Macdonald biography helps wrap up centenary celebrations

BY ALBERT KRAMBERGER

editor@transcontinental.ca

Considered to be McGill University’s

‘second founder’ after James McGill, Sir William C. Macdonald is finally the subject of a published biography which was launched Monday.

Historian William Fong’s new book, Sir William C. Macdonald — a biography (McGill-Queen’s University Press), was commissioned by the Macdonald Stewart Foundation to coincide with Macdonald College’s centenary. McGill’s Ste. Anne de Bellevue campus is home to its agricultural and environmental science departments

Although Queen Victoria is said to have once described him as the “greatest benefactor to education in the British Empire,” the biography is the first published one about Sir William C. Macdonald, Fong told The Chronicle in an interview. Fong said he focused on Macdonald the man, not just the institutions he founded or financed, which not only includes McGill but also ones in other provinces as well.

“I wanted to write about what he tried to do and why did he do it,” Fong said.

“He wanted to raise the standard of education in the country,” he added later.

Ironically, Macdonald’s formal education ended at age 15 when he decided to leave his father’s home in Nova Scotia and head out on his own.

Macdonald was “a very private man and didn’t leave many papers, so there wasn’t a lot of raw material (for a biography),” Fong said. “He also never married and didn’t have any children. So I guess he had lots of money for other people’s children’s

education.”

Fong said he relied on a ‘letter book’ with about 1,000 entries written by Macdonald and also some unpublished material written about him. The book also contains reprints of many historical documents and photos.

Macdonald’s philanthropic ways started in about 1885 and they lasted until his death in 1917, Fong said. Macdonald was a “self-made man” and his fortune was made in the tobacco industry, starting off, with his brother, selling flavoured chewing tobacco.

“At one point, he was Canada’s single most richest man,” Fong said.

“At the time of his death in 1917, he was the dominant tobacco manufacturer in Canada,” he added. “He was a very good businessman.”

He left his fortune to be used for educational purposes.

Meanwhile, Fong will be attending Macdonald College’s homecoming, which runs Oct. 18 to 21.ꅌ