Let them eat cake! It does sound yummy.

The Model Bakery in Cooksville opened relatively quietly in April of 1917. The property was owned by Emma Walterhouse and rented to Harry Fullwood, who had recently immigrated from England. The bakery was an immediate success, and became known for its pies, breads and exceptional cakes. And then it was gone. The building was razed by fire in November of 1917. Harry Fullwood returned to England that winter and it is not known what the next few years brought to him or his bakery aspirations. But in 1921 he was back. A new Model Bakery, at the same location, opened in March of 1921. It was on the north side of Dundas Street, just to the west of Hurontario Street. Things just took off from there, and Fullwood’s Cooksville Model Bakery became known far and wide.

Advertisement from the Toronto Daily Star, December 15, 1931.

So, who was Harry Fullwood? Harry May Fullwood was born on May 14, 1878 in Torquay, Southampton, England to Ellen and Benjamin Fullwood. His older brother was John Woodland Fullwood, and he had two much older half-sisters from his father’s first marriage. Harry went to a boarding school in London, England. In 1898 Harry married Martha Tonkin in Lambeth, London. Their first and only child, Claude Victor Guy Fullwood, was born in 1899, but sadly died young in 1908 at Guys Hospital in Croydon, Surrey. In 1901, Harry was living in Lambeth, in South London, where he was employed as an ornamental confectioner and baker. According to census records, Harry immigrated to Canada in 1907, and in 1911 we find him living on Peter Street in Toronto, boarding with Ella Walterhouse, and is employed as a baker. Harry’s wife does not seem to have joined him in Canada, although he travelled to England repeatedly in the 1920s and early 1930s, and she travelled to Canada at least twice, in 1927 and 1928, and in 1926 they travelled together to Australia. Martha passed away in 1935, and she was buried in West Norwood Cemetery in London, alongside her infant son, and with much of Harry’s extended family. Harry, however, remained in Canada.

Cooksville Model Bakery Ad, from the Port Credit News, April 5, 1928.

As mentioned, Harry had arrived in Canada in 1907, and by 1917 was in Cooksville. His connection with Ella Walterhouse in Toronto may have been the link that brought him to Cooksville – the Walterhouse family had long ties to the Cooksville area, and the home of his first bakery in Cooksville was rented from the Walterhouse family. After the fire, he was back up and running in a new building by 1921. Harry was, over time, ably assisted, by Nellie Walterhouse, Jesse Jones and Mary Bonhomme, likely amongst others. Advertising for the Cooksville Model Bakery highlight its Belgravia-style baking which encompassed a range of high-quality, artisanal baked goods and confectionery products, reflecting luxury, refined taste and high standards of baking.

The Cooksville Model Bakery grew in its repertoire over the following years, becoming known for fresh bread, mince pies, pastries, jelly rolls, butter tarts and souffles. In 1923 Harry Fullwood won a gold medal in London, England for his souffles, and repeated that feat in 1925 for his fruit cakes. In the summer of 1925 Harry added a tearoom, ice cream parlour and a refreshment parlour to the bakery, and by 1928 his Fullwood Fruit Cake was selling by the ton and shipping abroad, including to American markets. The Model Bakery’s refreshment parlour became a hub for community meetings and the planning committee for the Cooksville Fall Fair regularly met there. In 1929 the Bakery introduced large meat pies called Melton Mowbrays that became a hit. It is said that orders sent by mail piled up. As reference in Verna Mae Weeks’ book “Cooksville: Village of the Past” (1996), “It would be hard to find a person, near or far, who had not heard of Fullwood’s Fruit Cakes and Malton Mowbrays, shipped all over the world.”

A 1953 reference in The Port Credit Weekly newspaper recalled how Harry Fullwood had been a “baker for royalty”, but for the moment we have not found any other references for his possible royal service.

Obituary for Harry Fullwood, from The Toronto Daily Star, May 2, 1955.

Harry Fullwood retired in early 1955 due to ill health. He passed away at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto on April 29, 1955 having operated his bakery continuously between 1921 and 1955. According to his obituary, Harry was buried in Dixie Union Cemetery. He has no gravestone, and we have not yet located a picture of him. After his passing, Harry’s Cooksville Model Bakery quietly closed. The building briefly served as a shoemaker’s shop and was demolished in 1958. All that remains are the stories and fond memories of the delicacies that were once shipped far and wide.

If anyone has pictures of Harry Fullwood’s Cooksville Model Bakery, or of Harry himself, we would love to hear from you!