Cooey_final Back in Toronto in 1903, Herbert was confident enough to branch out on his own as a "Mechanical Expert and Practicing Machinist", opening a shop on the south-east corner of Queen & Spadina. His skills as a machinist and inventor brought business growth and a move to larger quarters. WWI brought government contracts, including one for folding peep sights for Ross rifles. This move to weapons design fitted well with Herbert's personal interests as he was a skilled shooter. Following the war the company produced his design of the Canadian Canuck, the first of a long line of rifles and shotguns. In 1924 the Cooey rifles exhibit was awarded a gold medal and certificate of honour at the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley, England. In the same year, Herbert was a member of the Canadian trapshooting team that won a silver medal at the 1924 Olympics in France. A 1922 Cooey advertisement boasted that "over 6,000 Canadians have purchased Canucks during the past twelve months"; the T. Eaton Co. Ltd. had a special "Eatonia" brand made, and soon serious expansion was required. A new story in the saga of the Tremaine Street factories began with arrival of the famous H.W. Cooey Machine and Arms Co. in 1929. That story lasted until 1970 when the whole operation, by then known as Winchester-Western (Canada) Ltd., moved to new premises on Brook Road North. H. W. (Herbert William) Cooey was born in Toronto in 1881 and at 15 began a three year apprenticeship with the Grand Trunk Railroad. However, before completing it he left to join his brother in Cleveland. There he got a job on an assembly line, a job he found so dehumanizing that it influenced the way he organized his own employees many years later. THE COOEY COMPANY Design & layout by Quench Design & Communications Inc. | Port Hope | www.quenchme.ca Herbert William Cooey Toronto Gun Club, March 2, 1920