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McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Macdonald, Archibald Chaussegros de Léry, 1862-1939
Archibald Chaussegros de Léry Macdonald, was the son of Antoine-Eustache Lefebvre de Bellefeuille MacDonald and Marie-Louise de Lotbinière Harwood. He was born in Montreal on 28 June 1862. A Montreal lawyer, business, historian, and collector, he became well known for his historical and genealogical publications. He received a classical education at the Collège Sainte-Marie before studying law at the Université Laval de Montréal. He married Marie-Louise-Dumontine-Augusta Globensky on 24 September 1884. The couple had five children. Macdonald was for some years the law partner of W. D. Lighthall. He acquired the rights to the Seigneurie of Rigaud in 1897. He also served as mayor of Rigaud from 1901 to 1904, and from 1910 et 1913. He died 21 May 1939 at the Hôpital Notre-Dame de Montréal.
MacDonald, E. Grant (Eric Grant), 1950-
MacDonald, James Ramsay, 1866-1937
James Ramsay MacDonald was born on October 12, 1866, in Lossiemouth, Scotland.
He was a British Labour politician. When he was fifteen, he left school to work on a farm, and after a few months, he was appointed a pupil-teacher at Drainie. In 1885, he began work as an assistant to Mordaunt Crofton, a clergyman in Bristol. During this time, MacDonald became involved in the Democratic Federation, which later became the Social Democratic Federation. In 1886, he moved to London, where he spent some time being unemployed before finding a job as an invoice clerk in the warehouse of Cooper, Box and Co. MacDonald was very interested in Scottish politics and helped found the London General Committee of the Scottish Home Rule Association. In 1888, he worked as private secretary to Thomas Lough, who was elected to Parliament in 1892. MacDonald also worked as a freelance journalist and delivered lectures on behalf of the Fabian Society. He became the Leader of the Labour Party (1922-1931) and served numerous terms in Parliament. MacDonald was the Leader of the Opposition from 1924 to 1929 and the first Labour Party Prime Minister from 1924 to 1935. As Prime Minister, he advocated for peace, raised unemployment pay, improved wages and conditions in the coal industry, and passed a housing act that focused on clearing slums. In 1935, he retired due to declining physical and mental health. In 1930, MacDonald was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Wales, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Oxford, McGill, and George Washington universities.
In 1896, he married Margaret Ethel MacDonald (1870–1911). He died on November 9, 1937, onboard the liner MV Reina del Pacifico, in the North Atlantic Ocean and is buried in Morayshire, Scotland.