Bradley-Garretson Company Limited

The Bradley-Garretson Company Limited originated in Philadephia, and was involved in subscription book publishing. The Canadian branch was established in Brantford in 1876 by D.R. Wilson. Some time before 1879, Thomas Samuel Linscott, who was born in Devonshire, England in 1846 and had emigrated to America for health reasons, became the company's manager. Ordained in 1875 as a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, Linscott retired from the ministry in 1879 and bought the Canadian interests of the company.

Based in Toronto and Brantford, Ontario, Bradley-Garretson ("The Book and Bible House") published books between 1879 and 1920. According to Warner and Beer's History of Brant County (1883), it employed at Brantford "from fifteen to twenty" clerks and assistants, using "all the modern appliances" and appointed "over one thousand agents" in 1882. The company was not officially incorporated until 1895, by which time Linscott's son, Thomas Henry Linscott, had become the main owner. In 1896 the company opened the Toronto office at 155 Bay Street. (A related operation, Linscott Publishing Co., was established in 1897). Many of Bradley-Garretson's publications were religious in nature, although the company also issued books related to politics and the domestic sciences. Several imprints of the company are life and work anthologies written about individuals such as Sir John Thompson, Dwight L. Moody and Rev. Charles Spurgeon.

2015-06-09

A. Wilson