of all who heard. And such stories are by no means infrequent.

Recently announcement was made of the organization of a private corporation, capitalized at one hundred thousand dollars, under the name of the Dominion Concrete Burial Vault and Specialties Company Limited, with the head offices at Fonthill, which has purchased the following well-known firms, together with all of their assets and good-will: The Ridgeville Concrete Works, The Fonthill Concrete Products Company, and the W.H. Brown Marble and Granite business of St Catharines.

The officers of the new company are: Thomas W. Bishop, President and General Manager; A. B. Damude, Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer, and Richard G. Winter and Directors.

The product it manufacturers is the concrete burial vault building products lot posts, flower vases, garden furniture, bird baths, sun dials, lawn rollers, porch designs and fancy cast stones, etc. In addition the company’s granite and marble memorial plants at St Catharines and Ridgeville turn out a very high grade of memorial art. The company’s plants are located right in the heart of the Niagara Peninsula, within  five miles of the great Welland Ship Canal. It has, the advantage of being within half an hour’s drive of the Niagara Frontier, the gateway to Canada, and served by truck and electric and steam railroads.

Concrete masonry forms the backbone of the concrete products business, and is destined soon to take its rightful class in the building industry………

Mr Bishop was born in Scotland and came to Canada at the age of 10. Three years later he left school, and for some years followed the occupation of farming and nursery work. In 1905 he went to Western Alberta, in company with his brother and took up a homestead fifty miles west of Olds, which place boasted the nearest store or post office to the brother’s holdings, finding things too slow in the west, Mr Bishop returned to Scotland in 1907, later returning to this country, bringing with him an only sister, who has stood loyally by him in the work of developing the present business, which he organized in 1912.

Mr. Bishop is thoroughly posted on the early history of the Western country, and is a great lover of horses, in fact his hobby is fine horses; he has a  number of saddles, an old stage coach, covered wagons, etc. which he uses in his productions of Wild West Shows around the country at various special events, depicting the early days of the pioneers and the annual out-of-doors suppers so unique and popular which Mr. Bishop has given for several years past are an event distinctly of a Western atmosphere and setting, and have become almost an institution which it is hoped the new company will continue.

Mr. Bishop, the pioneer in the concrete products field in Welland County, has always taken a great interest in concrete and its uses, an interest which, backed by his faith and energy and that of his associates, led to the notable success of his present business in the existence of Dominion Concrete Burial Vault and Specialties Company, Limited. He was elected President of the Concrete Products Association of Canada in March ,1930.