Anna Lois Dawson, born in 1851 while her father was superintendent of schools in Nova Scotia, was the eldest daughter of John William Dawson, principal of McGill University from 1855 to 1893. She was schooled in 1861-1862 at the Establishment for the Education of Young Ladies in Montreal where she learned drawing from Mrs. and Miss Tate and in 1863, at Mrs. Simpson’s Ladies School; drawing and painting were interests considered appropriate for young ladies at the time and she excelled at them, earning first prize at the midsummer exam in 1867. She continued her art lessons in 1873 with a Mr. Bird at an art school in Toronto. She accompanied her mother and father on his first and only sabbatical in 1884 when they travelled to Italy, Egypt, and the Holy Land. In 1876 she married Bernard James Harrington (1848-1907), a chemistry professor at McGill who was a former student of her father’s. Anna bore nine children: Eric, Edith, William, Bernard, Ruth, Clare, Constance, Conrad and Lois. Two of them died young: Eric at age 17 and Edith at age eleven, and much of her time and energy was devoted to care of sickly Eric. Her youngest daughter, Lois Winslow-Spragge, became the first art teacher at Miss Edgar's and Miss Cramp's School for Girls. While her husband stayed in town in the summer, Anna went with the children to Little Metis where they had a cottage next to the Dawson’s house, Birkenshaw. During these summers, she made many sketches and watercolor paintings, giving each a date and title. Many of her landscapes, painted from 1869 to 1914, are in the McCord Museum now.

The rest of the year, the family lived in Walbrae Place adjacent to the McGill campus in a house built for them by her father, until 1893 when her father purchased the house at 293 University (now 3641) and also bought the house next door for the Harringtons. The two families were very close and after Sir William’s death in 1899, a passage was built between the two houses for better communication. She lived there till her death in 1917.

She helped her father with his correspondence especially in his later years and illustrated many of his geological books. After his death, in 1900 she jotted down five pages of notes of memories of her father (among the Anna Dawson Harrington papers in the McGill University Archives, MG 1022, container 64) hoping to enliven the manuscript of his rather impersonal autobiography. However, her younger brother Rankine was determined to publish it as written and it appeared the following year entitled “Fifty years of work in Canada: scientific and educational,” with his editing, sparking a family feud between Rankine and Anna, who was supported by her older brother George. This dispute is well documented in the family’s correspondence preserved in the Dawson Family Fonds in the McGill University Archives.

Bernard, a grandson of Sir William Dawson, was his father’s namesake, and the third of the Harrington sons. “Barney” grew up in Montreal with his eight siblings in the Harrington family home adjacent to the campus of McGill University, where his father taught and his grandfather was principal. As a young man, he went west and met Ethel Mary Jamieson, born in Northumberland, England, and who had immigrated to Canada in 1911. They were married in Vernon, B.C. in 1914. They moved to Salmon Arm. B.C. and had four children: Bernard (Billy) Lee, Clare Olive, Lois May and David Dawson. Bernard died in Victoria, B.C.

Bernard James Harrington, sometimes known as B.J., was born in 1848 in Saint Andrew’s (Saint-Andre-Est), Lower Canada, to which his great grandfather had immigrated from Massachusetts in 1805 and helped establish the first Canadian paper mill there. Poor eyesight meant that most of his early education was under private teachers, but he entered McGill University and graduated from there with a B.A. in Natural Science with first class honours in 1869 and obtained a doctorate in mineralogy with distinction from Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School in 1871, apparently the first Canadian to get a PhD from there. That summer he helped John William Dawson, McGill’s principal, with research on Prince Edward Island and then began his 36-year teaching career at McGill by lecturing in chemistry, mineralogy, and assaying. After also spending some time in Britain visiting smelting works in chief mining and manufacturing centres, he added metallurgy to the subjects he taught. In 1872, in addition to his teaching load, he was appointed as chemist and mineralogist to the Geological Survey of Canada (conveniently based in Montreal), a post he held till 1879. He received the David Greenshields chair of chemistry and mineralogy at McGill in 1883. Among his other responsibilities were as president of the Natural History Society of Montreal, and as president of the chemistry and physics section of the Royal Society of Canada in 1890. He is the author of a biography of Sir William E. Logan, the first director of the Canadian Geological Survey, and many scientific publications.

As for his personal life, in 1876, he married Anna Lois Dawson, daughter of McGill’s principal, and began a family, eventually to include nine children (Eric, Edith, William, Bernard, Ruth, Clare, Constance, Conrad and Lois), although two (Eric and Edith) died before adulthood. His modest salary as a professor meant that the family lived simply but with much help from the generosity of his father-in-law, who built them a house next to the campus in Walbrae Place where they lived until 1893 when Dawson bought a house at 293 University (now 3641) for himself and bought them another house next door. He also bought them a cottage next to Birkenshaw, his summer home in Little Metis.

Harrington was a lover of music, for which he had some talent: he was an editor and composer in the production of the McGill College Song Book (1885). His portrait by Robert Harris hangs in the MacDonald Chemistry Building, of which he was the first director from its opening in 1898 until his death in 1907.

Clare Margaret Harrington, born in Montreal, was the third child in the Harrington family after Eric and Edith (who died in 1890). In the years preceding the death of her brother Eric in 1894, although she was only a teenager, she increasingly took on responsibilities for her six younger siblings (Ruth, Conrad, Lois, Constance Eva, Bernard and William) and for managing the household while her mother and sickly Eric spent time in the country and at Saranac Lake in hopes of curing him. From her letters to her mother, it is clear that she is acting as a stand-in for her mother in caring for the little ones. Some of them even called her “Muddie” on occasion. She seems to have been a link between her parents and the children as well as the servants. It was Clare who communicated news of their health and behavior. She carefully followed her mother’s instructions such as making sure that the windows were kept open in the children’s rooms for proper ventilation even though the servants kept closing them. She undertook such responsibilities from hiring new servants and to buying Christmas presents for some of the children on behalf of her uncle, George Dawson. As she got older, she also was continually reporting on news of the health of her grandmother, Lady Dawson, and of Louisa Molson, a friend of the family, who in her old age moved in with the Harringtons, commissioning an addition to be built on their home on University Street. Anna, her mother, worried about her taking on too much, but she seems to have been tireless and capable.

Conrad was the second son of Anna and Bernard Harrington, born in 1884 in Montreal. To his sisters Clare and Ruth, and older brother Eric, many other siblings were soon added: Edith, Lois, Eva (Constance Eva), Bernard and William. The large family spent summers at Little Metis near to Birkenshaw, his grandfather’s home there. He was educated at Montreal High School and also attended the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. He earned his B.Sc. at McGill where his father taught and his grandfather was principal. He married Muriel Theodora Featherstonhaugh, a graduate of Trafalgar School for Girls. They had two sons, Conrad Featherstonhaugh who himself went on to become chancellor of McGill and Eric, named after his father’s older brother who had died young. Their daughter was named Janet Geraldine.

Conrad D. joined the Anglin Norcross Corporation Ltd. (then known as Byers and Anglin) in 1907 and eventually became vice president, having been the head of the corporation’s subsidiary branches in Quebec and Ontario. Some of the most important construction projects in Eastern Canada, including the Royal York Hotel and the Canadian Bank of Commerce Building in Toronto (both among the largest buildings in the British Empire at the time), as well as the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul in Montreal, the Supreme Court in Ottawa, and the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec, were built by his company. He was also a president of the Montreal Board of Trade and of the Canadian Construction Association. At McGill he was a Representative Fellow in Applied Science for a number of years, retiring in 1930 from that position.

During the war years he worked in civilian war service as a construction engineer and work at the Naval Training Centre in Halifax, N.S. and Dominion Arsenals in Quebec City was under his personal supervision. He resided at 24 Ramezay Road in Westmount until his death January 26, 1943.

Conrad Harrington, born in Montreal in 1912, was the son of Conrad D. Harrington and Muriel Theodora Featherstonhaugh. He was educated at Trinity College School in Ontario. He earned his B.A. in 1933, his B.C.L. in 1936 from McGill University, and he was called to the Bar of Quebec in 1936. During 1936 and 1937 he studied at the University of Besancon in France. Between 1937 and 1939 he practiced law in Montreal with Phelan, Fleet, Robertson & Abbott. From 1940 to 1945 he served in Second World War with the Royal Canadian Artillery. In 1945 he joined the Estates Department of the Royal Trust Company. In 1955 he became Supervisor of its Ontario branches, Vice-President of the Company in 1957, General Manager in 1963 and Executive Vice-President in 1964. He also served as Chairman of the Board and Executive Committee. In 1965 he was elected Director of the Royal Trust Company of Canada and later became an Honorary Director. A long time member of the McGill’s Board of Governors, Conrad Harrington was Chancellor at McGill University from 1976-1983, and in 1987 he was appointed Emeritus Governor. In 1984 he was awarded an Honorary LL.D. from McGill University. Dr. Harrington received several honorary awards such as Order of Distinguished Auxillary Service Award and Member of Canada (1986). His outside activities involve a number of business, charitable, education, health and religious organisations in Montreal, Toronto and nationwide such as Victorian Order of Nurses, the Salvation Army and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. He published numerous articles dealing with the Royal Trust Companies. He married Joan Roy Hastings in 1940.