Modern Tool Works, Ltd. was established in Toronto in 1935 to manufacture engine lathes and milling machines. In 1955, conglomerate Staveley Iron & Coal Co., Ltd., which already owned substantial portions of the shares of this firm as well as Standard Machine & Tool Co., Ltd., of Windsor, acquired all remaining shares of the two businesses and merged then to create Standard-Modern Tool Co., Ltd.

Information Sources

• 1945—Ad advertisement in the November 1945 Machine Production and Canadian Mill Supply gives the address of Modern Tool Works Limited as 69 Montcalm Avenue, Toronto.
• 1955-09-08 issue of The Glasgow Herald has the following article:

  The ninety-second annual meeting of the Staveley Iron and Coal Company, Ltd., was held yesterday in London, Mr. Thomas A. McKenna (chairman) presiding. The following is an extract from the chairman's circulated statement for the year ended June 30, 1955:

  In my statement last year, Stockholders were informed of the expansion of their Canadian interests by the acquisition of the great majority of the share capital of Modern Tool Works, Ltd., who are makers of machine tools of the type manufactured by the Standard and Archdale companies. Since that date your company has acquired the remainder of the issued share capital of Modern Tool Works, Ltd., and also the outstanding 25 per cent of the issued share capital of the Standard Machine and Tool Co., Ltd., has been acquired.

  In order to further strengthen your Company's Canadian interests and to secure an efficient selling organisation, capable of handling the sales of the Modern and Standard products throughout Canada, your Company acquired the whole of the issued share capitals of the A. R. Williams Machinery Company, Ltd., and A. R. Williams Machinery Eastern Ltd., with its wholly owned subsidiary Pacific Tractor and Equipment, Ltd. Thus, the Williams companies will not only sell the products of your Canadian companies, but also those of your English companies.

  To secure the efficient administration and organisation of these wide-spread interests a new company has been formed known as Standard-Modern Tool Company Ltd., the whole of the issued share and Debenture capital of which was issued to your Company in exchange for its holdings in the underlying companies.

  Although the machine tool company, James Archdale and Co., Ltd., has been fully occupied during the year and has a satisfactory order book, it has suffered severe dislocation of production as a result of a swing in demand from its standard type of machine to its specialised type of multi-drilling, tapping and boring machine with the result that its profits and consequently those of the Group as a whole, have suffered a temporary setback...

• Directory of Metalworking Machinery, 1951, pg. 29