The main program of the Montreal Physiological Society was to organize presentations, lectures and demonstrations. The donor of the fonds, Dr. Eleanor Clarke Hay was active in the Montreal Physiological Society until 1953.

The Montreal Parks and Playgrounds Association was founded in 1902 and incorporated in 1904 to preserve and promote parks, playgrounds and open spaces. In later years the Association was a Red Feather Service Unit within the Welfare Federation and the Montreal Council of Social Agencies. In cooperation with the latter, the Association launched the Community Garden League of Greater Montreal to provide garden plots to unemployed heads of families. From 1937 until its dissolution in 1961, the business of the Community Garden League was conducted through the Parks and Playgrounds Association.

In 1929 a group of Montréal musicians, thrown out of work by the Depression and by the introduction of sound into motion pictures, approached Douglas Clarke, Dean of McGill's Faculty of Music and asked him to form them into an orchestra and conduct them. Owing to the scores available in the Faculty, Clarke was able to do so, and thus began the Montreal Orchestra, the city's first permanent symphony. Loyal public response and Clarke's devoted leadership helped the Orchestra overcome initial difficulties. Besides their regular series, they also gave children's concerts as well as students' concerts at McGill. Many eminent soloists, including Prokofiev, Bartok and Percy Grainger, were guests of the Orchestra. The Second World War and attendant financial constraints forced the suspension of the Orchestra in 1943.

The Montreal Mendelssohn Choir was one of the longest-running musical institutions in Montreal in the nineteenth century. Formed in 1864 by eight choristers from Montreal’s Presbyterian community and directed by Joseph Gould (1833-1913), the Choir grew to include sixty-five members by 1880 and over one hundred in the early 1890s. It served as a musical club for the city’s prosperous English merchant and business classes, with an artistic mission that emphasized good singing of unaccompanied part-song repertoire. The Choir disbanded in 1894 and subsequently donated to McGill University the contents of its musical library in addition to 250 volumes of musical literature.