Description of Property
The 0.4-hectare property municipally addressed as 134 Cannon Street East, Hamilton is comprised of a former industrial complex of brick buildings, formerly known as the Cannon Knitting Mills. The complex is comprised of five distinct brick structures constructed between circa 1866 and 1927, including: 130 Mary Street, built circa 1866; 122 Mary Street, built circa 1880 to replace the original 1855 Turnbull foundry; 11 Kelly Street, built 1910; 140-146 Mary Street, built in 1911 and completed in 1927; and 134 Cannon Street, built 1920. The complex occupies the entire half block formed by Kelly Street, Mary Street and Cannon Street, located in the Beasley Neighbourhood, in the City of Hamilton.
Statement of Cultural Heritage Value or Interest
The property, known as the Cannon Knitting Mills, has design or physical value as it is a rare surviving example of a nineteenth- to twentieth-century industrial complex in downtown Hamilton comprised of five distinct brick structures built over a 61 year period from circa 1866 to 1927. These various buildings which comprise the complex demonstrate a high degree of craftsmanship, including the: brick pilasters with pointed tops and stone accents on 11 Kelly Street; rounded corner entrance on 122 Mary Street with wooden cornice supported by Corinthian capitals; projecting eaves on 122 Mary with decorative wooden brackets; and shaped brick parapet designed to accommodate a rooftop louvre on the north elevation of 146 Mary Street.
The property has long-standing associations with two of Hamilton’s leading historic industries – textiles and metalworking, and is associated with several prominent Hamilton firms, including: the Turnbull brother’s Mary Street Foundry, the Laidlaw Manufacturing Company, and the Chipman-Holton Knitting Company, which was one of the most successful hosiery manufacturers in North America. The property is associated with a significant event in Hamilton’s labour history, as the Laidlaw Manufacturing Company was the only one of the foundries affected by the Moulders’ Strike of 1892 to accept the demands of the striking workers. The property also acted as an incubator for small firms which later expanded greatly, including the Hamilton Pottery Company, once the largest pottery manufacturer in Canada, and the still operating Brown Boggs Company.
The property is also associated with leading Hamilton architectural firm Stewart and Witton, who were responsible for designing two additions to the complex in the early- twentieth century: 11 Kelly Street in 1910 and 140-146 Mary Street (1911-1927). The pair designed a number of prominent residential, commercial, and industrial buildings in Hamilton and beyond. A surviving example of their industrial designs includes the former Thornton and Douglas Ltd. Factory, located across the street at 147 Mary Street, now Welkom House.
This property is a tangible reminder of the working-class roots of the Beasley neighbourhood and has the potential to yield information about the working-class communities of the surrounding area. As a surviving industrial complex surrounded by worker’s housing, the property defines the character of this part of Beasley, the earliest extant buildings pointing to Beasley’s status as Hamilton’s first industrial area, while the eclectic massing and style of the various additions speaks to the growth and continued presence of industry over most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is visually, historically, and functionally linked to its surroundings through its connections to local worker’s housing, to other surviving industrial sites in the area, and to the former rail yard on Ferguson Avenue. The property is also, as a distinctive and massive structure which rises over the rest of the neighbourhood, considered a prominent local landmark.