William C. Macdonald
| Sir William Macdonald | |
|---|---|
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| 4th Chancellor of McGill University | |
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In office 1914–1917 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
10 February 1831 Glenaladale, Prince Edward Island |
| Died | 9 June 1917 (aged 86) Montreal, Quebec |
| Education | Central Academy (later Prince of Wales College) |
| Occupation | merchant, tobacco manufacturer, and philanthropist |
Sir William Christopher Macdonald (10 February 1831 – 9 June 1917) was a Scots-Quebecer tobacco manufacturer and major education philanthropist in Canada.
Born William Christopher McDonald in 1831 at Tracadie, Prince Edward Island, he was sixth of seven children of The Hon. Donald Macdonald (1795-1854) and Anna Matilda (1797-1877), daughter of The Hon. Ralph Brecken. In 1772, as a consequence of the Jacobite Rebellion, Macdonald's paternal grandfather, John MacDonald of Glenaladale, the 8th laird of Glenaladale (of the MacDonalds of Clan Ranald), purchased more than 20,000 acres (8,100 ha) of land in Prince Edward Island for settlement 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. 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.
The Macdonald brothers moved to Canada where they settled in Montreal, 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.
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