Building Canada

James McGill
McGill grad Robert Stanley Weir (Law, 1880) wrote the English lyrics to “O Canada,” and that’s just one of the ways that the University is woven into the everyday fabric of the national identity – dating back to even before Canada was a nation. The University’s founding benefactor, James McGill, prepared the Montreal Militia for combat during the War of 1812. Canada’s victory over the U.S. would help establish it as more than a British colony, setting the stage for establishing the Dominion of Canada in
Sir John William Dawson
Sir John William Dawson
1867. An early graduate of McGill, Thomas D’Arcy McGee (BCL1861), played a key role in Confederation by attending both the Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences in 1864. Fifteen years later, in response to the Governor-General’s decree that our young country needed to promote homegrown scientific research and development, McGill’s then-principal, Sir John William Dawson, became the founding president of the Royal Society of Canada. (His son, and McGill grad, George Mercer Dawson, took a different approach
Lord Strathcona
to establishing Canada’s identity during its infancy: he conducted extensive surveys of Western Canada as part of the 1872-1876 survey that determined the Canada-U.S. border.) At the same time, future Prime Minister John Abbot (BCL1847, DCL1867) organized a group of investors who would realize the national dream of a railroad uniting our sprawling country – and it was future McGill Chancellor, Lord Strathcona, who would drive the ceremonial last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway four years later.

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