Corporate body

Armour & Ramsay

1835-1850

Armour and Ramsay was the leading Montreal printing and publishing company in the 1840s.

The printing and publishing firm of Andrew H. Armour and Company was formed in May 1831 by Robert Armour (1781-1857), a businessman and owner of the Montreal Gazette, and his son Andrew Harvie Armour (1809-1859). In May 1835, Andrew Harvie Armour terminated the partnership with his father and formed another with his brother-in-law, bookseller and publisher Hew Ramsay. The firm Armour and Ramsay acquired Robert Armour’s interest in the Montreal Gazette in May 1836, publishing it until August 1, 1843. Armour and Ramsay were the queen’s printers to the Special Council from 1838 to 1840. They sold the Montreal Gazette to Robert Abraham in 1843. During the 1840s, Armour and Ramsay were the leading booksellers in the Province of Canada, with branches in Kingston and Hamilton, and their business extended into the United States. They issued Armour and Ramsay’s literary newsletter and general record of British literature (1845). In addition, they manufactured ledgers, journals, and cashbooks and published the Presbyterian, established in 1848 as the organ of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland. After their partnership dissolved in 1850, Ramsay conducted the Montreal business until he died in 1857, and Andrew Harvie Armour conducted a Toronto bookstore until he died in 1859.