Moore, Dennis

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: David G. Burley, “MOORE, DENNIS,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/moore_dennis_11E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Manufacturer, capitalist, and philanthropist; b. 20 Aug. 1817 at Grimsby, Upper Canada; m. first 1 June 1842 Susan Tyson; m. secondly 1 Aug. 1854 Mary Hunt, and they had one son and four daughters; d. 20 Nov. 1887 at Hamilton, Ont.
    • In 1831 Dennis Moore moved to Hamilton from Grimsby where he had spent his boyhood. He entered an apprenticeship with Edward Jackson, a tinsmith who had started business in 1830, and in 1833 Jackson took Moore and several other apprentices into the firm as partners. From then until Jackson’s death in 1872, the business was conducted by changing and complicated partnerships, although for much of the time the firm operated under the name of D. Moore and Company.
    • The firm had begun by manufacturing tinware but, probably some time in the 1840s, added a foundry and diversified into the production of stoves and machine castings. Financial details of the company’s operations are difficult to uncover: in 1862, 40 men were employed and $50,000 in raw materials used; three years later goods worth $125,000 were made; by 1869 the value of production had increased to $150,000 and 50 men were employed. Information is lacking but it is clear that Moore accumulated considerable wealth from the company’s business. In 1848 he owned real estate in Hamilton worth between $10,000 and $15,000 and D. Moore and Company owned nine profitable stores. Moore’s investments in other manufacturing and financial institutions led to his election in the 1870s and 1880s as director of several companies, most located in Hamilton, including the Canada Life Assurance Company, the Bank of Hamilton, and the Hamilton Bridge and Tool Company.
    • The career of Dennis Moore contains many of the elements of the myth of the mid-Victorian self-made man. By hard work and righteous living, he rose from humble origins to become a successful businessman who left an estate of about $200,000. The Reverend Hugh Johnston, a friend who had also been one of his pastors, said in a funeral oration that although “possessing no dazzling qualities, a man of straightforward common sense and few words, he made life a great success.”
  • Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=5967
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/183670269/dennis-moore