Donald Alexander Smith
| Donald Alexander Smith | |
|---|---|
| 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal; Lord Strathcona | |
| Born | 1820-08-06 Forres, Scotland |
| Died | 1914-01-21 London, England |
| Occupation | Fur trader, financier, railway promoter, politician, high commissioner |
| Father | |
| Mother | |
| Partner | |
Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal (6 August 1820 – 21 January 1914 (aged 93)), also known as Lord Strathcona, was a Scottish-born Canadian fur trader, financier, railway promoter, and politician who rose from apprentice clerk in the Hudson's Bay Company to become one of the wealthiest and most influential figures in Canadian history, driving the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885.[1]
Early life
Smith was born on 6 August 1820 in Forres, on Scotland's northeast coast, the son of Alexander Smith and Barbara Stuart. He attended Forres Academy before briefly apprenticing to the town clerk. Inspired by his uncle, fur trader John Stuart, Smith applied to the Hudson's Bay Company and arrived in Lower Canada on 16 May 1838.[1]
Career with the Hudson's Bay Company
Smith began as an apprentice clerk at Lachine before transferring to Tadoussac under William Connolly at a salary of £20 annually. He was promoted to clerk in 1842 at £100 per year and appointed to manage the Mingan seigneury in 1843. In 1848 he moved to the Esquimaux Bay district, eventually taking charge of the Rigolet post when chief trader Richard Hardisty went on furlough in 1852. He was promoted chief trader on 7 April 1852 and proved an enterprising administrator, developing salmon cannery operations and encouraging HBC investment in transport vessels. He was promoted chief factor in 1862.[1]
During his years in Labrador, Smith met Isabella Sophia Hardisty, the daughter of Richard Hardisty. Their daughter Margaret Charlotte Smith was born on 17 January 1854. Isabella had previously married apprentice clerk James Grant in 1851; the couple separated, and Smith conducted his own wedding ceremony with Isabella in June 1859, using 9 March 1853 as their official marriage date. They were formally remarried before lawyers in New York City on 9 March 1896.[1]
In 1865, Smith met his cousin George Stephen in Montreal, who was active as a textile and rolling-stock investor. Smith advanced to commissioner of the Montreal department in 1868. Together with Richard Bladworth Angus and Andrew Paton, they formed the Paton Manufacturing Company in Sherbrooke in 1868, and the following year Smith joined a syndicate including Stephen, Hugh and Andrew Allan, Edwin Henry King, and Robert James Reekie in the Canada Rolling Stock Company.[1]
Red River Resistance
On 10 December 1869, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald appointed Smith as a special commissioner to ease tensions following the HBC's transfer of Rupert's Land to Canada, which the Métis led by Louis Riel had resisted. Smith arrived at Upper Fort Garry on 27 December 1869 with Richard Charles Hardisty. He met Riel on 6 January 1870 and concluded direct negotiations would be fruitless; he instead addressed a public meeting on 19–20 January, conveying Macdonald's assurances about land confirmation and territorial representation. Riel proposed a forty-member convention and Smith invited a delegation to Ottawa on 7 February.[1]
When John Christian Schultz, Charles Mair, and Thomas Scott raised volunteers to overthrow Riel, most were captured near Upper Fort Garry on 15 February. Charles Arkoll Boulton and three others faced death sentences; Smith secured Riel's promise to spare Boulton in exchange for English parish support for the provisional government. Scott was nevertheless executed on 4 March despite Smith's intervention. Smith and Hardisty departed fifteen days later to report to Macdonald.[1]
HBC leadership and land development
Smith was appointed president of the Council of the Northern Department after William Mactavish resigned. In June 1870 he attended meetings at Norway House, then joined Colonel Garnet Wolseley's expedition in August. He briefly served as acting governor of Assiniboia until Adams George Archibald arrived, remaining as head of the Northern Department.[1]
A pivotal 1871 deed poll transformed the HBC's profit-sharing arrangements. Smith negotiated an agreement satisfying most wintering partners, earning the nomination as chief commissioner at £1,500 per year, with his own share excluded from the agreement. He led the HBC's transformation into a land and colonization company. In July 1873, the HBC separated fur trade and land operations, making Smith land commissioner; James Allan Grahame succeeded him as chief commissioner in 1874. He resigned as land commissioner on 25 February 1879.[1]
Governor Sir Stafford Henry Northcote periodically criticized Smith for neglecting the fur trade while pursuing land ventures, and chief factor William Joseph Christie reported negligent management to London. Despite this, Smith worked to become the HBC's principal shareholder, effectively achieving control by 1889 when he became governor — having risen over 75 years from the lowest to the highest rank in the company.[1]
Political career
Smith was appointed to the executive council of Manitoba on 20 October 1870 by Lieutenant Governor Archibald. He defeated Schultz for Winnipeg and St John in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly in late December 1870, and was elected to the House of Commons for Selkirk on 2 March 1871, re-elected in 1872. Though nominally Conservative, he spoke sparingly and became known as the "honourable member for the HBC."[1]
On 5 November 1873, Smith brought down Macdonald's government by pressing claims for Red River expenses while the government faced the Pacific Scandal. This permanently strained his relationship with Macdonald. Smith resigned his Manitoba provincial seat in January 1874. In 1878, he defeated Alexander Morris in Selkirk by ten votes but was unseated in 1880 following a corruption appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, and was defeated in the subsequent by-election, withdrawing from politics.[1]
Smith re-entered the House of Commons as independent Conservative for Montreal West in 1887 and was re-elected in 1891 with the largest majority in Canada. In February 1896, at Governor General Lord Aberdeen's urging, he attempted to broker an agreement between Manitoba Premier Thomas Greenway and Catholic leaders opposed to single non-denominational schools, but negotiations involving Father Albert Lacombe, Archbishop Adélard Langevin, and Greenway proved insufficient. In his final Commons speech on 19 March 1896, he urged passage of remedial legislation. When Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell resigned on 27 April 1896, he preferred Smith as successor over Sir Charles Tupper, but Smith declined. Tupper appointed Smith high commissioner on 24 April 1896.[1]
Railway enterprises
Smith's transportation interests developed through contact with St Paul businessmen James J. Hill and Norman Wolfred Kittson, the HBC's shipping agent since 1862. In 1872, Hill, Kittson, and Smith formed the profitable Red River Transportation Company. During 1873–1874, they began discussing acquiring the St Paul and Pacific Railroad, which had been under construction since the 1860s but was in receivership.[1]
In March 1876, Hill met Smith in Ottawa to finalize the partnership. Smith approached his cousin George Stephen, who consulted bankers J. S. Kennedy and Company and the Bank of Montreal. By March 1878, the syndicate controlled the railway and began building northward to the Canadian border, completing the border line in November 1878; the first train reached St Boniface on 3 December. The St Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad Company formed in May 1879 with Smith as director, holding one-fifth of shares — an investment that formed the foundation of enormous fortunes.[1]
In 1880, George Stephen began negotiations with Macdonald for the transcontinental railway contract. Smith's syndicate membership was widely known but unannounced, to respect lingering Conservative animosity toward him. He only officially became a CPR director in 1883 after Hill's resignation. During the financing difficulties of 1884–1885, Stephen and Smith pledged their homes, investments, and St Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba holdings as collateral, personally providing operating funds. On 7 November 1885, Smith drove the final spike at Craigellachie in a modest ceremony. When Stephen resigned the CPR presidency on 7 August 1888, Smith expected succession but the post went to William Cornelius Van Horne.[1]
In 1888, Smith and Stephen extended CPR reach into the United States by acquiring the Minneapolis, St Paul and Sault Ste Marie and the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic railways.[1]
Banking and corporate interests
Smith joined the board of the Bank of Montreal in 1872, becoming vice-president in June 1882 and president in 1887. He was appointed honorary president in 1905, serving until his death. He became first president of Montreal Safe Deposit Company (later Montreal Trust) in 1891, and assumed the presidency of Royal Trust Company in 1899. He sat on the boards of numerous financial, insurance, railway, and manufacturing companies.[1]
In 1893, Smith joined a syndicate led by Boston financier Henry Melville Whitney forming Dominion Coal Company Limited. In 1901, Smith and Stephen invested most substantially in Hill's expanding railway empire; when the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy combined into the Northern Securities Company Limited, Smith was the third largest shareholder after Hill and John Stewart Kennedy, holding 54,000 shares.[1]
Smith also invested in Canadian newspapers. In 1888, he loaned editor William Fisher Luxton money for the Manitoba Free Press; calling in the loan five years later, he took editorial control, removing Luxton and replacing him with a CPR publicity agent. He sold the paper to Clifford Sifton in 1898.[1]
High Commissioner
As high commissioner from 1896, Smith worked with Interior Minister Clifford Sifton to extend immigrant enticement networks through steamship agent bonuses, drawing German protests. Though provoking friction with Sifton, who appointed Liberal organizer William Thomas Rochester Preston to direct new London immigration offices in January 1899, Smith and Preston nonetheless established the North Atlantic Trading Company for emigration promotion before quickly clashing. Preston's eventual dismissal led him to publish The life and times of Lord Strathcona (London, 1914).[1]
Refusing the $10,000 annual salary, Smith tendered resignation in 1909 but was asked to remain by Laurier. On 30 June 1911 Laurier announced a replacement, but his government fell before the appointment was made. Smith offered resignation to Robert Laird Borden's government, was refused, and served as high commissioner until his death.[1]
South African War
In early 1900, during debates over Canadian participation in the Second Boer War, Smith offered to raise and equip a regiment at personal expense. Samuel Benfield Steele was selected to recruit and command the unit, which became Lord Strathcona's Horse. Equipping 28 officers and 572 non-commissioned officers cost over $1 million. Though praised by most, anti-imperialists including Henri Bourassa denounced the gesture.[1]
Persian oil
In 1904, William Knox D'Arcy approached Smith to head a Burmah Oil Company syndicate pursuing Persian oil. Smith subscribed £50,000, and participated in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company Limited — the embryo of what became BP — becoming its first chairman in February 1909. He held 30,000 of the company's 1,000,000 ordinary shares and played an active role in its establishment as a principal supplier of fuel to the Royal Navy, staving off amalgamation with Royal Dutch Shell and persuading the British government to acquire two-thirds of the shares. He remained chairman until his death.[1]
Philanthropy
Smith's philanthropic donations exceeded $7,500,000. In 1887, he and George Stephen announced $1,000,000 for the construction of a free hospital in Montreal, purchasing the Mount Royal site for $86,000; the Royal Victoria Hospital opened in 1893, and Smith endowed it with a further $1,000,000 in 1897–1898.[1]
His greatest benefactions targeted McGill University. On 11 September 1884, he endowed women's education at McGill with $50,000 for a separate two-year programme; McGill's first women students were styled "the Donaldas." He followed with $70,000 in 1886 to complete the Donalda Endowment, and in 1896 gave $300,000 for the construction of Royal Victoria College plus a $1,000,000 endowment. His daughter Margaret Charlotte Smith married Dr Robert Jared Bliss Howard, son of Dean Robert Palmer Howard, in 1888, deepening his connection to the medical faculty; lifetime medical faculty donations reached $750,000. He was elected chancellor of McGill in 1888 and served ceremonially until his death.[1]
Beyond McGill, Smith donated £50,000 to the University of Birmingham in 1899, $20,000 to the University of Manitoba in 1904, $500,000 to Yale University, and funds to universities in Aberdeen, Marischal College, and numerous other Canadian, British, and American institutions. At least fourteen universities awarded him honorary degrees. He served as rector of the University of Aberdeen from 1899 to 1902.[1]
Smith also funded the Strathcona Trust, which promoted cadet training and physical education in schools across Canada, growing to 40,000 cadet members by 1913. He donated $150,000 for YMCA buildings in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Nova Scotia, supported Wilfred Grenfell's Labrador and Newfoundland mission communities, and provided steamer vessels for that work. He was an early patron of the Boy Scout movement and a godfather to Robert Baden-Powell's son.[1]
Honours
Smith received the KCMG in May 1886 for his role in the CPR, and the GCMG a decade later. He was sworn to the Privy Council of Canada on 14 April 1896. In spring 1897, Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain informed him of peerage plans; when news leaked that he intended the title "Lord Glencoe," colleagues persuaded him to reconsider, and he chose "Strathcona." A second peerage was secured on 26 June 1900 permitting title passage to male heirs. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1904, received the Albert Medal for railway services, was appointed GCVO in 1908, and became a knight of grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in 1910.[1]
Death
Isabella Sophia Hardisty died in London on 12 November 1913. Smith died on 21 January 1914 and was interred with his wife in a mausoleum at Highgate Cemetery in London. His entire estate was valued at $28,867,635; he had established trusts exceeding $26,500,000 for heirs and successors.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 1.28 1.29 Alexander Reford."Alexander Reford, "SMITH, DONALD ALEXANDER," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14."[website].Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14 (University of Toronto/Université Laval).1998.University of Toronto/Université Laval.Link.(Rights: copyrighted | Access: open)