of the shares were held by Sir Joseph Flavelle, a prominent Toronto businessman. The company was the first Canadian food producer to establish its own chain of retail meat and grocery stores, the first major chain of food stores in Canada. By the 1880s, it operated 84 retail outlets across Ontario. The firm was quick to open stores in fast growing areas along streetcar lines; Flavelle was quoted as saying "where the trolley goes it fair to assume that we shall follow shortly." The company was particularly successful during the First World War. As a result of articles in the Canadian press suggesting that meat-packing plants were making excessive profits from the domestic market in wartime, the entire pork industry was the focus of much public outcry, including charges of excess profits and fraudulent meat curing practices. The managers of William Davies were routinely accused of being war profiteers and monopolists. The federal government established a Royal Commission by Order in Council in July 1917 to investigate both the William Davies Company and Matthews-Blackwell Company Limited (the firms later referred to in the commission's report as "the principal dealers in Canadian hog products in the English market"). In November 1917, after a series of hearings, the commission cleared the two companies of any wrongdoing, noting that any exceptionally high profits during the war were subject to the federal government's war taxes. Establishment of Canada Packers By 1920, the highly profitable wartime commodity markets had fallen, causing a rapid drop in prices. Food producers rushed to sell off inventory at reduced prices, causing prices to drop faster and further. The William Davies Company was "caught flat-footed" by the downturn, and was facing financial difficulties by the mid-1920s. The downturn in the pork trade led to a merger between William Davies Company, Gunns Limited and Harris Abattoir Co. (in which William Davies Company held a 40% share) in 1927. William Davies Company was the foremost among the merging firms. The newly merged entity was named Canada Packers, and constituted Canada's largest meat processing and packing company. Not only did the merger improve the financial position of the constituent firms, it also blocked entry into the Canadian market by U.S. firms. Eventually, the Canada Packers operations were consolidated, with the meat packing and abattoir functions relocating to Toronto's union stockyards in the west end of the city. The former William Davies Company facilities