Sangamo Electric Co. of Springfield, Illinois, established 1899, made clocks, timers, power meters, and motors. Their Canadian subsidiary, Sangamo Co., Ltd., was created in 1911 as the Canadian sales arm of Sangamo Electric Co. In early 1917, manufacturing began on Adelaide Street in Toronto in order to avoid the duty applied to imported meters. On the 1st of January 1932, Sangamo Co., Ltd. acquired exclusive rights to Wagner Electric Corp.'s motor business in Canada, including the right to operate the business under the Wagner company name. Manufacture of Wagner electric motors began in a plant on Stafford Street in Toronto.

The manufacturing space in Toronto soon proved inadequate but the company's finances did not permit a move to better facilities. In 1940, with the company operating at full capacity because of the war effort and with manufacturing space in Toronto selling at a considerable premium, Sangamo was able to sell their existing plant for a tidy profit and build a new plant in Leaside, a Toronto suburb.

At some point between 1949 and 1954 Sangamo acquired Lamb Electric Co.'s Canadian subsidiary, which became the "Lamb Electric Division of Sangamo Co., Ltd." We have also seen motors from "Wagner Electric Division of Sangamo Co., Ltd." and "Wagner-Leland Division of Sangamo Co., Ltd."

In 1970, the Sangamo Motor Division, based in Sarnia, was acquired by Prestolite. We do not know how their motors were labeled after that time.

Information Sources

• 1954 issue of Aeronautical Engineering Review (Volume 13, Part 1, page 150): "The Lamb Electric Company Kent, Ohio In Canada: Lamb Electric - Division of Sangamo Company Ltd. - Leaside ... Sangamo Electric Co. sponsored research at Southern Illinois University to determine value of these silicones as..."
• An online version of the book Sangamo, A History of Fifty Years, privately published by Sangamo in 1949, provided some of the background history of the parent company.
• The establishment date of this firm comes from the above-listed book. The date disagrees with the date—1905—given on a couple of other sites, but the Sangamo history book is well researched and authoritative.