Joseph Flavelle
Sir Joseph Wesley Flavelle, 1st Baronet was a prominent Canadian businessman.Life and career
Born in Peterborough, Canada West, he married Clara Ellsworth in 1882. By the 1890s, Flavelle had made his fortune in the meatpacking business as president of William Davies Company, which was the British Empire's largest pork packing firm. He subsequently became prominent in finance and commerce as chairman of the Bank of Commerce, National Trust and Simpson's department stores.
Flavelle was chairman of the Imperial Munitions Board during World War I, and it was for reorganizing the industry that he was awarded a baronetcy in 1917. His was the last hereditary title to be granted in the normal course to a Canadian citizen, due to the passage of the Nickle Resolution in 1919.
Upon his death in 1939, Flavelle left his Queen's Park mansion to the University of Toronto. It is now called Flavelle House and forms part of the Faculty of Law. He was succeeded in the Flavelle baronetcy by his son, Ellsworth.
