John Wilson McConnell

John Wilson McConnell (July 1, 1877 – November 6, 1963) was a Canadian businessman, newspaper publisher, humanitarian, and a significant philanthropist in the province of Quebec, Canada.

McConnell was born to a farming family in the Muskoka Region of Ontario. He left home as a boy of fourteen to find employment in the city of Toronto. His first job paid $3 a week but as an employee at Standard Chemical Co. he worked his way up to a management position that eventually led to a transfer to Montreal in 1901. The then 23-year-old for a time lived in a room at the Montreal YMCA, an institution that he would later thank through his volunteering to help lead a successful fund-raising campaign. In 1905, he married Lily May Griffith. They had four children.

Although he had very limited education, J.W. McConnell was a principled and brilliant business visionary with a strong work ethic. Within a few years, he turned his savings into sizeable investments and in 1912 he gained majority control of St. Lawrence Sugar, a company founded in 1879 to compete with Montreal's Redpath Sugar refinery. The sugar refinery was struggling at the time McConnell stepped in but, renamed St. Lawrence Sugar Refineries, Limited he turned it into a very profitable business and would retain ownership for the rest of his life.

During World War I, J.W. McConnell played a key role in helping organize war bond drives and his business skills were put to use by the Government of Canada that appointed him to the unpaid position of Director of Licences for the Wartime Trade Board. In the decade following the end of the War, he sought out more business opportunities and in 1925 he bought the publishing business belonging to Hugh Graham (1848-1938) that included the Montreal Star newspaper. Under McConnell's leadership, the newspapers and magazines flourished. An extremely wealthy man, the respect he earned in the Montreal business community led to invitations to sit on the Board of Directors of a number of major corporations including the Bank of Montreal, Canadian Pacific Railway, Sun Life Assurance, International Nickel Company, Dominion Bridge Company Limited, Holt Renfrew & Co Ltd, and Dominion Rubber Company. At the same time, in 1922 his increasing community work resulted in him being offered a seat on the board of management of the Montreal General Hospital. As well, he was made a governor of McGill University in 1927 and of the Royal Victoria Hospital the following year, both institutions benefiting greatly from his generosity.

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