Penman Textile Mill National Historic Site

Penman Textile Mill was designated as a national historic site in 1989.

Commemorative plaque: will be installed at Penman Manor, 140 West River Street, Paris, Ontario^{Footnote 1}

Penman Textile Mill

This stately mill complex, along with other Penman Manufacturing Company mills on the Grand River and beyond, comprised the largest woollen knit goods producer in Canada during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. John Penman began manufacturing on this site in 1868 and constructed a new knitting mill in 1874, powered by the Nith River. Generations of mill families worked at this complex, which came to specialize in hosiery. For nearly a century, Penman’s No. 1 Mill was the pride of the firm. The surviving buildings illustrate a time when the Grand River Valley was the heart of the Canadian knit goods industry.

Penman Textile Mill

The Penman Textile Mill in Paris, Ontario, was the foundation of the Penman Manufacturing Company which grew from a single mill powered by the Nith River in 1868 to become the largest woolen knit goods producer in Canada by the end of the century. The textile industry in Canada was one of the earliest large employers of Canadian labour in a factory setting. When John Penman’s first mill burned to the ground in 1874, he constructed the four-storey mansard roofed brick mill building, which remains today along with two other mill buildings and an industrial smokestack. This site became known as Penman’s No. 1 Mill and was the pride of the firm. In 1887 Penman expanded operations in Paris with the purchase of an existing mill across the Grand River. These developments and the operations of other firms helped to make the Grand River Valley the heart of the Canadian knit goods industry.

In the early years, Penman’s mill on the Nith River produced a wide range of yarns and knitwear. Beginning with bales of raw cotton and wool fleeces, the company managed the creation of knit clothing from start to finish. The mill carded, spun, and wove wool and cotton, and manufactured stocking yarns, shirts, underwear, men’s and women’s hosiery (socks and stockings), and mitts. As the company’s mills became more specialized by the end of the 19th century, this plant became Penman’s No. 1 Hosiery Mill, focusing on socks and stockings. By 1913, the mill complex also included a paper box factory with a department for storage and shipping.

By the early 1890s, about a thousand employees worked in the company’s Grand and Nith River complexes. Penman acquired other mills in Ontario and Quebec and in 1906 the firm was sold and became Penmans Limited. From 1907 to 1928, Penmans brought to the town 700 British hosiery workers who became the core of the mill workers’ community. Most were unmarried women, recruited from Lancashire and Yorkshire for their skills with hosiery machines and knitted fabric. In the 1930s Penmans operated its Paris mills with day and night shifts, and the whistle indicating shift changes was a memorable feature of daily life. These workers and their employer significantly influenced the community’s culture and composition.

Closely linked to the Dominion Textile Company since the early 20th century, Penmans became part of that larger company in 1965. Five years later, the original mill on the Nith River was sold to Pride of Paris, a drapery manufacturing business. Sold again in 1995, the mill buildings were converted for various uses including as warehouses and offices. The three surviving buildings of the Nith River complex, the remnants of the Penman Textile Mill, were repurposed for housing in the early 2000s while preserving the integrity of the original exterior architecture.

This press backgrounder was prepared at the time of the plaque unveiling in 2024.

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