The Cornucopia of Fishing Reels Offered by

AL&W Toronto
By Paul Manuel
March 29, 2016
A version of this article first appeared in The Reel News, the magazine of the Old
Reel Collectors Association (ORCA),

Origins of AL&W
The introductory section of AL&Ws 100th Anniversary catalogue1 printed in 1954
explains the origins of the company. Samuel Allcock, a businessman from the
needle and tackle making nexus of Redditch, England was travelling to the US in
the early 1850's and made a detour to what was then the British Province of
Canada- West. The company operation began after he partnered with Charles
Laight, another businessman from Redditch. In 1854, 13 years before the 1867
Confederation of Canada, the S.Allcock and C.Laight Company was launched in
Toronto. In 1868 another Redditch businessman Benjamin Westwood immigrated
to Canada and became the third original partner, ultimately resulting in the
company name Allcock, Laight and Westwood, abbreviated as AL&W.
It is interesting to note that Samuel Allcocks father, Polycarp Allcock, was a
fishing hook making apprentice. He worked in an industry that developed in
Redditch from the diversification of the burgeoning needle making trade.
Polycarp started the Allcock business in 1803. Samuel was an entrepreneur and
salesman who expanded the Allcock business into reels, rods and other fishing
tackle.
AL&W was located in downtown Toronto on Bay Street in 1904, when it was
devastated in the Great Toronto Fire. However, they recovered under the
leadership of John Mossop a fisherman from Orillia, Ontario who joined them as
Western Sales Representative around 1912. By 1919 Mossop and his partner JB
Kennedy had acquired the controlling interest of the company.
While the early product lines were oriented towards fishing tackle, in 1922 AL&W
under Mossop diversified into guns, ammo and camping equipment. Over
subsequent years they added additional sporting goods products like golf clubs,
baseball gloves, tennis rackets and much more. After their Leaside factory in
1 As a courtesy, Merrick Burr provided this author with access to his
private collection of AL&W catalogs 1923-1971. Scans of the fishing
reel sections have been donated to the ORCA library.

uptown Toronto was destroyed in 1941, a second catastrophic set-back for

AL&W, they retooled, served the war effort and expanded sporting goods product
lines even further into things like skiing equipment.
From the beginning, AL&W offered a wide variety of fishing lures. AL&W made
some of the lures listed in the catalogs but many were third-party products that
AL&W just distributed. However some of the best-known AL&W made lures
resulted from a 1927 agreement with Creek Chub 2, with AL&W making their own
colours of Creek Chub lures with different model numbers, different hardware
and eventually making plastic versions of the famous Pikie but with the classic
glass eyes. AL&W not only manufactured their own lures but they also made
some of their own fishing rods. In fact, one of their rod makers is claimed to have
served the company continuously for 73 years! He must have started when he
was wearing diapers!

The Reels Offered by AL&W

Over the period from 1923 through 1971, AL&W marketed an extremely large
variety of fishing reels covering about 200 product names and sizes in every
conceivable style from early non-level winds and fly reels to relatively modern
closed-faced spinning reels in the early 1960s. Most (and possibly all) of the
reels offered in AL&W catalogs during this period were products made by third
parties. Some were shown under the makers name and some were implied to be
AL&W made products. AL&W offered a large number of reels under their own
name. However, upon examination of a few dozen AL&W marked reels in this
authors personal collection, it was determined that they were all actually thirdparty trade reels marked with various forms of the AL&W name e.g. Allcock,
Laight & Westwood (some with a Bay street address, Toronto), AL&W, ALW, etc.
The oldest observed AL&W marked reels are non-level winds and fly reels.
Although some look like the products of Hendryx or Winchester, HorrocksIbbotson (H-I) probably made these earlier reels as evidenced by the designs,
materials, and particularly in some cases by an underlined yardage number
under the foot, which is a mark associated with Winchester and Hendryx but
used later on H-I trade reels after they took over Winchester Repeating Arms Co.
in 19313. Those early reels bear the full name Allcock, Laight & Westwood, Co.
Limited, Toronto, in one form or another. Some of those early reels in the
authors collection are also marked Made in the USA, so obviously not made by
AL&W in Toronto.

2 Allcock, Laight & Westwood (AL&W) article by Patrick Daradick, Bob

Izumis Real Fishing magazine, November 2011
3 Research of Donald P Champion

Over the period 1923-1971, the catalogs studied show AL&W marketed a great
variety of reels under the AL&W name but without indicating whether AL&W
made them in their own manufacturing facilities or if they were third-party trade
reels marked AL&W. By a very thorough examination of the fishing reel sections
of every AL&W catalogue published in this time period, combined with a study of
dozens of examples of AL&W marked reels, it is this authors opinion that AL&W
did not make any of their own reels during the 1923-1971 period studied. At best,
they applied their name to generic trade reels or simply put them in boxes
marked to imply they were fully manufactured by AL&W, Toronto.
Astonishingly, most if not all reels marked AL&W in the 1923-1971 period studied
were not even made in Canada, despite AL&W promoting themselves as a
Canadian manufacturer of fishing tackle. Based on the 1923-1971 AL&W
catalogues reviewed and by examples in hand, it appears that the John InglisToronto made Shakespeare reels and the Victory line of fly reels made by Alcan 4
for AL&W are the only AL&W marketed reels we can be sure were made in
Canada. All of the other reels offered by AL&W, under the AL&W brand name,
appear to be recognizable American, British or Japanese trade reels (in later
years). Some of those AL&W reel designs are obvious - like well known
Shakespeare or Bronson reels but others less so, including early unmarked
single actions reels possibly made in England.
During the 1923-1971 period for which we have AL&W catalogs, the number of
pages dedicated to reels in each fishing tackle edition ranges in some years up
to 12 full pages. So AL&W marketed and distributed many, many reels.
Some of the well known reel making/marketing company names that appear in
the AL&W catalogs over this 1923-1971 period is quite lengthy and reads like the
Yellow Pages of 20th century reel companies, including but not limited to:
Allcock, AL&W, Bronson, Gayle, Hardy, Heddon, Hendryx, Horrocks-Ibbotson
(had Canadian operations but AL&W H-I reels not likely from Canada), InglisShakespeare (made in Toronto), Shakespeare, JW Young (including Allcock
brand), Malloch, Meisselbach, Milward, Mitchell, Montague, Ocean City, Penn,
Pflueger, Shakespeare, South Bend, Spiral Wind, Yawman & Erbe and Zebco.

4 Alcan is a Canadian mining company and aluminum manufacturer founded in

1902 as the Northern Aluminum Company Limited. In 1945 they officially
registered the trade name Alcan. The AL&W Victory Trout Reel Model No. 3912
was first listed in the 1948 AL&W catalogue. It bears a discreet Alcan maker's
mark and it may be one of the few reels sold by AL&W under the AL&W name
that was actually made by a Canadian manufacturer. The Inglis-Shakespeare
reels made in Toronto were not sold as AL&W marked reels.

Familiar names of famous third-party reels listed in pre WWII AL&W catalogs
(1923-1942) in order of appearance include: Featherlite, Ideal, Gem, Takapart,
Tripart, Okeh, Utica, Golden West, Hawkeye, Perfect, Altex, Supreme, Chief
Dowagiac, Akron, Altex, Winona, Intrinsic, New Criterion, Service, Gyrex, Norka,
Flickem, Progress, Sal-Trout, Sun and Planet, Nobby and many more.
So while some vintage tackle collectors may think that fishing reels in Canada do
not have a rich history, they would be mistaken. Reel products offered by AL&W
alone could make for a lifetime of reel hunting. Reels marked AL&W are
uncommon finds but there must be many of them still out there.
It was a disappointment to realize that AL&W didnt really make any of their own
reels and that only a few are even Canadian made but it is nice to know the
extensive list of reels uniquely marked AL&W that can be added to a reel
collection (now discoverable through the ORCA library thanks to Merrick Burr). It
is also nice to know that tough collectible old reels like Hardy Perfects and
Pflueger Golden Wests, for example, were sold in volume by AL&W and should
be findable across Canada almost as easily as in their countries of origin.
###
[Refer to pictures of AL&W reels and a few images excerpted from Catalog reel
pages]