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En 1858, il immigra à Montréal où il fit la connaissance d’un Anglais, Thomas Aspden, qui lui signala qu’aucune usine d’amidon n’existait au Canada, même si ce produit était utilisé aussi bien dans la fabrication de textiles que dans les foyers, pour la préparation des aliments et pour le blanchissage.
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William Thomas Benson was educated in Kendal. In 1848 he began a career as a manufacturer of chemicals and entered into partnership with William Blythe, a Scot from whom he apparently received training in chemistry. Their firm, located in Accrington, produced chemicals used in finishing and dyeing textiles. Benson lived in Manchester and was probably in charge of the firm’s business and sales office there. In 1858 he immigrated to Montreal where he met an Englishman, Thomas Aspden, who pointed out to Benson that there was no starch factory in Canada, even though starch was being used in the manufacture of textiles as well as in households, in food, and for laundry. Benson and Aspden, as partners, established a starch factory in 1858 in the village of Edwardsburg (Cardinal), Canada West, a site that offered excellent facilities for water-power and for transportation by water and rail to the markets of Montreal and Toronto. In 1860 Aspden left the firm which then became W. T. Benson, Canada Starch Works, though it was usually known as either W. T. Benson and Company or the Canada Starch Works. Benson managed the firm himself until 1865, when it was incorporated as the Edwardsburg Starch Company, a joint stock company in which he initially held 59 per cent of the shares and was managing director. The president of the company was Walter Shanly*, engineer and railway builder; other prominent original shareholders were Charles John Brydges, Peter Redpath*, and William Workman. Benson ceased being managing director in 1875, when he took a two-year leave of absence because of ill health, but he retained the vice-presidency until his death. In 1875 also, the company increased its capital stock, reducing Benson’s holding to 40 per cent.
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