Time Line
1848 September – Age 19 - Christie gets his first job working as a baker in Toronto for a company called William McConnell. The shop is located on Yonge street at what was then the north end of Toronto). He is paid $4.00 per month plus given room and board. He does his baking at night and delivers the baked goods by handcart to customers in nearby Yorkville.
1850 - Age 21 – Christie leaves his job at William McConnell and goes to a neighbouring bakery managed by Alexander Mathers and Alexander Brown.
1853 – Age 24 – Christie and newfound partner George Maver take over the business from Alexander Mathers and Alexander Brown. Has some financial troubles the following two years, but by 1856 has got the business turning a profit.
1856 – Age 27 - Christie manages to buy out his partner, purchase the shop and hire three assistants.
1858 – Age 29 – Christie wins first prize at the Toronto exhibition for his biscuits.
1860 – Age 31 – Christie Forms a partnership with his father-in-law, James McMullen, and focuses exclusively on biscuit making. With five staff he produces more than 4,300 boxes of biscuits by hand each year, bring total annual sales to $13,000.00.
1864 – Age 35 – Christie tarts focusing on the wholesale trade.
1868 – Age 39 – The business enters a period of strong growth and he needs capital to expand. He seeks out his former employer, Alexander Brown for help and the two become business partners in Christie, Brown and Company. Later that year they install steam powered machinery at their busy Yonge street shop.
1870 – Age 41 – The workforce has now doubled to 12 and sales have quadrupled.
1872 – Age 43 – Christie moves the factory to downtown Toronto and by 1874 the business consumes an entire city block (what is now Adelaide and Frederick streets, currently the home of George Brown College).
1876 – Age 47 - Christie travels to the Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia and wins silver and bronze medals for his biscuits.
1878 February – Age 49 – Christie buys out Alexander Brown’s share of the business and becomes the sole owner, but maintains the name Christie, Brown and Company.
1880 - Age 51 - Christie opens a sales office in Montreal. At this point the staff in Toronto number 120 and grow to 375 by the year 1900.
1890 - Age 61 - Christie, Brown and Company reaches a dominant position in Canada and now employs two out of three workers in the biscuit manufacturing industry
1899 - Age 70 - Christie, Brown and Company incorporated as a joint-stock company. He owned all 5,000 shares but this structure was, at least partly, designed with a view to dealing with his estate after death. Christie died of bone cancer the following year in Toronto.
1900 June 14 – Age 71 - Christie dies at his Queen’s Park home (now Regis College) and the business, worth $500,000, passes on to his only son, Robert Jaffray Christie.
1920 – Robert Jaffray, struck with cancer, sells the bakery to a group of New York investors. A non-compete clause is included which stipulated that no Christie would go into the baking business.
1928 - Nabisco acquires Christie, Brown and Company.
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