John Osborn Williams
John Osborn Williams (28 March 1886 – 6 July 1963) was the owner of the logging and pit prop exporting business known as The Labrador Development Company limited based in Port Hope Simpson, Newfoundland and Labrador from 1934 to 1948. Early life Williams was born at 46 George Street, Cardiff, Wales, his parents' home, and was the youngest son of Silas and Mary Williams. He was one of eight children and known as "Jack" within the family. He left school at age 14 in 1900 and entered the timber exporting business. "Jayo" as he was usually known, like two of his brothers Hiram and Arthur, became a commercial clerk at the age of fifteen. The family's heavy industrial and clerical occupational experience was the background for at least two other logging, trading, and shipping agency companies he was to set up. In 1908, at 22 years of age, he moved to work for Evans and Reed, Cardiff coal exporters and importers of pit props. In 1914 during the First World War, he worked in the Baltic area, and in August of that year, he went to Montreal, spending September to December 1914 in Dominion of Newfoundland. From the end of