Fonds F.0016 - The John Bertram & Sons Co. fonds

3 m of textual records ca. 180 photographs ca. 30 negatives 35 maps ca. 100 technical drawings 12 ribbons 2 printing plates The paper of several of the documents is very brittle. The newspaper in the fonds has been staining paper next to them. Several of the journals and notebooks show signs of mould and the bindings are very brittle.

The fonds eventually came into the hands of the Bertram family until it was deposited in the Dundas Museum and Archives. The Bertram family made some additions and alterations to the records when they were in their custody. This is evident through some family records have entered the fonds from two sources: Henry Bertram and Janet Bertram Brown. Henry Bertram has made extensive notes on a number of records in the fonds indicating their historical significance to the family and to the business, as well as a few inventories of folder contents. Janet Bertram Brown has made a number of inventory lists that were photocopied and placed with the records. These lists and inventories by the Bertram family have been preserved with the records to show previous arrangements.

The fonds consists of correspondence, cancelled cheques, tax assessments and receipts, price lists, catalogues, sales orders, purchase receipts, articles of agreement, legal records (including copies of court records, subpoenas and writ of summons), stockholder records (lists of members and amounts of stocks held), Indentures, wage and time records, documents relating to the history of the company, articles of apprenticeship, pension plan records, employee, shop, and machine photographs, personal correspondence, copies of contracts and negotiations, patent records, blueprints for machines and for the factories, lists of machines, employees, sales, purchases, costs, hours, pay, published materials by the company (catalogues, company histories, materials for employees), records relating to artillery shell production, records relating to business trips, property records (including mortgages, tax assessments, indentures, deeds of land, court documents, ), maps, technical specifications for machines, printing plates, company brochures, company ribbons, logbooks, notebooks, company bylaws. The fonds contains a portion of the records of the John Bertram & Sons Company along with some of the records of its predecessors including McKechnie & Bertram. The organization of the records in the fonds was not clear, with some exceptions, when they were described by the archivist. The archivist has arranged the records in the fonds into series that reflect their function or form. When no clear arrangement was evident for the records, they were placed in chronological order within their defined series. There were some exceptions to this that will be listed here. Several series, including: Series 6 - Purchase Receipts 1866 - 1886; Series 5 - Correspondence 1866 -1936; Series 26 - Bertram Shell Production 1915 - 1918; Series 30 - Time Books; and Series 37 - Property Records 1831 - 1944 had an original order that could be detected and preserved. Series 6 - Purchase Receipts 1866 - 1886 was arranged alphabetically by location purchased from and then chronologically for each location. The Series 5 - Correspondence 1866 -1936 were arranged alphabetically by geographic location, with some deviations. The records for each geographic location in this series showed no coherent order and have been placed in chronological order. One folder in Series 5 - Correspondence 1866 -1936 was found arranged according to the date received, this folder was placed last in the series and the inventory includes the business names and geographic locations for each piece of correspondence in the folder. Series 26 - Bertram Shell Production 1915 - 1918 was entirely held in one binder that preserved their original order by type of shell produced and then chronologically within each sub division. Series 30 - Time Books appears to have been arranged alphabetically by employee name, with each book in chronological order for each employee. Series 37 - Property Records 1831 - 1944 were arranged in accordion file folders with chronological inventories listed on the outside, the items inside the folders were not preserved in this order however. Upon examination, no coherent order could be detected thus the original chronological order by property was restored. As noted above when later Bertram indexes or notes have been placed in the material they have been preserved. One series, Series 14 - Company Histories 1872 - 1987, showed considerable additional material added by Bertram family members. This material relates to the company and its history so the records have been preserved. Several of the series in this fonds contains materials that relate to other series or functions. The disassociated materials have not been reordered in order to preserve the apparent original order they are often in. In the series list found below these extraneous materials have been noted and linked to their appropriate functional series. A finding aid prepared by Janet Bertram Brown can be found in the Dundas Museum and Archives, showing one of the older arrangements of the records in this fonds. Fonds is comprised of the following series: Series 1 - McDonald & McKechnie Day Book Dundas 1860 -1863 Series 2 - Cancelled Cheques 1867-1873 Series 3 - Tax Assessments -McKechnie and Bertram 1869-1874 Series 4 - Price Lists 1869, 1873 -1874 Series 5 - Correspondence 1866 -1936 Series 6 - Purchase Receipts 1866 - 1886 Series 7 - Articles of Agreement 1876 - 1901 Series 8 - Dissolution of Partnership Between McKechnie and Bertram 1886 Series 9 - Annual and Monthly Statements 1902 - 1904, 1908 Series 10 - Company By Laws 1901 -1 905 Series 11 - Stockholder Lists 1940 Series 12 - Subpoena and Writ of Summons 1888 - 1889 Series 13 - Cost Analysis 187- Series 14 - Company Histories 1872 - 1987 Series 15 - Articles of Apprenticeship 1866 - 19-- Series 16 - Wage Leger 1872 Series 17 - Lists of Former Employees 1900 - 1948 Series 18 - Pension Plan 1940 - 1948 Series 19 - Union Submission 1947 - 1948 Series 20 - Molders and Founder Workers Union 1948 - 1955 Series 21 - Employee Photographs 1895 - 1953 Series 22 - Miscellaneous 1879 - 19- Series 23 - Handbooks and Materials for Employees 1944 - 1953 Series 24 - Factory Blue Prints 1886 - 1917 Series 25 - John Bertram Patents 1889 - 1911 Series 26 - Bertram Shell Production 1915 - 1918 Series 27 - Machine Lists 1915 - 1944 Series 28 - Publications Series 29 - Machine and Factory Photographs 18-- - 1955 Series 30 - Time Books Series 31 - Order Books 1899 - 1914 Series 32 - Price Books 1898 - 1946 Series 33 - Machine Shop Notebooks 1878 - 1909 Series 34 - Trip Records 1906 - 1939 Series 35 - Catalogues 1876 -1947 Series 36 - Stock Book 1865 - 1885 Series 37 - Property Records 1831 - 1944 Series 38 - Niles-Bement-Pond Co. New York Dimension Books 1912 - 1927 Series 39 - Printing Plates 1926