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TAMBLYN, CHARLES ALLEN GORDON, pharmacist and businessman; b. 8 June 1878 in Belwood, Ont., son of Thomas James Tamblyn, a country doctor, and Emily Anna Thompson; m. 17 Sept. 1913 Edna Bessie Hurry (1889–1964) in Owen Sound, Ont., and they had two sons and two daughters; d. 18 Aug. 1933 in Toronto and was buried there in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

For much of the 20th century the Tamblyn name could be seen above the doors of drugstores across Ontario. The chain’s founder, Gordon Tamblyn, was born in Belwood, a small community in West Garafraxa Township, north of Guelph. His mother died when he was young and his father was soon remarried, to a woman named Catharine Annie Quarrie. He died when Gordon was a teenager. Following his elementary education in Belwood, Gordon attended high school in Guelph and Markham and decided to become a pharmacist. He was apprenticed to a druggist in Whitby but quickly realized that he should have a proper advanced education. In October 1899 Tamblyn enrolled in Toronto’s Ontario College of Pharmacy [see Robert Watt Elliot*], where he excelled, graduating the following May and winning a gold medal for proficiency. Afterwards he became a clerk with the Burgess-Powell Company, which operated a pharmacy on Yonge Street.

Tamblyn’s growing ambition, coupled with his strong work ethic and frugality, made it possible for him to open his own drugstore in 1904 at the corner of Lee Avenue and Queen Street East in what would become the Beaches neighbourhood of Toronto. The area, dotted with cottages, was on the city’s eastern fringe, but it was served by a streetcar line that brought throngs of people from downtown for summer relaxation. To cater to these crowds, Tamblyn installed a soda fountain, and he offered local residents a delivery service, often acting as the deliveryman. In a 1930 interview with the Toronto Daily Star, he would recall of his first pharmacy, “I was the entire staff, proprietor, clerk, furnace man and general handy man.”

The store’s name, “Tamblyn’s Cut Rate Drugs,” was the product of Tamblyn’s realization that it was most profitable to sell a high volume of goods at low margins. He insisted on neatness and order: the fountain’s immaculate appearance contrasted with those of the often-filthy fountains in other stores, and Tamblyn’s shelves were painted white and dusted twice daily. In a pioneering application of the self-service concept of retailing, the merchandise was arranged in tidy rows to allow shoppers to make their selections easily. Tamblyn also employed loss-leader tactics, selling featured items below his own cost to attract customers who would then purchase other items at regular prices. In 1906 he took on a partner, William Edward Corlett, who contributed $1,000 of capital to the business.

Tamblyn’s innovative measures met with success in the Beaches, and good profits permitted him to open a second location in 1907. Three years later he reached full stride and incorporated his business as G. Tamblyn Limited, naming himself president and Corlett vice-president. More ambitious than ever, Tamblyn sought to build a significant chain of drugstores. Conscious that relying solely on self-generated capital would result in agonizingly slow growth, he sold G. Tamblyn Limited in 1914 to United Cigar Stores (which was soon acquired by Imperial Tobacco); Tamblyn and Corlett continued to run the business. Locations were added almost every year, initially in Toronto and then elsewhere in Ontario. In 1928, unsatisfied with his arrangement with Imperial Tobacco, Gordon bought back the chain, formed a new company named G. Tamblyn Limited, and sold stock to the public while retaining a controlling interest.

Tamblyn’s high-volume purchasing power gave him some clout with suppliers, and he opened a warehouse to take advantage of market conditions and deal directly with manufacturers, bypassing wholesalers as much as possible. Tamblyn frequently visited his pharmacies to ensure that they upheld his meticulous standards relating to their tidiness, layout, and product display. Each outlet’s merchandise was tailored to suit the geographic location and regular clientele, but the appearance of the stores varied as little as possible, and they all featured the corporate colours of orange and green. Most customers enjoyed shopping in the sterile and brightly lit environment, but some found the experience uncomfortable and likened it to being in a hospital’s operating room. A strict boss who inspected the neatness and cleanliness of his employees, Tamblyn was also considerate towards them: he offered group insurance to workers and a pension plan to store managers, and he hesitated to lay off personnel when economic conditions were depressed.

In the early 1930s Tamblyn enjoyed dispensing wisdom to reporters and relished being described as the man who had introduced the chain store to Ontario drug retailing. (His contemporaries, Theodore Pringle Loblaw and William James Pentland, had taken the same approach in selling groceries.) Tamblyn had, in fact, built the largest pharmacy chain in Canada: an advertisement placed in the Star on 16 Aug. 1933 boasted that G. Tamblyn Limited operated 59 stores, with the “same cut prices from Windsor to Oshawa.” Two days later Tamblyn took time out to play golf, one of his few hobbies, at the Rosedale Golf Club in Toronto. On the seventh hole he complained of severe pains in the back of his head. He collapsed on the green shortly afterwards, having suffered a heart attack. He was rushed to the clubhouse and attended by two doctors, but their efforts were of no use: Tamblyn died minutes later at the age of 55.

Gordon Tamblyn was survived by his wife and four children. None of his family took a role in managing the business, which prospered after surviving the lean years of the Great Depression and the First World War. In 1946, reporting on the opening of Tamblyn’s third store in Ottawa, the Ottawa Citizen noted that the company was worth $2,750,000 and operated 61 stores in Ontario, along with laboratories and a warehouse in Toronto. The soda fountains of Tamblyn’s early days had disappeared, and the chain was focused on selling prescription and patent drugs, cosmetics, photography supplies, and tobacco products. In the early 1950s G. Tamblyn Limited expanded into western Canada, and around 1960 it was purchased by the firm founded by George Weston*. The chain entered the Maritimes in the mid 1960s, but it subsequently failed to maintain its market share across the country and many stores had to be closed. A British company, Boots the Chemists, purchased what was left of the chain in 1977 and soon ceased to use its brand name. The locations that had once belonged to Gordon Tamblyn eventually became part of Pharma Plus, one of the largest businesses of its kind in Canada.

Stephen Thorning