J. & J. Taylor’s Toronto Safe Works made safes for Canadian banks, government vaults and corner shops from 1855, and sent prize-winning safes to exhibitions in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne, which is why so many turn up in Australia. Here’s the firm’s history from Canadian directories and Australian newspapers, and how to date a Taylor safe.
1855
safe works founded in Toronto
40,000
safes sold across Canada by 1886
1888
first order of merit at Melbourne
1960
name merged into Chubb-Mosler and Taylor
Key takeaways
- J. & J. Taylor was founded in Toronto in 1855 by James and John Taylor, who advertised themselves in 1857 as “late of S. C. Herring’s, New York”.
- The works moved from Palace Street to the corner of Front and Frederick Streets (later 145 Front Street East), and by 1886 the firm said it had sold over 40,000 safes.
- Taylor safes won first orders of merit at the Adelaide Jubilee Exhibition of 1887 and the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition of 1888, and exhibition safes were later sold off in Sydney and Melbourne.
- The firm became J. & J. Taylor, Limited, in 1912 and was still selling safes from Front Street in 1935, so the often-repeated closing date of 1924 or 1925 is wrong.
- No Taylor serial number register has been published. The wording on the door, the address and the lock are the best dating clues.
In This Article
J. & J. Taylor at a glance
| Country | Canada (Toronto, Ontario) |
| Founded | 1855 |
| Founders | James and John Taylor |
| Trading names | J. & J. Taylor; Toronto Safe Works; J. & J. Taylor, Limited (from 1912) |
| Addresses | Depot at 65 King Street West and factory in Palace Street (1857); 198 and 200 Palace Street (1860s); corner of Front and Frederick Streets, later 145 Front Street East (from 1871) |
| Known for | Fire-proof and burglar-proof safes, bank safes, vault doors, bank locks, safe deposit boxes, steel grille work and gaol cells |
| Exhibitions | Toronto 1858; Sydney 1877; London 1886; Adelaide 1887 (first order of merit); Melbourne 1888 (first order of merit) |
| Fate | Taken over by Mosler in the late 1950s; part of Chubb-Mosler and Taylor Safes Ltd. from 1960 |
History of J. & J. Taylor and the Toronto Safe Works
Two brothers from Herring’s
The Toronto Safe Works was founded in 1855 by James and John Taylor.1 Two years later the brothers were already selling hard. An advertisement dated October 1857 offers “Provincial Salamander Fire Proof Safes” and “bank vaults and burglar proof safes”, and introduces J. & J. Taylor as “late of S. C. Herring’s, New York”, the maker of the original Herring’s Salamander safe. Even the name was borrowed.2
The same advertisement gives a depot at 65 King Street West, “Sign of the Safe”, and a factory in Palace Street, east of the gaol. The Taylors were sole agents in Canada for Yale’s “Infallible” bank lock and fitted Hall’s powder-proof locks. Their pitch to Canadian buyers was simple: safes warranted free from damp that would resist fire “at least one-third longer than any safe imported into Canada”.2
In September 1858 they sent five safes to the Provincial Exhibition in Toronto, fitted out for bankers, jewellers and merchants and “warranted to defy the ravages of fire for 24 hours”.3
“One safe a day” in Palace Street
An undated Toronto trade sketch, written when the firm had been “established over eleven years”, so about 1866, puts the works at 198 and 200 Palace Street. It describes a three-storey building with a hundred-foot frontage: plates were punched and riveted on one floor, locks made on another, and the finished safes painted, japanned and varnished in a back room. The Taylors employed fifty hands and turned out about one safe a day, priced from $50 to $1,000 and more. They sold across Canada, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, and reminded buyers that American safes paid 20 per cent duty at the border.4
Palace Street was the old name for the eastern part of what is now Front Street.5 In 1871 the firm took over a brick building of 1867 on the south-west corner of Front and Frederick Streets, which it rebuilt after a fire in 1883 and extended in 1890 and 1907.6 That building still stands, much altered, at 145 Front Street East.
Who owned the firm after 1875?
Here the sources disagree, and it’s worth saying so. A city history of 1891 says that “on the withdrawal of Mr. John Taylor the business devolved upon Mr. James Taylor, who carried it on till his death in 1875”. It names the proprietors in 1891 as Thomas West and Robert McClain, and says they kept the name J. & J. Taylor.1 A modern Toronto house-history site tells it the other way round: the brothers arrived from Scotland as boys in 1838, James went back to Britain in poor health, and John ran the firm until his death in 1913. Readers’ comments on the same page, from people with family links, say Thomas West bought the business in the 1870s and the West family held it until the 1950s.7 We haven’t been able to check the 1913 obituary that site refers to, so we follow the 1891 account and treat the rest as family tradition.
Canada’s bank safe maker
By 1886 the firm said it had distributed over forty thousand safes “from British Columbia, Manitoba, and the North-West Territories, to Newfoundland and the Maritime Provinces”. It had done “by far the largest portion of the bank safe work and the Government work of the Dominion”, including the locks and vault doors of the Dominion Finance Department’s vaults in Ottawa, Saint John, Winnipeg, Prince Edward Island and Toronto. About two hundred hands could make some fifty safes a week.8
A Toronto business directory of 1888 describes a main building 70 by 250 feet, of four floors and a basement, with a 65 horsepower Westinghouse engine and ten departments: burglar-proof, fire-proof, levelling, filling, blacksmith’s shop, cabinet works, painting, bank locks and shipping. It gives the workforce as 125 skilled mechanics.9 Three years later another city history put it at 150 to 200 men.1
Timeline
- 1855 James and John Taylor found the Toronto Safe Works.
- 1857 Depot at 65 King Street West, factory in Palace Street; sole Canadian agents for Yale’s bank lock.
- 1858 Five safes at the Provincial Exhibition, Toronto.
- 1871 Moves to the corner of Front and Frederick Streets.
- 1875 Death of James Taylor, according to an 1891 history.
- 1877 A Taylor safe is shown at the exhibition in Prince Alfred Park, Sydney.
- 1886 Safes at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, London; over 40,000 sold.
- 1887–1888 First orders of merit at Adelaide and Melbourne.
- 1912 Incorporated as J. & J. Taylor, Limited.
- 1935 Still selling new and used safes from 145 Front Street East.
- 1960 Merged into Chubb-Mosler and Taylor Safes Ltd.
J. & J. Taylor, Limited
On 2 April 1912 the business was incorporated under federal letters patent as J. & J. Taylor, Limited, with a capital of one million dollars, to make “all kinds of safes, vaults, doors, gaol cells, combination, time and other locks, deposit boxes” and steel grille work.10 By 1915 it had branches in Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver, and builders’ directories listed it under deposit boxes, grille work, iron doors and shutters, and jail cells and gates.11
The firm didn’t close in the 1920s, whatever you may read. In November 1935 J. & J. Taylor Limited, “Toronto Safe Works, 145 Front St. E.”, was advertising new and used safes, certified cabinets and cash chests “of all sizes” in an Ontario local paper.12
Mosler, Chubb and the end of the Taylor name
The end is less well documented than the beginning. The Chubb Archive records that in 1960 “a merger of the two largest safe manufacturers” in Canada formed Chubb-Mosler and Taylor Safes Ltd.13 A collector’s history of Chubb says Mosler had bought the Canadian firms Dominion Safe & Vault and Pollard in 1957–58, formed Mosler-Taylor Safes Ltd. and built a plant in Brampton, Ontario, and that Chubb bought control in 1960. It adds that dials read “Chubb-Mosler and Taylor” from 1960 to 1980 and only “Chubb” after that.14 A former Chubb employee, commenting online, remembers Taylor as still independent on Front Street in 1958 and taken over by Mosler in 1959.7 The exact year of the Mosler takeover is therefore uncertain, but 1960 is a safe line: anything marked “Chubb-Mosler and Taylor” is 1960 or later. For the Chubb side of the story, see our history of Chubb safes.
Why are there J. & J. Taylor safes in Australia?
If you’re reading this in Australia, you’ve probably got one in front of you. Taylor never had an Australian factory that we can find, but it sent safes to every big Australian exhibition of the 1870s and 1880s, won prizes, and sold the exhibits off afterwards. Australian newspapers on Trove tell the story.
- Sydney, 1877. At the Agricultural Society of New South Wales’ exhibition in Prince Alfred Park, the Canadian court included “the iron safe sent by Messrs. J. and J. Taylor, of Toronto”, which “will repay examination”. Reporters were struck by its combination lock, which then seemed a novelty in Sydney: three numbers had to line up, with about two thousand possible combinations.15,16
- London, 1886. At the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, Melbourne’s Argus noticed “several large safes from Messrs J and J Taylor, which few burglars would stand much chance of opening”.17 Canada’s commissioner reported that the firm showed twelve safes and opened correspondence in England and India; a Toronto writer counted nineteen.18,8
- Adelaide, 1887. At the Jubilee International Exhibition, J. & J. Taylor of Toronto won a first order of merit for safes in the hardware class.19
- Melbourne, 1888. At the Centennial International Exhibition the Canadian court was small, but the Sydney Morning Herald found “an extensive collection of safes of all kinds, both burglar and fire proof” by J. & J. Taylor, decorated “after the light and fanciful American manner”.20 The jury gave Taylor a first order of merit for safes, in the same list as Chubb, the Milner Safe Company and Melbourne’s own Makutz and Barke.21
What happened to the exhibition safes? Some of them, at least, stayed. In August 1893 the Sydney auctioneers Harris and Ackman sold “3 large iron safes … specially manufactured for the Melbourne Exhibition by the celebrated firm, J. and J. Taylor, Toronto, Canada”, which they called “without doubt the finest safes ever imported to the colony”.22 Taylor safes keep turning up in Australian sale notices after that: a “steel fireproof safe, by J. and J. Taylor, Toronto” in a Melbourne house sale of 1901, and three large combination-lock Taylor safes offered by a firm of solicitors in Charters Towers, Queensland, in 1932.23,24
We haven’t found a named Australian agent for Taylor, or evidence of regular imports outside the exhibitions, so it’s likely that the safes in Australia came through the exhibitions and the trade that followed them. If your Taylor safe has an Australian dealer’s plate or a provenance, we’d love to see it.
“Without doubt the finest safes ever imported to the colony.”
Harris and Ackman, auctioneers, Sydney, August 1893
How to identify and date a J. & J. Taylor safe
Taylor safes are usually easy to recognise: the name is painted on the door or lettered on a panel, often with “Toronto Safe Works” or “Toronto”. Dating one is harder, because no production register has been published. These clues narrow it down. For methods that work on any old safe, see how to date an old safe.
Clue 1
The name
“J. & J. Taylor” alone is the oldest form. “J. & J. Taylor, Limited” or “Ltd.” means 1912 or later. “Chubb-Mosler and Taylor” means 1960 or later.2,10,13
Clue 4: addresses by period
Most Taylor safes just say “Toronto”, but labels, invoices, dealer plates and catalogues often carry an address. These are the years each one is recorded:
| 65 King Street West (“Sign of the Safe”), depot; factory in Palace Street | 18572 |
| 198 and 200 Palace Street | About 18664 |
| Corner of Front and Frederick Streets | From 1871; recorded 1886 to 18916,8 |
| 145 Front Street East | Recorded 193512 |
| Branches in Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver | Recorded 191511 |
Clue 5: construction and paintwork
The firm’s own description of 1886 lists what to look for on a Taylor bank safe: no seam or joint on the outside corners, “solid triple corners of five-ply welded steel and iron”, revolving bolts on all sides of the door, stepped and rebated door jambs with rubber tube packing, crane hinges and cam lever bars. Its fire-proof safes had “non-conducting steel flange doors”, solid round corners, continuous angle-iron frames and hardened steel plates over the locks.8 The firm never said what its fire-proof filling was made of. Treat any old fire safe as possibly containing asbestos and read do old safes contain asbestos? before drilling or cutting.
The paint is part of the charm. In the 1880s Taylor’s safes had painted figures and scrollwork on the doors, and a name painted across the top is usually the first owner’s, not the maker’s. The Goulbourn Museum in Ontario has a Taylor safe of about 1903 with “Dr. Chanonhouse” across the top, a pastoral scene on the door and “J & J Taylor Safe Works” painted on the front.9,26
Clue 6: J. & J. Taylor serial numbers
There’s no public J. & J. Taylor serial number lookup, and we haven’t found a surviving production ledger. The scale is known, though: over forty thousand safes by 1886, at roughly fifty a week.8 Write the number down anyway and send it to us with photos. Dated examples from owners are how serial lists get built.
Notable Taylor safes and vaults
- Bank of Montreal, Quebec branch, 1860s. A safe that “when packed weighed over five tons” and contained “over three tons of cast steel”, with a lock that could be changed “one hundred million times”, according to the firm.4
- Dominion Finance Department. Locks and vault doors for its vaults in Ottawa, Saint John, Winnipeg, Prince Edward Island and Toronto, by 1886.8
- Dominion Bank Building, Toronto. A 1915 advertisement shows the safe deposit vault: some two hundred feet of polished steel grille, panelled walls and ceilings and 1,174 deposit boxes, “built entirely in Canada”.11
- The Melbourne exhibition safes. Three large safes “specially manufactured for the Melbourne Exhibition” and sold at auction in Sydney in 1893. The advert doesn’t say which exhibition; Taylor is recorded at the Centennial Exhibition of 1888.22,21
- Harrow, Ontario, 2022. A 1,580 kg Taylor safe bearing the name of T. B. Adams, a great-uncle of the former prime minister Paul Martin, was found in the walls of a demolished shop. The inner compartment was empty.27
Myths and mix-ups
J. & J. Taylor closed in 1924 (or 1925).
This date is repeated by a local history site and the CBC, but J. & J. Taylor Limited was still advertising from 145 Front Street East in 1935, and the name survived into Chubb-Mosler and Taylor in 1960.28,27,12,13
J. J. Taylor & Sons of Toronto made the safes.
That’s a different Toronto firm: J. J. Taylor & Sons, later the J. J. Taylor Shipbuilding Company, built boats, including RCMP patrol boats in the 1950s. The safe maker is J. & J. Taylor, with an ampersand.29
What is a J. & J. Taylor safe worth?
As an informal guide, not an appraisal: the recent auction results we could find for ordinary Taylor safes were a few hundred Canadian dollars, and the buyer pays to move the safe. Large painted double-door safes with their original decoration are a different market and appear at specialist sales. Here are the two prices:
| J. & J. Taylor safe | Sale | Price |
|---|---|---|
| “1800s” safe, combination working | Ukrainetz Auction, Saskatchewan, June 2018 | C$700 hammer30 |
| Safe 38¾ × 28½ × 27 in, no combination, latch works | Scribner Auction, Alberta, November 2021 | C$380 plus 10% premium31 |
A working lock with a known combination, original paint and a clear Taylor name add the most; rust, repainting and a locked door take value away. For comparison, the firm’s own prices in the 1860s ran from $50 to $1,000 and more.4 Our guide are old safes worth anything? explains what buyers pay for and where to sell.
I have a J. & J. Taylor safe: what now?
Weight
How heavy is it?
We haven’t found a Taylor catalogue with weights. The Harrow safe weighed 1,580 kg (about 3,480 lb), and a bank safe of the 1860s weighed over five tons packed.27,4 Measure yours and use our safe weight calculator.
Opening
Combination lost?
There’s no “factory” J. & J. Taylor combination: each lock was set for its owner. Call a qualified safe technician or safe engineer, who can open it with the least damage and reset the lock. See locked out of an old safe and old safe combination locks.
Moving
Moving or getting rid of it
Use a professional safe mover and check the floor and stairs first. Our guide covers how to move or get rid of an old safe.
Not sure what you have? Send us photos of the door, the dial and any name, number or address, with the outside height, width and depth, and we’ll help you date it. Our page for anyone who has inherited or found an old safe covers the first steps.
Frequently asked questions
Who made J&J Taylor safes?
J. & J. Taylor, also called the Toronto Safe Works, founded in Toronto in 1855 by James and John Taylor. It became J. & J. Taylor, Limited, in 1912 and was merged into Chubb-Mosler and Taylor Safes Ltd. in 1960.
How old is my J&J Taylor safe?
Taylor made safes from 1855 into the 1950s. “Toronto, Ont.” means 1867 or later, “Limited” means 1912 or later, and “Chubb-Mosler and Taylor” means 1960 or later. A key lock rather than a dial suggests an early safe.
Is there a J&J Taylor safe serial number lookup?
No. No Taylor production register has been published. Send us the number with photos and we’ll compare it with other dated Taylor safes.
What is my J&J Taylor safe worth?
Ordinary Taylor safes have sold for a few hundred Canadian dollars at recent country auctions. Large, original painted examples are worth more. Weight and the cost of moving matter as much as the name.
I don’t know the combination of my J&J Taylor safe. What can I do?
Ask a qualified safe technician or safe engineer. There is no master combination for Taylor safes; a professional can open it with the least damage and set a new combination.
Why is there a Canadian safe in Australia?
J. & J. Taylor exhibited in Sydney (1877), Adelaide (1887) and Melbourne (1888), won first orders of merit at Adelaide and Melbourne, and exhibition safes were sold in Australia afterwards.
Sources:
- G. Mercer Adam, Toronto, Old and New (Toronto: Mail Printing Co., 1891), pp. 182–183, via Canadiana. ↩︎
- J. & J. Taylor advertisement, “Provincial Salamander Fire Proof Safes”, dated Toronto, October 1857, in The Canada Directory for 1857-58 (Montreal: John Lovell, 1857), Toronto advertisements, p. 1304, via Canadiana. ↩︎
- Descriptive Catalogue of the Provincial Exhibition, at Toronto, September 1858 (Toronto: Wiman, 1858), “Articles on Exhibition”, via Canadiana. ↩︎
- “Patent Fire and Burglar Proof Safes. J. & J. Taylor, 198 and 200 Palace Street”, in Business Sketches (Toronto, undated; the firm is described as “established over eleven years”), p. 12, via Canadiana. ↩︎
- Wikipedia, “Front Street (Toronto)” (Palace Street shown as part of Front Street on an 1894 map). ↩︎
- Architectural Conservancy Ontario, TOBuilt: 145 Front Street East (citing the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties and the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Heritage Conservation District Plan, 2015). ↩︎
- “The J & J Taylor Safe Company”, Caerwent House Histories Research, Toronto, with readers’ comments. ↩︎
- C. C. Taylor, Toronto “Called Back” from 1886 to 1850 (Toronto, 1886), “J. & J. Taylor, Toronto Safe Works”, pp. 251–252, via Canadiana. ↩︎
- “Toronto Safe Works”, in Industries of Canada: Historical and Commercial Sketches of Toronto and Environs (Toronto: M. G. Bixby, 1888), p. 94, via Canadiana. ↩︎
- Legal notice, letters patent of 2 April 1912 incorporating “J. & J. Taylor, Limited”, The Monetary Times (Toronto), 20 April 1912, p. 1640, via Canadiana. ↩︎
- J. & J. Taylor, Limited, advertisement “Modern Safety Deposit Vault Equipment” (Dominion Bank Building), and the directory of contractors’ supplies, Construction (Toronto), vol. 8, no. 1, January 1915, pp. 17 and 31, via Canadiana. ↩︎
- J. & J. Taylor Limited advertisement, “Safes”, Streetsville Review and Port Credit Herald, 28 November 1935, p. 2, via Canadiana. ↩︎
- The Chubb Archive, “Early sales, offices, Chubb Group, 1980s and on” (1960: “Chubb-Mosler and Taylor Safes Ltd.”). ↩︎
- “Chubb, Wolverhampton, England”, My Time Machines (collector’s site, undated). ↩︎
- “The Canadian Exhibits at the International Exhibition, held in Prince Alfred Park, Sydney, in connection with the Agricultural Society of New South Wales, April, 1877”, Sydney Mail, 5 May 1877, p. 547, via Trove. ↩︎
- “Metropolitan Colonial Exhibition: the Canadian and American exhibits”, Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney), 5 May 1877, p. 20, via Trove. ↩︎
- “The Colonial and Indian Exhibition (from our correspondent), London, June 25”, The Argus (Melbourne), 2 August 1886, p. 7, via Trove. ↩︎
- Rapport de Sir Charles Tupper, commissaire exécutif de la section canadienne de l’Exposition des colonies et de l’Inde (Ottawa, 1887), p. 50, via Canadiana. ↩︎
- “Awards” (Jury XII, Hardware), South Australian Weekly Chronicle (Adelaide), 10 September 1887, p. 12, via Trove; also “Additional Awards”, South Australian Register, 5 September 1887, p. 7, via Trove. ↩︎
- “The Canadian Court”, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 August 1888, p. 12, via Trove. ↩︎
- “The Exhibition: the Centennial International Exhibition. Awards. Cutlery, hardware, ironmongery, &c.”, The Australasian (Melbourne), 2 March 1889, p. 41, via Trove. ↩︎
- Harris and Ackman auction advertisement, “3 large iron safes”, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 August 1893, p. 3, via Trove. ↩︎
- Auction advertisement listing a “steel fireproof safe, by J. and J. Taylor, Toronto”, The Herald (Melbourne), 5 February 1901, p. 4, via Trove. ↩︎
- Classified advertisement, “Three large combination lock safes by J. and J. Taylor, Toronto, Canada”, Townsville Daily Bulletin, 23 March 1932, p. 2, via Trove. ↩︎
- Constitution Act, 1867, section 6 (the former Upper Canada to form the Province of Ontario). ↩︎
- Goulbourn Museum, Stittsville, Ontario, “Dr. Chanonhouse safe”, object 007.11.2. ↩︎
- “What was in the mysterious secret safe from the former Harrow antique store?”, CBC News, 20 May 2022. ↩︎
- Lost Rivers, “Davies/Taylor Site” (Toronto local history site). ↩︎
- Sgt. O. G. Gagne, “Patrol Boat Moosomin II”, RCMP Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 1, July 1970, p. 14, via Canadiana. ↩︎
- Ukrainetz Auction, Sheho General Store closeout, antique “J&J Taylor Toronto Safe Works” (combination works), 10 June 2018. ↩︎
- Scribner Auction Ltd., Wainwright, Alberta, antique safe “J&J Taylor Toronto, Safe Works”, sold 12 November 2021. ↩︎
