Person

Strathcona and Mount Royal, Donald Alexander Smith, Baron, 1820-1914

1820-1914

Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal GCMG GCVOPC DL FRS was a Scottish-born Canadian businessman who became one of the British Empire’s foremost builders and philanthropists. At age sixteen he left school and emigrated to Lower Canada to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). In 1873, the HBC separated its fur trade and land sales operations, putting Smith in charge of the latter. He became commissioner, governor and principal shareholder of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He was president of the Bank of Montreal and with his first cousin, Lord Mount Stephen, co-founded the Canadian Pacific Railway. During his tenure on the board, Smith drove the last spike at Craigellachie, British Columbia, to complete the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway rail line.

Smith gained his wealth through investments in Canadian and American corporations and real estate transactions in the later part of the 19th century. As a financier, he was involved in (or founded) over 80 trust structures, including the Royal Trust and the Montreal Trust. He retained significant interest in the Hudson’s Bay Company throughout his life, and in 1889 became Governor of the company that had made his name. His seventy-five year tenure with the Hudson's Bay Company remains a record. His estate was valued at $5.5 million. During his lifetime, and including the bequests left after his death, he gave away just over $7.5 million plus a further £1 million to charitable causes across Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. He and Lord Mount Stephen purchased the land and then each gave $1 million to the City of Montreal to construct and maintain the Royal Victoria Hospital. He donated generously to many universities, chief among them McGill University, Aberdeen University and Yale University. At McGill, he started the Donalda Program for the purpose of providing higher education for Canadian women, building the Royal Victoria College on Sherbrooke Street for that purpose in 1886. He also built the Strathcona Medical Building at McGill and endowed its chairs in pathology and hygiene.

He was Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1896 to 1914 chancellor of McGill University (1889–1914) and Lord Rector of the University of Aberdeen. In accordance with the special remainder to the 1900 barony, his only child, a daughter, succeeded her father as Lady Strathcona.