The Allied Chemical & Dye Corporation, the precursor to Allied Chemical Canada, Ltd., was formed in 1920, an amalgam of five United States chemical companies established in the 1800s by Washington Post publisher Eugene Meyer and William Nichols of General Chemical.
In 1928, Allied opened a synthetic ammonia plant and quickly became the world’s leading producer of ammonia. After the Second World War, Allied began manufacturing other new products, including nylon 6, used in factories and a wide variety of consumer goods.
Allied Chemical Canada was created in 1958 with the consolidation of five Canadian owned subsidiaries, including: The Barrett Company; Brunner Mond Canada; National Analine & Chemical Company; The Nichols Chemical Company and Semet-Solvay. Headquartered in Montreal, Allied Chemical Canada’s plants served the country’s main industrial areas. Products included soda ash, calcium chloride, sulphuric acid, Genetron aerosols and fine chemicals. Allied Chemical Canada managed all Canadian business for Allied Chemical Corporation, while Allied Chemical International directed export sales and manufacturing interests outside of the US and Canada.
As this somewhat sombre 1972 Chemistry in Canada advertisement shows, pollution was a public and scientific concern at the time and Allied Chemical was obviously sensitive to this issue. In the early 1960s, Allied Chemical built a plant in Sarnia’s Chemical Valley for the production of toluene diisocyanate (TDI), one of the base raw materials for Canada’s polyurethane foam industry. This coincided with the rise of a nascent environmental movement, with Sarnia’s Chemical Valley becoming the subject of media attention over pollutants. This included mercury contamination in fish, which in 1971was traced to chlorine production from Dow Chemical of Canada in Sarnia.
In the 1970s, Allied Chemical Canada’s US parent company began investing in oil and gas exploration. It was renamed Allied Corp. and the company purchased Bendix Corp., an aerospace and automotive company in 1983. In 1985, Allied merged with the Signal Companies, adding to its aerospace, automotive and engineering material businesses. Later, Allied acquired Honeywell in 1999, opting to retain the Honeywell name for brand recognition. It is now headquartered at AlliedSignal in Morristown, NJ and boasts business interests in aerospace, chemical products, automotive parts and building controls.
Today in Canada, Honeywell delivers products, services and solutions to businesses, industries and consumers, employing more than 3,000 people from across the country. A Fortune 100 company, Honeywell invents and manufactures technologies to address challenges linked to global macro trends such as energy efficiency, clean energy generation, safety and security and globalization.