When I first heard of Barbara Dickson’s proposed book on the history of the A.W.S.C. Project No. 24, which was commonly referred to as the GECO Fuse-filling Plant or the GECO Munitions Plant, I was concerned. Was this author who had published several well-received romance novels about to produce a fictional romance story disguised as a documentary on GECO like some other recent works? Fearing this was the case, I prepared a memo that described my connection to GECO and the basic facts about its creation and operation. When the email of this memo was returned as undeliverable due to Barbara’s website having been closed, I was dismayed and suspected that the book was being published.
This was not the case, however, and when we heard that Barbara was trying to contact relatives of the Hamilton brothers of GECO, my wife contacted her and we responded by sending her my memo.
This led to further communications and an invitation for her to visit us at our residence in Montreal. On July 17, 2012, when we finally met Barbara and her husband, my fears were allayed. Her book was not romantic fiction but an earnestly researched documentary of the General Engineering Company and its wartime project in Scarboro.
Barbara Dickson grew up in Scarboro (Scarborough) and lives south of the southern boundary of the GECO Plant. For years she has been interested in the site and the wartime history of GECO, and in her research she has consulted the documents that my uncle, R.M.P. Hamilton, donated to the Ontario Archives.
R.M.P. Hamilton and his brother, P.D.P. Hamilton, my father, were the owners and operators of the General Engineering Co. of Canada.
As the current patriarch of these two families, which our Montreal relatives always referred to as the Toronto Hamiltons, it gives me great pleasure to see that Barbara Dickson documents and praises the wartime effort of the Hamilton brothers. To my knowledge no other publication has ever done this.
During our first meeting, we discussed my background, history, and my wartime personal contacts with GECO Munitions, from the ground-breaking in the spring of 1941 to working on decontamination prior to its closure in 1945. I was able to show her some artifacts from the plant. At that time I was impressed by the depth and extensiveness of her research and the openness of her attitude. I learned a great deal from her.
It was toward the end of this visit that she did me the honour of asking me to write this foreword. I demurred at first, saying that it would be unconventional to write a foreword to a book that I had not read! Some discussion ensued and she agreed to provide me with the Table of Contents and the first three chapters of the book. I agreed to think about it.
Later in the summer, after I had agreed to her proposal, Barbara, her husband, and her daughter paid us a visit at our country home in the Laurentians when she delivered the Table of Contents and the three chapters, as we had agreed. Here, I was able to show her more artifacts from the fuse filling and more documents concerning the General Engineering Co.
Readers should be aware that this foreword was written for a book of which I have read less than 10 percent of the content, and that content being a typed draft that had not undergone a publisher’s review and editing.
However, if this book is published and successfully documents the information described in the Table of Contents, it will provide a very readable and valuable account of a project and people that contributed to the winning of the Second World War.
Philip H.B. Hamilton
November 25, 2012