Series pertains to the activities of Brownsburg Works between 1910 and 1997, mainly while it was the property of the Canadian Industries Limited. The Plant was originally owned by the Dominion Cartridge Company (1886-1927) and is the property of the Australian company Orica since 1998. The history of the site of the Brownsburg Plant goes back to the end of the 19th century. This site was first occupied by the Pacific Powder Mills created in 1875 by Daniel Smith. This company was a subsidiary of the Hamilton Powder Company and was specialised in the production of black powder. But the real expansion started in 1886 with the foundation of the Dominion Cartridge Company (DCCo) which produced ammunitions. This company was founded by the American Arthur L. Howard and Thomas Brainerd and the Canadian John Abbot (the latest being the first president of the company and was to become the 3rd Prime Minister of Canada in 1891). At that time there was only one plant that produced ammunitions in Canada, the Dominion Arsenal created in Québec city in 1884. The DCCo will become the first private company to produce ammunitions in Canada. The company was incorporated in 1886 and the construction of the plant in Brownsburg began the following summer. In 1910 the company merged with the following companies: Hamilton Powder Company, Acadia Powder Company, Victoria Chemical Company, Standart Explosives Ltd., Western Explosives Ltd and the Ontario Powder Company to constitute the Canadian Explosives Limited (CXL). But the name Dominion Cartridge Company was kept and still written on the ammunitions. In 1914, after Canada entered the war, the Dominion Arsenal could not satisfy the high demand in military ammunitions, hence Ottawa decided to give contracts to DCCo which was then the most important company in that field in Canada. In 1927 the company was renamed the Canadian Industries Limited (CIL). In 1928 the DCCo ceased to be a legal entity and became the Dominion Ammunition Company, a subsidiary of CIL.In 1939, with the approach of World War II, the Defence Industries Limited (DIL) was incorporated for the production of military ammunition. The company was a subsidiary of CIL and will have many plants across Canada, among them the plant in Brownsburg. After World War II, the plant will abandon progressively the production of ammunition (this production will end completely at Brownsburg in 1976 and be sold to Val-Cartier Industries, Québec) and focus on the production of detonators and related products used in the mining industry. The company was acquired in 1998 by Orica Manufacturing and is specialised since then in the production of electronic detonation systems.
The series contains administrative and operations records of the company at the site of Brownsburg between 1916 and 2000. The administrative documents consists in payrolls and expenses' ledgers; records related to human resources, health and safety, accidents and union activities; documents of communication, marketing and relations with other companies; and document pertaining to information resources, legal affairs, property and environmental issues . The documents on operations consist in minutes of meetings, periodical reports and correspondence; documents on the different operations and manufacturing process of the company; documents on research on products and numerous reports on research and development. The series contains also numerous technical drawings and maps, photographs and audio-visual material. Note also that some of the records are related to CIL subsidiaries that have been in operation in Brownsburg, namely : the Canadian Safety Fuse (CSF), between in 1920 and 1976, the CXA, between 1977 and 1998, and the Defence Industries Limited (DIL), between 1940 and 1946.
