William Christopher Macdonald
Encyclopedia
Sir William Christopher Macdonald (February 10, 1831 – June 9, 1917) was a Scots-Quebecer
tobacco
manufacturer and major education philanthropist
in Canada
.
, Prince Edward Island
, Macdonald was the sixth of seven children in a prominent Scottish
clan. He was a member of the branch of the MacDonald of Clan Ranald
and the grandson of one of the last lairds of Glenaladale in Scotland. His grandfather purchased more than 20,000 acres (80 km²) of land in Prince Edward Island for settlement in 1772 by more than 200 members of his Roman Catholic clan. Known today as the Glenaladale Settlers, in Canada the family name had been recorded as McDonald which he maintained until 1898 when he began using the historical Scottish spelling but without capitalizing the "d".
As a youth, Macdonald rebelled against the authoritarian rule of his father and his Roman Catholic upbringing. Although his mother was Protestant, Macdonald and his siblings were raised in the Roman Catholic faith. At the age of sixteen he renounced the church, choosing to become a non-practising Christian
. At eighteen he left his Island home, making his way to the United States
, where he found clerical work in Boston, Massachusetts
. Although he had limited education, Macdonald quickly showed an entrepreneurial spirit and, joined by his brother Augustine, he organized himself as a broker to handle the shipping of American-made goods to merchants in his native Prince Edward Island. However, after a ship carrying some of his merchandise sank in an ocean storm, the venture had severe problems and Macdonald closed the business and left Boston.
, Quebec
, a city that was then undergoing an economic boom. There, they made a living as brokers, earning commissions from the resale of a variety of products until 1858 when they opened McDonald Brothers and Co., a company that made tobacco products. The business procured tobacco leaf from suppliers in the southern United States that was converted to pipe and chewing tobacco at their small Montreal facility.
While the use of tobacco products was growing in popularity, the American Civil War
afforded the fledgling company an opportunity that brought enormous financial success, leading to Macdonald Brothers becoming the preeminent company in the field in Canada. Virtually all of the tobacco growers were located in states that were part of the Confederacy
and with the onset of the war, the northern states faced a huge shortage of tobacco leaf. Because Macdonald's company was in Canada, he was able to buy the leaf from the South and have it brought by ocean cargo vessels to Montreal. There, it was processed then the finished product was shipped to the tobacco-starved market in the northern United States.
In 1870, he provided the funding for ten scholarships to McGill University
, a program that continues to this day. However, this marked only a small beginning of the massive funding he would bestow on the university where he would serve on the Board of Governors for more than thirty years. His generosity paid for the cost to construct buildings at McGill University to house new chemistry and physics departments, and, jointly with fellow Montrealer Thomas Workman
, the engineering building. In each of these cases, for a time, Macdonald even bore the faculty costs for the new departments as government funding was limited. When the university's engineering building burned down, Macdonald paid the costs to rebuild it. That building was named in his honor. As a result of these expanded facilities, the university began to establish an international reputation that would attract the likes of Ernest Rutherford
to teach and where he did the work which earned him the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
.
When real estate developers purchased the property at the southwest corner of the University campus to build a hotel, Macdonald stepped in and bought the property at a premium then gifted it to the university. However, to ensure McGill was not subjected to other unwanted commercial development that would limit the university's future growth, he purchased and donated 25 acres (100,000 m²) north of the main campus which became the site for Molson Stadium
, the gymnasium, and Douglas Hall.
Macdonald's love of nature and rural life led to his establishing a new type of specialized school in cooperation with Dr. James W. Robertson, the then Commissioner of Agriculture and Dairying for the Government of Canada
. Built in Quebec, the Maritime Provinces and Ontario
, and aimed at those wanting to make their living in rural agriculture environments, these school's curriculum included manual training programmes, domestic sciences, and horticulture. Concurrently, Macdonald established a training fund for agricultural teachers but this first interest in agricultural studies soon led to the creation of his most important legacy. From fellow Montreal businessman Robert Reford, in 1904 Macdonald purchased three farm properties in an area on the western end of Montreal Island known as Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue
. On the 300 acres (1.2 km²), he planned and built Macdonald College, an agriculture training institute. Constructed in 1905-06 and opened in the fall of 1907, the large multi-building facility's entire construction and furnishing costs were funded entirely by Macdonald who also provided a $2 million operating endowment. In his will, he left the College a further $1 million for the operating fund. It is now part of McGill University and houses its Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, and the McGill School of Environment.
Macdonald was one of the major stockholders in the Bank of Montreal
and served on its boards of directors. Beyond his philanthropic gifts for education purposes, he also donated substantial funds to the Montreal General Hospital
. Just as rural life was important to him, so was the city and he served as a volunteer director of the Montreal Parks and Playgrounds Association. Named President and Chancellor of McGill University in early 1914, Macdonald also provided funding to create McGill University College of British Columbia
which ultimately became the University of British Columbia
.
in Montreal. A proponent of bilingual
ism, his will established travelling fellowships for the McGill University Faculty of Law that paid the costs for English-speaking Quebec lawyers to study the French language and the history of the French Civil Code in France. The money Macdonald donated to philanthropic causes was unparalleled in the history of Canada yet despite his wealth and good works, he remained a humble man who avoided publicity. Deeply proud of his Scottish heritage, the image of a Scottish lass has adorned the packaging of Macdonald tobacco products for nearly a century. However, Macdonald personally disliked tobacco and admitted to feeling ashamed that he made a living from such a business. Five years after his passing, his company expanded its facilities to the mass production of cigarettes.
A lifelong bachelor, Macdonald bequeathed his tobacco company to Walter and Howard Stewart, the two sons of company manager David Stewart. The company remained in the Stewart family until 1973 when David M. Stewart (1920-1984) sold it to the American tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
and used the proceeds to establish the Macdonald Stewart Foundation for charitable causes. Macdonald and/or the Macdonald Stewart Foundation funded the following facilities at McGill University:
Scots-Quebecer
The Scot-Quebecers , are Quebecers who are of Scottish descent.-Background:Few Scots came to Quebec before the Seven Years War. Those who did blended in with the French population...
tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
manufacturer and major education philanthropist
Philanthropy
Philanthropy etymologically means "the love of humanity"—love in the sense of caring for, nourishing, developing, or enhancing; humanity in the sense of "what it is to be human," or "human potential." In modern practical terms, it is "private initiatives for public good, focusing on quality of...
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Early life and career
Born William Christopher McDonald in TracadieTracadie, Prince Edward Island
Tracadie is a Canadian rural community in Queens County, Prince Edward Island.It is located southwest of Mount Stewart.The name Tracadie, which is of Mi'kmaq origin, means "ideal camping location"....
, Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island is a Canadian province consisting of an island of the same name, as well as other islands. The maritime province is the smallest in the nation in both land area and population...
, Macdonald was the sixth of seven children in a prominent Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
clan. He was a member of the branch of the MacDonald of Clan Ranald
Clan Donald
Clan Donald is one of the largest Scottish clans. There are numerous branches to the clan. Several of these have chiefs recognised by the Lord Lyon King of Arms; these are: Clan Macdonald of Sleat, Clan Macdonald of Clanranald, Clan MacDonell of Glengarry, Clan MacDonald of Keppoch, and Clan...
and the grandson of one of the last lairds of Glenaladale in Scotland. His grandfather purchased more than 20,000 acres (80 km²) of land in Prince Edward Island for settlement in 1772 by more than 200 members of his Roman Catholic clan. Known today as the Glenaladale Settlers, in Canada the family name had been recorded as McDonald which he maintained until 1898 when he began using the historical Scottish spelling but without capitalizing the "d".
As a youth, Macdonald rebelled against the authoritarian rule of his father and his Roman Catholic upbringing. Although his mother was Protestant, Macdonald and his siblings were raised in the Roman Catholic faith. At the age of sixteen he renounced the church, choosing to become a non-practising Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
. At eighteen he left his Island home, making his way to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where he found clerical work in Boston, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. Although he had limited education, Macdonald quickly showed an entrepreneurial spirit and, joined by his brother Augustine, he organized himself as a broker to handle the shipping of American-made goods to merchants in his native Prince Edward Island. However, after a ship carrying some of his merchandise sank in an ocean storm, the venture had severe problems and Macdonald closed the business and left Boston.
Tobacco enterprise and the American Civil War
The Macdonald brothers moved to Canada where they settled in MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, a city that was then undergoing an economic boom. There, they made a living as brokers, earning commissions from the resale of a variety of products until 1858 when they opened McDonald Brothers and Co., a company that made tobacco products. The business procured tobacco leaf from suppliers in the southern United States that was converted to pipe and chewing tobacco at their small Montreal facility.
While the use of tobacco products was growing in popularity, the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
afforded the fledgling company an opportunity that brought enormous financial success, leading to Macdonald Brothers becoming the preeminent company in the field in Canada. Virtually all of the tobacco growers were located in states that were part of the Confederacy
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
and with the onset of the war, the northern states faced a huge shortage of tobacco leaf. Because Macdonald's company was in Canada, he was able to buy the leaf from the South and have it brought by ocean cargo vessels to Montreal. There, it was processed then the finished product was shipped to the tobacco-starved market in the northern United States.
Postbellum career and philanthropic activities
At the end of the Civil War, the company continued to prosper and by the early 1870s, it had more than five hundred employees. During this period, Macdonald bought out his brother's stock position and soon began using the great wealth he had earned to undertake philanthropic endeavors.In 1870, he provided the funding for ten scholarships to McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
, a program that continues to this day. However, this marked only a small beginning of the massive funding he would bestow on the university where he would serve on the Board of Governors for more than thirty years. His generosity paid for the cost to construct buildings at McGill University to house new chemistry and physics departments, and, jointly with fellow Montrealer Thomas Workman
Thomas Workman (politician)
Thomas Workman was a Quebec businessman and political figure. He represented Montreal Centre in the 1st Canadian Parliament and Montreal West from 1875 to 1878 as a Liberal member....
, the engineering building. In each of these cases, for a time, Macdonald even bore the faculty costs for the new departments as government funding was limited. When the university's engineering building burned down, Macdonald paid the costs to rebuild it. That building was named in his honor. As a result of these expanded facilities, the university began to establish an international reputation that would attract the likes of Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson OM, FRS was a New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics...
to teach and where he did the work which earned him the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
.
When real estate developers purchased the property at the southwest corner of the University campus to build a hotel, Macdonald stepped in and bought the property at a premium then gifted it to the university. However, to ensure McGill was not subjected to other unwanted commercial development that would limit the university's future growth, he purchased and donated 25 acres (100,000 m²) north of the main campus which became the site for Molson Stadium
Molson Stadium
Percival Molson Memorial Stadium is an outdoor football stadium located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada...
, the gymnasium, and Douglas Hall.
Macdonald's love of nature and rural life led to his establishing a new type of specialized school in cooperation with Dr. James W. Robertson, the then Commissioner of Agriculture and Dairying for the Government of Canada
Government of Canada
The Government of Canada, formally Her Majesty's Government, is the system whereby the federation of Canada is administered by a common authority; in Canadian English, the term can mean either the collective set of institutions or specifically the Queen-in-Council...
. Built in Quebec, the Maritime Provinces and Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, and aimed at those wanting to make their living in rural agriculture environments, these school's curriculum included manual training programmes, domestic sciences, and horticulture. Concurrently, Macdonald established a training fund for agricultural teachers but this first interest in agricultural studies soon led to the creation of his most important legacy. From fellow Montreal businessman Robert Reford, in 1904 Macdonald purchased three farm properties in an area on the western end of Montreal Island known as Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue
Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec
Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue is a town located at the western tip of the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is the second oldest community in Montreal's West Island, having been founded as a parish in 1703...
. On the 300 acres (1.2 km²), he planned and built Macdonald College, an agriculture training institute. Constructed in 1905-06 and opened in the fall of 1907, the large multi-building facility's entire construction and furnishing costs were funded entirely by Macdonald who also provided a $2 million operating endowment. In his will, he left the College a further $1 million for the operating fund. It is now part of McGill University and houses its Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, and the McGill School of Environment.
Macdonald was one of the major stockholders in the Bank of Montreal
Bank of Montreal
The Bank of Montreal , , or BMO Financial Group, is the fourth largest bank in Canada by deposits. The Bank of Montreal was founded on June 23, 1817 by John Richardson and eight merchants in a rented house in Montreal, Quebec. On May 19, 1817 the Articles of Association were adopted, making it...
and served on its boards of directors. Beyond his philanthropic gifts for education purposes, he also donated substantial funds to the Montreal General Hospital
Montreal General Hospital
The Montreal General Hospital is a hospital in Montreal, Canada, established on May 1, 1819 and an early teaching hospital. First located on the corner of Craig and St-Lawrence Streets with only 24 beds, it moved in 1822 to a new 72-bed building on Dorchester Street. It is currently situated on...
. Just as rural life was important to him, so was the city and he served as a volunteer director of the Montreal Parks and Playgrounds Association. Named President and Chancellor of McGill University in early 1914, Macdonald also provided funding to create McGill University College of British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
which ultimately became the University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
.
Legacy
Macdonald died in 1917 and was interred in the Mount Royal CemeteryMount Royal Cemetery
Opened in 1852, Mount Royal Cemetery is a 165-acre terraced cemetery on the north slope of Mount Royal in the borough of Outremont, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The burial ground shares the mountain with the much larger adjacent Roman Catholic cemetery -- Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges...
in Montreal. A proponent of bilingual
Bilingualism in Canada
The official languages of Canada are English and French, which "have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and Government of Canada" according to Canada's constitution...
ism, his will established travelling fellowships for the McGill University Faculty of Law that paid the costs for English-speaking Quebec lawyers to study the French language and the history of the French Civil Code in France. The money Macdonald donated to philanthropic causes was unparalleled in the history of Canada yet despite his wealth and good works, he remained a humble man who avoided publicity. Deeply proud of his Scottish heritage, the image of a Scottish lass has adorned the packaging of Macdonald tobacco products for nearly a century. However, Macdonald personally disliked tobacco and admitted to feeling ashamed that he made a living from such a business. Five years after his passing, his company expanded its facilities to the mass production of cigarettes.
A lifelong bachelor, Macdonald bequeathed his tobacco company to Walter and Howard Stewart, the two sons of company manager David Stewart. The company remained in the Stewart family until 1973 when David M. Stewart (1920-1984) sold it to the American tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company , based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and founded by R. J. Reynolds in 1875, is the second-largest tobacco company in the U.S. . RJR is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc...
and used the proceeds to establish the Macdonald Stewart Foundation for charitable causes. Macdonald and/or the Macdonald Stewart Foundation funded the following facilities at McGill University:
- Macdonald Campus - until 1971 known as Macdonald College.
- Macdonald Engineering Building
- Macdonald-Harrington Building
- Macdonald-Stewart Library Building
- Stewart Biological Sciences Building
- Macdonald Park (The land on which several buildings including the Molson Stadium, McConnell Arena, Currie Gymnasium and upper campus residences are located)