Sir adam beck power station
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Stories from a Descendant of the Beck Family
Stories from a Descendant of the Beck Family – On June 20th, we celebrate Waterpower Day. This date and the Beck family symbolizes many things – first and foremost it was chosen because it is the birthdate of Sir Adam Beck. Sir Adam Beck was a Canadian politician and waterpower advocate who founded the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. His dream was to create a hydroelectric system, funded by the provincial government using water from Niagara Falls and other Ontario lakes and rivers to support electricity for all.
Sir Adam Beck I and II, two of the largest waterpower facilities in Ontario, located in Niagara, bear his name. Over the past year, since its inauguration, municipalities and communities across Ontario have proclaimed Waterpower Day. This day is an opportunity for the industry to raise awareness of the true value of the 224 facilities and thousands of workers producing one quarter of the province’s electricity supply. Waterpower is a renewable, reliable and affordable source of electricity that is e
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When Sir Adam Beck was born on 20 June 1857, in Baden, Waterloo, Canada West, British North America, his father, Jacob Friedrich Beck Esq., was 41 and his mother, Charlotte Josephine Hespeler, was 35. He married Lilian Ottaway on 7 September 1898, in Hamilton, Hamilton-Wentworth, Ontario, Canada. They were the parents of at least 1 daughter. He lived in London, Canada West, British North America in 1911 and Ontario, Canada in 1925. He died on 15 August 1925, in London, Ontario, Canada, at the age of 68, and was buried in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
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The sculpture of Sir Adam Beck
German Traces in Toronto
Adam Beck, child of German immigrants
The Adam Beck Memorial in downtown Toronto commemorates Sir Adam Beck, the founder of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. Beck was born in Baden, Ontario in 1857 to German immigrant parents.
In the earlier part of his life, he worked primarily in business – first in his father’s foundry, then running a cigar-box manufactory with his brother William in what is now Cambridge, Ontario. In 1884, they moved the business to London, Ontario, the centre of the provincial cigar industry. London became Beck’s base until his death.
Adam Beck Memorial in Toronto |© Goethe-Institut MontrealAfter getting married in 1898, Beck became much more involved in public life, eventually turning over management of his business to his other brother Jacob. He ran for mayor of London in 1902 and won, remaining mayor until 1904. His time as mayor was marked by reform, and he was quite a popular politician, becomi
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