=Brock, William Rees=, the late, was born on February 14, 1836, in the Township of Eramosa, near Guelph, Ontario. His father Thomas Rees Brock, was of an ancient English family who were landed proprietors near Colchester in the County of Essex. His mother was Eleanor Thompson, daughter of Thomas Thompson, of Rusheen, Queen’s County, Ireland. The young couple, aged respectively 17 and 21 years, were married at the Parish Church in Guelph and after the ceremony rode on horseback to their new home five miles away in “the wild woods.” After a few years of life on the farm Mr. Brock was persuaded that a man of his education and attainments could do better in the town and he removed to Guelph where he held several appointments as Town Auditor, Secretary of the School Board, Superintendent of the Government Road and Surrogate Court Clerk. In the fall of 1850, while out shooting in the woods, he was accidentally shot and died at his residence, Park Place, a few days afterwards, aged thirty-eight years, leaving his widow with nine children surviving. The stone house he built on the York Road is still standing. The subject of this sketch was the second child and eldest son. He immediately left the Guelph Grammar School and went into the law office of the Hon. Ferguson Blair, where he remained about a year, deciding to enter commercial life, in which he achieved so conspicuous a success. His first employment was in a general store in Caledonia. About 1854 he located in Toronto, being engaged with Scott & Laidlaw. He married on the 23rd of September, 1857, Margaret Anna, second daughter of Captain John Segur Diamond, formerly of Clonenagh, Queen’s County, Ireland, who came to Canada in 1834, and served through the rebellion of 1837 as Adjutant of the 2nd Gore Regiment. Capt. Diamond was at one time in the Royal Irish Constabulary and after his arrival in this country was engaged in business with Colonel Chisholm, of Oakville, and others, as lumbermen and vessel owners. He had died some nine years previously to his daughter’s marriage. After his marriage, Mr. Brock went into business in Guelph, but later sold out and entered the service of McArthur & Co., of Bowmanville, where he remained about four-and-a-half years, subsequently went to Ogilvy & Co., Montreal, wholesale merchants, was English buyer for that firm for some years; was made a partner and came to Toronto in 1871, and opened Ogilvy & Company’s Toronto branch. In 1877, in partnership with his brother, J. H. Brock, he started the business of W. R. Brock & Brother, at the corner of Bay and Wellington Streets, Toronto. In 1879 a partnership was formed with Messrs. F. Wyld and H. W. Darling, as Wyld, Brock & Darling. Mr. Darling retired in 1883, and Mr. Wyld in 1887. The firm of W. R. Brock & Company was turned into a joint stock company in 1897. The Montreal branch was started in 1899, and the branch at Calgary in 1905. Besides being President of the W. R.