STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL, Donald Alexander Smith, 1ST BARON, Cana dian statesman : b. Forres, Morayshire, Scot land, 1820; d. 1914. After education in the preparatory schools of his native country, he went to Canada in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1838, where he spent 13 years on the Labrador coast, after which he was stationed in the great Northwest, where he was promoted to be a chief factor. Later he was named resident governor and chief commis sioner of the company in Canada. He first be came prominent in public life when appointed special commissioner by the Dominion gov ernment to investigate the insurrection under Louis Rid in 1869 at the Red River settlement. In 1870 he was elected to the Manitoba legis lature as member for Winnipeg on the organ ization of that province, and later on to the Canadian House of Commons for Selkirk. But owing to the passage of a law against dual representation he resigned from the local house in 1874. He was also appointed a mem ber of the Northwest Territorial Council. In 1880 he lost his seat in the Canadian House. He re-entered public life in 1887, as a member of the Dominion House, remaining there till 1896, when he was appointed to represent the Dominion of Canada in London as High Com missioner, a position he held until his death.
At the beginning of his political career he supported Sir John Macdonald, the conserva tive leader; but at the time of the Scandal" in 1873, he transferred his support to the Liberals. After 1878 he gave Macdonald independent support in his fiscal and railway policy. He was actively connected with many
industrial and commercial undertakings, but his name is particularly connected with railway development in Canada. The organization and success of the Canadian Pacific Railway is due largely to him. In 1886 he was knighted and in 1897 raised to the peerage as Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, and he was the recipient of many other favors and honors, among them degrees from a dozen universities. He was president of the Bank of Montreal (1887), gov ernor of Fraser Institute, and governor and chancellor of McGill University (1898) and of the University of Aberdeen (1903) and also Lord Rector of the latter institution. He was prominently connected with a long list of edu cational, religious and financial institutions. Lord Strathcona was a very liberal and ap preciative patron of art and his art collection is said to have been the largest and most varied possessed by any one person in Canada. His benefactions to education were extensive and widely distributed. He endowed the Royal Victoria College, Montreal, for the higher edu cation of women; gave over $1,000,000 to McGill University; about the same amount to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal; and he endowed chairs in numerous colleges. He gave $1,000,000 to the King Edward Hospital fund and was a liberal helper of other similar in stitutions.