Joseph Bloor was born in Staffordshire, England, in 1789, where he acquired his education and spent the earlier portion of his life. He married Sarah Lees of the same place, and in 1819 came to Canada and settled in the County of York with his family. He located in Toronto, where he kept an hotel on King Street, and a few years later purchased a tract of land in Yorkville, east of Yonge, and opened out the great thoroughfare in the north of the city which bears his name. He divided his land into lots and erected many private buildings, and also engaged in the brewing business for a period of twenty years. He held a magistrate's commission; in politics was strongly Conservative; and though in early life a member of the English Church, he subsequently identified himself with the Methodist Church, of which he proved a useful and earnest supporter, and contributed largely to the erection of the Bloor Street place of worship belonging to that body. After his death an appropriate slab was placed within the church to his memory by the congregation. Mr. Bloor was a member of the old Fire Brigade of York, and also of the St. George's society. At his death he left two daughters, Sarah and Eliza, the latter married M. W. Browne, of Hamilton. (vol. II, p. 11)
Bloor's Brewery was located in the Rosedale Valley Ravine, between Mount Pleasant Road and Sherbourne Street, on the south side of Castle Frank Brook. It was roughly 100 feet long by 60 feet wide and constructed in 1830 of red brick. The creek was dammed for water power and in the spring the pond so created stretched back almost to Yonge Street. This pond was much enjoyed in the summer for swimming and rafting and in the winter for skating. The road down to the brewery was also an excellent sledding track. In 1843 the brewery was bought by Mr. John Rose and renamed the Castle Frank Brewery. It was in operation until 1864 and demolished in 1875.
Dr. Jim Bloor
Lecturer in Cell & Developmental Biology
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Dr. Jim Bloor joined the Department of Biosciences in July 2002. He is a member of the Cell Biology & Development Group. The group is interested in how cells communicate and how extracellular signals are integrated at the level of the cytoskeleton. The interests of the laboratories span the establishment of cell-cell contacts through innexins, axonal growth and synaptogenesis, the role of molecular motors and other cytoskeletal proteins, such as spectrin, in cellular organisation and motility, and chaperone proteins that regulate the assembly/disassembly of the cytoskeleton. Jim uses the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model system to study the signalling and mechanical pathways that underlie many different sorts of biological movements including muscle contraction, morphogenetic cell sheets movements and cell migration. |
Education and Research Career
| 1990 | B.Sc., Biological Sciences, University of Leicester |
| 1997 | Ph.D, Developmental Genetics, Wellcome/Cancer Research UK Institute, University of Cambridge |
| 1997 - 2002 | Research Associate and American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellow, Developmental, Cell and Molecular Biology Group, Department of Biology, Duke University, North Carolina |
| 2002 - present | Lecturer in Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Kent |
Mr John Bloor –Doctor of Laws - Owner of Bloor Holdings, leading Midlands housebuilder with numerous subsidiary interests, including Triumph
Oration by Prof GR Campbell
John Bloor is an entrepreneur, perhaps the purest embodiment of the entrepreneurial spirit ever to have been honoured by this university. You could be forgiven for assuming that his surname was Bloor Homes, perhaps with a hyphen, because his name has become synonymous with his product, or at least the first of his two products.
Some entrepreneurs are given a head start in business and in life with expensive educations and readily accessible capital. John Bloor had no such head start, and whereas other successful businessmen succeeded in an endeavour that they have chosen or inherited, John Bloor has quietly built two successful empires. His father was a Derbyshire miner; John did not enjoy good health, and prolonged absences from school cost him much of his formal education. He left school at 15 and became a plasterer. He soon became an independent plasterer, and then built his first house. 35 years later, his company is one of the largest privately-owned house building companies in the UK, completing more than 2,000 homes a year, ranging from apartments to seven-bedroom luxury properties. This business has contributed significantly to the regeneration of the East Midlands.
Business has been good, thanks to the skills and energy and determination of Mr Bloor, and he has become wealthy. Some of the small group of entrepreneurs who are worth hundreds of millions of pounds are content to rest on their laurels, on the not unreasonable grounds that they will be able to pay the gas bill at the end of the month. Not so John Bloor, who as well as being a housebuilder is the man who revived the UK motor-cycle manufacturing industry, transforming it from a small, specialist cottage industry into a major export manufacturer.
The brand on which this revival was centred is Triumph Motorcycles. Triumph was once thought to be as cool as Harley Davidson, only faster. Steve McQueen rode one in The Great Escape, and Brando in The Wild One. In the 1970s, competition from the Far East saw the decline of this great company onto an oily scrapheap. The Meriden factory closed its doors early in 1983. The cash had simply run out and liquidation followed along with the sale of the company assets; the Meriden site was bulldozed into rubble in 1984 and houses built, though not by Mr Bloor. It seemed like the end of Triumph and, with it, the British motorcycle industry. Within months John Bloor bought the marque and rights from the receiver. Initially he licensed the Devon-based firm Racing Spares (which had previously made parts for Triumph) to build the final version of the Bonneville, which had been a central product since its launch in 1959. The purpose of this arrangement was to keep the Triumph marque alive, and this characteristically shrewd short-term measure gave John Bloor time to build a new factory and plan Triumph’s return to the world stage. The Triumph factory at Hinckley is now a major local employer, and in collaboration with factories overseas, manufactures more than 45,000 motorcycles a year. In spite of a fire that stopped production for six months, Triumph, in particular the Rocket, is back where it belongs. The Rocket III has been described by The Independent as the 'Sophie Dahl' of bikes. With the slogan 'Go your own way' and the advertising catchline, 'It wouldn't be so bad if it was another woman, at least I could compete', Triumph's build quality, brand and products are all now skilfully aligned. Honours include the naming of Triumph as British Brand of the Year and the award of an OBE to Mr Bloor for services to the motorcycle industry.
John Bloor has found ways of running profitable businesses that have benefits for the public. He has, for example, made it possible for many first-time buyers to own houses that could not be afforded with conventional finance. His most imaginative scheme is a deferred purchase arrangement which gives ownership (not shared equity) of 70 per cent of the price; the remainder can be paid when the property is sold. That is the sort of scheme that sells houses, and allows young graduates to buy houses. The same innovative thinking goes into the motorcycle business. A combination of efficient manufacturing (including parts commonality) and economies of scale has enabled Triumph to undercut the competition to the extent that one American review of the Speed Four (a reworked version of the TT600) described the price as ‘ridiculously low’ and the performance as sufficient to obliterate the budget blasters from the Far East. All of this is due to the skills of John Bloor, and we are proud that this University will hereafter be associated with him.
Life at the top of a business empire is not easy, especially when the business is centred in construction and manufacturing. Bloor Holdings continues to climb the rankings in the UK's top 100 companies, but times are hard, and in the latest year for which figures are available, none of Triumph’s directors, including John Bloor, drew a salary. As Triumph only exists because of John Bloor’s imaginative initiative, perhaps those who love the motorbikes should assist the company by buying a Bloor Home.
Mr Chancellor, on the recommendation of Senate and Council, I present to you John Bloor, that you may confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws.
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Bloor Websites
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