Patents of Canada from 1824 to 1849.
Cat No.: CA0262:
Published in 1860 by the Bureau of Agriculture and Statistics, Canada and printed by Lovell & Gibson, Yonge St., Toronto.
By 1860 the rate and volume of claims for Patent protection in Canada had reached a point where the Patent Offices(s) decided they must, periodically, make public all the Letters Patent it had granted. This book is a direct result of that decision and is the first of a continuing series of such publications in Canada. Before Lower* and then Upper* Canada were self governing all such patent applications would have to be made through the British Government so it is that the first Canadian patent was granted in Lower Canada in 1824. The first patent in the book granted in Upper Canada is dated 14 July, 1831 although residents of Upper Canada did register their inventions in Lower Canada prior to that date. Any patents granted to British citizens resident in Canada prior to 1824 will probably be found in the British Patent Office.
* The old designations of Upper and Lower Canada approximate to the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec today.
Following a few pages of introduction - including a "pro-forma" for the submission of a petition for the grant of Letters Patent - the book provides a record of the first 257** Canadian patents granted to
Canadians.
**They are numbered 1 through 258 but number 255 is an English patent registered in Canada and so not included.
In genealogical terms the obvious value of this book is in finding a detailed insight into the work of an ancestor, but a broader lesson can be learned from the subjects of the inventions which, necessity being the mother of invention, we can assume reflects the needs of the everyday life of the Canadian settler. From this perspective it would appear that horse drawn hay rakes and cooking / heating stoves were in short supply. On the other hand, the range of inventions is very broad; from an improved bee hive to a better steam engine, indicating a continued striving for an improvement in life style and a need to work more effectively.
Each registered patent is named and a copy of the Letters Patent, bearing the inventors full name and residence, is provided. Most records also provide a copy of the "brief" description required for the submission (these are, inexplicably, absent for a small number of patents.) By the time of publication of this book the earlier patents, i.e., those submitted pre 1844, had expired so the accompanying drawings have not been reproduced, also some of the later examples were not available. However, the book does contain accompanying drawings / sketches of 56 of the 190 inventions which were still under protection at the time of publication.
The text portion of the book concludes with an exhaustive index by inventors name and by invention. In addition to bookmarking, the separated text descriptions and their drawings have been hyperlinked for your convenience while you are gaining an understanding of the illustrated inventions.
This is an unusual and fascinating record of the fertile imaginations of the early inhabitants of Canada as they strove for a better and easier life in their new homeland.
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