The Founding of Ajax

Photos by contributor Karl Jacob - December, 2010

Plaque Location

The Region of Durham
The Town of Ajax
At the northeast corner of
Harwood Avenue South (Road 44) and Kings Crescent
just south of Highway 401

Coordinates: N 43 51.034 W 79 01.235

Plaque Text

In 1941, the Government of Canada established a shell-filling plant operated by Defence Industries Limited on this site. During its peak production, over 9,000 people from across the country lived and worked at the operation. The company town consisted of 600 houses and support facilities, and together with the factory, covered 2,846 acres (1,152 hectares) of land. The community was named after the British ship HMS Ajax, which, with two others, defeated the German battleship Admiral Graf Spee at the Battle of the River Plate in 1939. After the Second World War, Ajax was the site of a temporary campus for a division of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Applied Sciences and Engineering, for thousands of returning veterans, until 1948. Under the administration of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the community continued to grow and attract new industries. Ajax was incorporated as a town in 1954.

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