Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal

Donald Smith, ca.1890

Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal , GCMG , GCVO , PC (born  August 6, 1820 in Forres , Scotland , † January 21, 1914 in London ) was a Canadian politician , diplomat , banker and entrepreneur . After emigrating to Canada, he worked for the Hudson's Bay Company as a fur trader for over three decades , then rose to become the main shareholder and eventually became the company's chairman. He was instrumental in the Canadian Pacific Railway and was President of the Bank of Montreal . From 1870 he was politically active at the provincial and federal level, from 1896 until his death he was Canada's High Commissioner in the United Kingdom . Smith was one of the most influential Canadian figures in the late 19th century.

biography

Hudson's Bay Company

Smith was born in Forres in northeast Scotland and received a commercial education there. Inspired by the deeds of his uncle John Stuart , he decided in 1838 to emigrate to Lower Canada . There he joined the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). He was initially stationed in Tadoussac and in 1843 was given the supervision of the Seigneurie Mingan in southern Labrador . His rather unconventional administrative methods displeased HBC Governor George Simpson , who particularly criticized the late delivery of the annual accounts. In 1846 the trading post burned down and Smith temporarily returned to Montreal .

Two years later, Smith was transferred to Hamilton Inlet on the east coast of Labrador, where he was promoted to chief trader (chief factor) in 1852 . He convinced HBC to invest in cargo ships and built a successful salmon canning factory. From 1862 Smith was responsible for all trading activities in Labrador. In 1865 he traveled to London and made a positive impression on HBC's board of directors. In 1868 he was appointed director of the Montreal office , which coordinated trade throughout eastern Canada. That same year, Smith founded the textile processing company Paton Manufacturing Company in Sherbrooke with his cousin George Stephen , Richard Bladworth Angus and Andrew Paton .

On behalf of the Canadian government, Smith traveled to the Red River Colony in what is now Manitoba in 1869 to negotiate with Louis Riel , the leader of the Red River Rebellion . He was able to get Riel to convene a 40-person meeting to examine the government's negotiating position in detail. He was able to secure the release of members of the radical Canadian Party , but could not prevent the execution of Thomas Scott by the Provisional Government. He returned to Ottawa in the spring of 1870 and was appointed President of the HBC Northern Territories Council, effectively administrator of the Northwest Territories, including Manitoba.

In August 1870, Smith accompanied Garnet Wolseley on his military expedition to the Red River Colony after the end of the rebellion (→  Red River Expedition ). Smith was interim governor until the arrival of Adams George Archibald on September 2. He stayed in the region and was responsible for handling the handover of the Northwest Territories previously controlled by the HBC to the federal government. Archibald appointed Smith to the provincial government of Manitoba on October 20, 1870, but the federal government immediately reversed this step because Archibald had exceeded his powers.

Political career

In December 1870, Smith was elected to the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, defeating John Christian Schultz in the constituency of Winnipeg and St. John . Since double mandates were still allowed at the provincial and federal level at the time, he ran for a lower house by- election as an independent conservative and won the Selkirk constituency . In Parliament, Smith mainly represented the interests of the HBC. In 1872 he founded the Bank of Manitoba with Hugh Allan . In the same year he was also appointed to the Temporary Council of the Northwest Territories, which lasted until 1876.

In 1873 there was a break with John Macdonald's Conservative federal government after the Prime Minister delayed paying compensation for Smith's previous expenses in the Red River Colony. In the vote of no confidence after the Pacific scandal became known , he voted against the government and helped bring it down. Manitoba abolished the dual mandate so that Smith gave up his seat in the provincial parliament in 1874. In the general election in 1874 , he easily beat Andrew Bannatyne - the Manitoba Free Press speculated that Smith had persuaded his friend and business partner to run in order to keep more serious competition away.

HBC named Smith in charge of real estate and property trading in 1873. He became increasingly interested in the development of the country by railways and in 1875 was one of the co-founders of the Manitoba Western Railway. He was also a partner in the Red River Transportation Company , which took control of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway in 1878 . In the general election in 1878 , he beat his rival Alexander Morris by only nine votes. Two Conservatives charged Smith with corruption, and two years later the Supreme Court found him guilty and removed his mandate from the House of Commons. He clearly lost the subsequent election, whereupon he retired from politics.

Business leader

Smith sets the symbolic final nail on the Canadian Pacific Railway on November 7, 1885

In February 1879 Smith resigned as director of the HBC, because he wanted to devote himself more to his own economic interests in the textile industry and in the railway sector, but remained a consultant. He also played an increasingly important role on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), which was still under construction at the time. He was a significant minority shareholder and owned a majority of several connecting lines in the east that were taken over by the Canadian Pacific Railway. He was only able to join the Board of Directors of the Canadian Pacific in 1883, as John Macdonald, who had become Prime Minister again in 1878, prevented his appointment several times. When the CPR was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1884, he used part of his private fortune so as not to endanger the completion of the route. On November 7th, 1885, he was therefore given the honor of setting the symbolic final nail of the Trans-Canadian railway line in Craigellachie . In the election of a new chairman of the railway company in 1888 he was defeated by William Cornelius Van Horne .

Through his diverse economic activities, Smith rose to become one of the richest men in Canada. From 1872 he was a member of the board of directors of the powerful Bank of Montreal . In 1882 he was elected vice-president and five years later president. He held this office until 1905. In 1889 he secured the majority of shares in the Hudson's Bay Company and was also elected chairman of this company. His attempt to take over the Toronto Globe newspaper failed in 1882. However, he took over the majority of the Manitoba Free Press eleven years later .

Smith ran again for the general election as an independent Conservative and was elected in the constituency of Montreal West . In 1891 he clearly beat his opponent, James Cochrane , who later became mayor of Montreal. He was still interested in the political life in Manitoba. During the conflict over the Manitoba school issue , he tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a compromise between Provincial Prime Minister Thomas Greenway and the federal government.

diplomat

Lord Strathcona (center) with George Bulyea (left) and Alexander Cameron Rutherford (right), 1909

In 1896 Smith received an offer from Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell to succeed him, but he declined. The office of head of government was taken over by Charles Tupper , who appointed Smith on April 24, 1896 as High Commissioner of Canada in the United Kingdom . Tupper's successor, the liberal Wilfrid Laurier , left Smith in his ambassadorial post in 1896, but restricted his powers.

In 1897 Smith was raised to the hereditary nobility and received the title of Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal . He worked closely with Home Secretary Clifford Sifton for a number of years to relax immigration regulations and thereby facilitate the settlement of Eastern Europeans on the Canadian prairies. Smith was a staunch supporter of imperialism and in 1900 offered the British government to equip a mounted unit at its own expense. The Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians) was first used in the Second Boer War and is still a regiment of the Canadian armed forces today. Smith was one of the founders of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909 and was its first chairman. Its relationships have made the company a major supplier to the Royal Navy .

philanthropist

Smith was a leading philanthropist in his later life and donated large sums of money to various organizations in the UK, Canada and other states. He made his largest donation together with George Stephen and thereby enabled the construction of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, which opened in 1893. A large sum also flowed to McGill University in Montreal, with Smith being instrumental in helping to open a school for women in 1884. In 1888 he was appointed chancellor of the university and held this largely ceremonial office until his death. The Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University in New Haven was generously supported by him , which is why he received an honorary doctorate in 1892. Smith was one of the sponsors of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914) of the Australian polar explorer Douglas Mawson , who named Mount Strathcona after Smith in thanks .

Namesake

Among other things, Smith is the namesake of Strathcona Provincial Park , the oldest of the "Provincial Parks" in British Columbia . The Strathcona High School in Edmonton, Canada also bears his name.

Web links

• Donald Alexander Smith . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• Donald Alexander Smith ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
• Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal - biographical information on the website of the Canadian Parliament (English)

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal 1897–1914	Margaret Howard