VintagePostcards.ca | Toronto Litho Co. Ltd.

The Toronto Lithographing Co. Limited was active from 1878 until 1909, when the company changed its name to Stone Ltd., after the president, William Stone. The company moved to its premises in Toronto to 461 King West, at the corner of Bathurst & King Streets, around 1899, (with premises spanning 450—467 King Street West by 1903).

Toronto Litho's leading Toronto rival was Rolph, Smith and Co., which merged with Stone Ltd. to form Rolph-Clark-Stone in 1917.

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, “Prominent Toronto Litho Co employees included W.D. Blatchly, Henri Julien, J.D. Kelly, C.W. Jeffreys and William Bengough—younger brother of the brilliant political caricaturist J.W. Bengough—who founded the satirical periodical Grip in 1872.” Several of the Grip’s staff later went on to form the Group of Seven.

Some of the collections of Toronto Litho Co.’s cards are shown below. Click on an image to go to more of that series.

Canadian Cities Series

Canadian Sports Series

Patriotics

View Cards

In addition, the company also produced a wide range of other printed materials such as illustrated envelopes, & maps, including the famous political posters of the 1891 electoral campaign, shown below.

Toronto Litho

The Toronto Lithographing Co. Limited

VintagePostcards.ca

In the late 19th century, The Toronto Lithographing Co. Limited was known as Canada’s largest and most advanced litho company.

They commenced their work in 1898 with some of Canada’s best know pioneer postcard series, and carried on into the XXth century with a classic series of patriotic postcards, as well as offering a range of view cards.

A subdomain of this web site is devoted to Toronto Litho, and it is accessed by clicking on the images at bottom left.

In the running up to the 1891 federal election campaign, The Toronto Lithographing Co. Limited was commissioned by the Toronto Industrial League to produce a series of quite beautiful lithographed election posters on behalf of Sir John A. Macdonald’s Conservative Party. The posters painted the Liberals as pro-American.

The posters were attributed by the Canadian Archives as possibly designed by well-known cartoonist J.W. Bengough.

According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, the production of the posters set “a precedent for the collaboration of governmental and quasi-governmental bodies with advertising and graphic art houses in the production of official propaganda”, a practice quite common today.

Some examples are shown at left, from Library & Archives Canada’s collection.