A London-based corporation which was granted a Royal Charter to trade (principally in furs) in most of N and W Canada (Rupert's Land) in 1670. It annexed its main competitor, the North West Company, in 1821, and developed trade in otter pelts along the coast of British Columbia. Rupert's Land was purchased by the Canadian Government in 1869. The firm still exists as a commercial company, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, dealing in such areas as real estate and chain store merchandising.
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Hudson's Bay Company Compaigne de la Baie d'Hudson |
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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | London, England May 2, 1670 |
| Headquarters | Toronto, Ontario |
| Key people | Jerry Zucker, governor, owner & Discount) |
| Products |
The Bay Zellers Home Outfitters Designer Depot Fields |
| Revenue | $7.0 billion CAD ($59.7 million FY 2005) |
| Employees | 70,000 |
| Slogan | We are Canada's merchants |
| Website | www.hbc.com/hbc |
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and is one of the oldest in the world. From its longtime headquarters at York Factory on Hudson Bay, it controlled the fur trade throughout much of British-controlled North America for several centuries, undertaking early exploration and functioning as the de facto government in many areas of the continent prior to the arrival of large-scale settlement. Its traders and trappers forged early relationships with many groups of First Nations/Native Americans and its network of trading posts formed the nucleus for later official authority in many areas of western Canada and the United States. In the late 19th century, its vast territory became the largest component in the newly formed Dominion of Canada, in which the company was the largest private landowner. With the decline of the fur trade, the company evolved into mercantile business selling vital goods to settlers in the Canadian West. Today the company is best known for its department stores throughout Canada.
On January 26, 2006, HBC's board unanimously agreed to a bid of $15.25 CAD/share from Jerry Zucker, whose original bid was $14.75 CAD/share, ending a prolonged fight between HBC and Zucker, a South Carolina billionaire financier and longtime HBC minority shareholder. In a March 9, 2006 press release, HBC announced that Jerry Zucker would replace George Heller as the new Governor and CEO, to become the first US citizen to lead the company.
History
Early years
In the 17th century the French had a monopoly on the Canadian fur trade. correctly guessing that this was the Hudson Bay, they sought French backing for a plan to set up a trading post on the Bay, thus reducing the cost of moving furs overland. In 1668, the English commissioned two ships, the Nonsuch and the Eaglet to explore possible trade into Hudson Bay.
The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay was incorporated on May 2, 1670, with a Royal Charter from King Charles II. The charter granted the company a monopoly over the Indian Trade, especially the fur trade, in the region watered by all rivers and streams flowing into Hudson Bay in northern Canada, an area known as Rupert's Land after the first director of the Company, Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
The company founded its first headquarters at Fort Nelson at the mouth of the Nelson River in present-day northeastern Manitoba.
During the spring and summer First Nations traders, who did the vast majority of the actual trapping, travelled by canoe and were received at the fort to sell their pelts. In exchange they typically received metal tools and hunting gear, often imported by the company from Germany, the centre of inexpensive manufacturing in that era.
The early coastal factory model contrasted with the system of the French, who established an extensive system of inland posts and sent traders to live among the tribes of the region. The conservative nature of the English company's more centralized factory system frustrated the company's founders, Radisson and Des Groseilliers, who urged bolder explorations of the continental interior. In 1674 they switched their allegiance back to France and in 1682 they founded La Compagnie du Nord to directly compete with the company. In March 1686, the French sent a raiding party under Chevalier des Troyes over 1300 km (800 miles) to capture the company's posts along James Bay. The French appointed Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, who had shown extreme heroism during the raids, as commander of the company's captured posts. In 1697, d'Iberville commanded a French naval raid on the company's headquarters at York Factory. After the treaty, the company rebuilt York Factory as a brick star fort at the mouth of the nearby Hayes River, its present location.
In its trade with native peoples, the company adopted the widespread use of issuing wool blankets, called Hudson's Bay point blankets, in exchange for the beaver pelts trapped by native hunters.
19th century
In 1821, the North West Company of Montreal and the Hudson's Bay Company merged, with a combined territory that was extended by a licence to the North-Western Territory, which reached to the Arctic Ocean on the north and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Although the HBC maintained a monopoly on the fur trade during the early-mid 19th century, there was competition from James Sinclair and Andrew McDermot (Dermott), independent traders in the Red River Colony. Although the initial report was unfavorable towards settlement, it sparked a debate which ended the myth being propagated by the Hudson's Bay Company that the Canadian West was unfit for agricultural settlement.
In 1870 the trade monopoly was abolished and trade in the region was opened to any entrepreneur. The company relinquished its ownership of Rupert's Land under the Rupert's Land Act of 1868 enacted by the Parliament of the newly formed Dominion of Canada.
Throughout the 1820s and 1830s the company controlled nearly all trading operations in the Oregon Country, based out of the company headquarters at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River. Although authority over the region was nominally shared by the U.S. and Britain through the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, company policy, enforced via Chief John McLoughlin of the company's Columbia District, was to actively discourage U.S. settlement of the territory. The company's effective monopoly on trade virtually forbade any settlement in the region. The company's stranglehold on the region was broken by the first successful large wagon train to reach Oregon in 1843, led by Marcus Whitman. McLoughlin, who had once turned away would-be settlers as company director, now welcomed them from his general store at Oregon City and was later proclaimed the "Father of Oregon". The company retains no presence in the Pacific Northwest of the United States today. Company trapping brigades were sent south from Fort Vancouver, along what became known as the Siskiyou Trail into Northern California as far south as the San Francisco Bay Area.
Modern operations
One aspect of the company's operations was the Hudson's Bay Company Stores, trading posts that were established across northern Canada. Today, this is the only part of the company operation remaining, in the form of department stores under the name The Bay. Many Hudson's Bay Company stores were, until quite recently, the only stores in remote towns.
In 1970, on the 300th birthday of the company, head office functions were transferred from London, England to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. As the company expanded into the east, head office functions were moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Today there are three main retail divisions: The Bay, Zellers, and Home Outfitters.
Northern Stores are no longer operated by HBC, but by a corporation organized in 1987 under the name The North West Company. Simpson's department stores which were acquired by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1979 were converted to The Bay stores in 1991.
The legacy of the HBC has been maintained in part by the detailed record-keeping and archiving of material by the Company. In 1974, the Hudson's Bay Company Archives were transferred from London to their Canadian headquarters in Winnipeg and granted public access to the collection the following year. In 1991 the archival records of the company were donated to the Manitoba Archives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
In 1987 the HBC sold off its Canadian fur auction business to Hudson's Bay Fur Sales Canada (this company is now known as North American Fur Auctions).
In 1994, the HBC donated the Company records to the Province of Manitoba.
In December of 2003, Maple Leaf Heritage Investments, a Nova Scotia-based company that was created to acquire shares of Hudson's Bay Company, announced that it was considering making an offer to acquire all or some of the common shares of Hudson's Bay Company. Zucker had previously been the head of the Polymer Group that acquired another Canadian institution, the Dominion Textile Company.
On March 2, 2005, the company was announced as the new clothing outfitter for the Canadian Olympic team.
Under the charter forming the Hudson's Bay Company, the company continues to be required to give two elk skins and two black beaver pelts to the Canadian Monarch, or his or her heirs, whenever they visit an area that was formerly Rupert's Land.
Luxury Designer Collections: The St. Regis Room in Toronto
The Bay store on Queen Street in Downtown Toronto, formerly Simpson's, includes the Department 'St. Regis Room' on the third floor.
The Downtown Vancouver Bay store had a St. Regis Room women's department, but it closed in 2004 due to poor sales.
Corporate governance
Current members of the board of directors of the Hudson's Bay Company are:
Jerry Zucker, governor, (American) (chairman) and CEO Peter C. (1770-1782) Samuel Wegg (1782-1799) Sir James Winter Lake (1799-1807) William Mainwaring (1807-1812) Joseph Berens (1812-1822) Sir John Henry Pelly (1822-1852) Andrew Wedderburn Colvile (1852-1856) John Shepherd (1856-1858) Henry Hulse Berens (1858-1863) Sir Edmund Walker Head (1863-1868) John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley (1868-1869) Sir Stafford Henry Northcote (1869-1874) George Joachim Goschen (1874-1880) Eden Colvile (1880-1889) Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal (1889-1914) Sir Thomas Skinner (1914-1915) Sir Robert Molesworth Kindersley (1916-1925) Charles Vincent Sale (1925-1931) Sir Patrick Ashley Cooper (1931-1952) William Keswick (1952-1965) Derick Heathcoat Amory, 1st Viscount Amory (1965-1970) George T.
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