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.

Sir William Dawson’s grandson, John Eric Harrington (always known as Eric), was the oldest of the Harrington children. Born in 1877 in Pictou, Nova Scotia, he was a sickly child who suffered from a number of ailments, but it was probably tuberculosis that unfortunately killed him January 24, 1895, at the early age of 17, in the opinion of his physician uncle Rankine Dawson. Much of his mother, Anna Dawson Harrington’s time, especially during the early 1890s, was spent organizing the house in Montreal at 293 University (now 3641) around his needs, and traveling various place in hopes of healing him. He and his mother spent two months at Saranac Lake in the fall of 1894, but Edward Livingston Trudeau, the expert on tuberculosis at the time, declared his case “hopeless.” During his final months at home, the other children in the Harrington family were sent next door to their grandmother’s house when they became ill, so as not to expose Eric. Nevertheless, Eric seems to have been active in photography and sketching when he was feeling well. He also liked reading science journals, of which there were plenty at his grandfather’s home as well as his own. Some of the photographs in the McGill archives, mostly from an album with his name on it, were taken by Eric.