The 1670 royal charter, signed by King Charles II establishing Hudson's Bay, is shown on display at the Manitoba Museum.HO/The Canadian Press
The fate of the 1670 royal charter that launched the Hudson’s Bay Company, and played a pivotal role in the history of Canada, has now been officially decided – with a plan for the document to be shared among four public institutions receiving court approval on Thursday.
The 355-year-old parchment had been the subject of significant concern among historians, government officials and Indigenous groups since The Globe first revealed in April that Hudson’s Bay was considering putting it up for sale as part of its insolvency proceedings.
After a number of delays, the charter proceeded to a court-supervised auction last week, with the restriction that any successful bidder had to commit to keeping the historic document in Canada and in public hands.
An $18-million joint bid from two of Canada’s most prominent families, the Thomsons and the Westons, was deemed successful after no other qualified bidders stepped forward. Their plan is to donate the charter so it can be shared by four institutions: the Archives of Manitoba, the Manitoba Museum, the Canadian Museum of History and the Royal Ontario Museum.
Editorial: The value, and values, of the HBC charter
The plan also includes an additional $5-million donation to support the preservation of the document, which carries the wax seal of King Charles II, as well as consultations with Indigenous groups and other concerned parties about how its history should be presented.
“In light of the joint bid and potentially the increased purchase price, no one else wanted to participate in the auction,” Ashley Taylor, a lawyer representing the failed retailer, told the court on Thursday. The financial advisers running the auction, Reflect Advisors LLC, reached out to more than 150 potential buyers, he added.
Asad Moten, a lawyer for the Attorney-General of Canada, recommended the approval of the plan, adding that the significance of the document “cannot be overstated.”
“The royal charter has been in a dark box for the last six months, and in a corporate office for years before that,” Mr. Moten said, adding that the plan would have a positive impact on the public’s interest in the document.
Hudson’s Bay, Canada’s oldest retailer, has been selling off a number of assets in an effort to pay down part of the $1.1-billion debt that pushed it to seek court protection from its creditors in March.
The charter has been sitting in a protective crate, Mr. Taylor said, while the locked case in which it had been displayed in the Bay’s offices has been stored in a separate crate. Fragments of the royal seal are contained in a separate package also in the crate.
The four institutions will now engage the Canadian Conservation Institute to assess the document’s condition and provide recommendations on how it should be handled.
The winning bid came from DKRT Family Corp., the personal family holding company of Canadian businessman David Thomson, and Wittington Investments Ltd., the billionaire Weston family’s holding company. (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd., another holding company and primary investment vehicle for the Thomson family, owns The Globe and Mail.) The two families had previously submitted opposing bids for the document, before deciding to present a joint offer.
The 1670 royal charter was responsible for launching what was first called the Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson’s Bay. The Crown at the time granted the company a trading monopoly over a vast swath of territory covering nearly one-third of what is now Canada. Employing the Doctrine of Discovery, the document claimed ownership over lands and waterways not already controlled by a “Christian prince or state” – without the knowledge or consent of the people living there.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Peter Osborne told the hearing he was “gratified” with the results of the auction. The court regularly deals with asset sales and important documents, he said. “It’s not often, however, that we have to deal with a document that is 355 years old and one that has such importance to Canada and its people.”