Lord Strathcona: Donald Smith (1820–1914)

Three labels are used:

• established: supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources.
• shared: the core fact is sound, but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation.
• traditional: widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The main source is Alexander Reford's entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (vol. 14, 1998). It is detailed, archive-based and critical. The Hudson's Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg publish a biographical sheet listing each of his posts with archive references. National Records of Scotland gives his entry in the Forres parish register and his Scottish estate inventory. The Canadian Encyclopedia, the Manitoba Historical Society, McGill University's archives and the Canadian War Museum fill in particular episodes. For context, T. M. Devine's To the Ends of the Earth (2011) places him among the Scots who ran the fur trade and the Montreal business world.

Strathcona's story was managed in his lifetime. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography records that he and his daughter suppressed passages about his wife's background in several biographies. Early lives were either admiring or, like Beckles Willson's, written with his help. W. T. R. Preston's The Life and Times of Lord Strathcona (1914) went the other way and insinuated that his fortune came from financial improprieties. Some popular stories about him, such as tales of his early quarrels with the HBC governor George Simpson, rest on these older books rather than on documents. Even his birth date differs between sources.

Forres

shared Birth. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography gives his birth as 6 August 1820 in Forres. National Records of Scotland, which holds the Forres parish register, gives 5 August 1820 and a baptism on 4 October. The register describes him as "lawful son to Alexander Smith, saddler, Forres" and names his mother as Barbara Stewart. Most Canadian sources use 6 August and the spelling Stuart.

established Family. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography calls his father simply a tradesman; the register shows a saddler. His mother's brother was John Stuart, a fur trader who had crossed the mountains with the North West Company and later rose in the Hudson's Bay Company. T. M. Devine, in To the Ends of the Earth (2011), names "John Stuart from Strathspey" as the first to traverse what is now northern British Columbia. Stuart's career is the reason the Dictionary gives for Smith's choice of the fur trade.

established School and a false start. Smith attended Forres Academy and was briefly apprenticed to the town clerk before choosing the fur trade. He sailed on 16 May 1838 and was hired at Lachine, near Montreal, as an apprentice clerk.

shared A Scot among Scots. The Hudson's Bay Company was run largely by Scots. Devine notes that by 1800 the company was "virtually an Orkney dominion" at the level of its labourers, while its "legendary elite" were mostly Scots-born, and he names Smith among those "who ruled the company in Victorian times". Between 1824 and 1870, 64 per cent of the company's employees were Scots-born. Smith rose from the bottom of a system in which Scottish birth was common and helped.

Thirty years in the fur trade

established The King's Posts. The Hudson's Bay Company Archives list his early postings. From 1838 to 1843 he served in the King's Posts on the lower St Lawrence and Saguenay, mostly at Tadoussac under William Connolly, with spells at Chicoutimi and Lake St John. He became a clerk in 1842. From 1843 to 1848 he was clerk in charge at Mingan, on the north shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence. The Mingan post burned in 1846. In late 1847 he went to Montreal to have his eyes treated.

traditional Simpson and Labrador. A popular story says that Smith left Mingan for Montreal without permission, and that George Simpson, the company's overseas governor, punished him by sending him to Labrador. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says only that Simpson rebuked him for untidy bookkeeping and late accounts, and that he went to Montreal to have his eyes treated. No documentary source for the punishment story has been found.

established Labrador. In 1848 he was sent to the Esquimaux Bay district, around Hamilton Inlet in Labrador. He reached North West River in June and managed the post at Rigolet. He was appointed chief trader on 7 April 1852, in charge of the district, and chief factor in 1862. The Manitoba Historical Society counts twenty years in Labrador, from 1848 to 1868.

established Isabella Hardisty. In Labrador he married Isabella Sophia Hardisty. She was the daughter of Richard Hardisty, an HBC officer, and Marguerite Sutherland. Marguerite was the daughter of John Sutherland, a Scottish HBC trader, and a Cree woman, Ann Noble. Isabella had earlier been married to James Grant "à la façon du pays", the custom of the country, in 1851, a marriage with no legal standing, and had a son. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says Smith held his own ceremony at North West River in June 1859 but generally used 9 March 1853 as the marriage date. Their only child, Margaret Charlotte, was born on 17 January 1854. In 1896 they married again formally at the Windsor Hotel in New York.

shared A hidden history. Isabella's Cree ancestry and her first marriage were sensitive in the society Smith later moved in. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography states that Smith and his daughter suppressed passages about her background in several biographies. The marriage lasted sixty years. Forres Heritage's 2019 talk on Strathcona listed "his marriage to a part native American woman" among its themes, a sign that the story is now told in his home town too.

Red River, 1869–70

established The commission. In 1869 the Hudson's Bay Company agreed to transfer Rupert's Land to Canada. The Métis of Red River, led by Louis Riel, resisted, set up a provisional government and blocked the new lieutenant governor. On 10 December 1869 Macdonald appointed Smith, by then head of the company's Montreal department, a special commissioner alongside Jean-Baptiste Thibault and Charles-René d'Irumberry de Salaberry. Smith reached Upper Fort Garry on 27 December and met Riel on 6 January 1870.

established The mass meetings. Smith spent much of his stay under a kind of house arrest at the fort. On 19–20 January 1870 he addressed large open-air meetings of the settlers, read his commission and set out Canada's intentions. The meetings led to the Convention of Forty, which drew up a list of rights and sent delegates to Ottawa. That process led to the Manitoba Act of 1870.

shared Bribes and a failure. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography records that Smith tried to free imprisoned members of the Canadian party using influence and bribes. The Manitoba Historical Society goes further: Ottawa officially counted the mission a success but privately considered it a failure, since his real task was "to bribe the rebels into submission". He persuaded Riel to spare one prisoner, Charles Boulton. His pleas could not save another, Thomas Scott, who was executed on 4 March 1870. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes his mission as successful in helping settle the terms of union. Historians sympathetic to the Métis see him as Ottawa's and the company's agent against them.

Politics

established Manitoba and Selkirk. In December 1870 Smith defeated John Christian Schultz for a seat in the new Manitoba legislature. On 2 March 1871 he was also elected to the House of Commons for Selkirk. He gave up the provincial seat in 1874 when dual mandates were abolished. He was the founding president of the St Andrew's Society of Winnipeg in 1871–72.

established The Pacific Scandal. In 1873 Macdonald's Conservative government was accused of taking election money from Hugh Allan, who wanted the Pacific railway charter. Smith, nominally a Conservative, voted against the government, which fell in November 1873. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography notes that the break followed Macdonald's failure to repay Smith's Red River expenses. Relations between the two men stayed cool for years.

established Unseated. In 1878 he won Selkirk by ten votes. He was unseated on petition in 1880 and lost the by-election that September. The Manitoba Historical Society notes that he "was often criticized for election corruption". He returned to Parliament in 1887 for Montreal West as an independent Conservative and retired in 1896. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography concludes that "in his political career Strathcona demonstrated poor judgement bred by indifference to the political process".

Railways and the last spike

established Minnesota first. In 1873–74 Smith, his cousin George Stephen, James J. Hill and others bought the bonds of a struggling Minnesota line, which became the St Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway. Smith became a director in May 1879 and held a fifth of its shares. The line made them rich.

established The Canadian Pacific. In 1880 the same group formed the syndicate that contracted to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Smith was left out of the published list of members, probably because of his quarrel with Macdonald. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry on George Stephen calls him "a valuable assistant to Stephen". He became a director in 1883. When money ran out in 1883–85, Stephen and Smith pledged their own shares and property to keep the work going. A federal relief bill of 20 July 1885 gave the railway enough money to finish.

established The last spike. At 9.22 am on 7 November 1885, at Craigellachie in the Eagle Pass of British Columbia, Smith drove the last spike. The Canadian Encyclopedia records that his first blow bent the spike, which was replaced, and he drove the second home. The general manager, William Cornelius Van Horne, said only: "All I can say is that the work has been done well in every way." The Calgary photographer Alexander Ross took the famous picture. Smith kept the bent spike; it was given to the Canada Science and Technology Museum in 1985.

shared Why Craigellachie? The Canadian Encyclopedia says Van Horne named the spot after a Clan Grant gathering place in Scotland, near where Stephen and Smith grew up, and links it to the battle cry "Stand fast, Craigellachie". A well-known story says Stephen once cabled Smith those words in the depths of the CPR's money crisis. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography entries on Smith and Stephen do not mention the telegram, so it is treated here as tradition.

The Bank of Montreal and the fortune

established Banker. Smith joined the board of the Bank of Montreal in 1872, became vice-president in June 1882 and president in 1887. He asked to be replaced in 1904 and was honorary president from 1905 to his death. The bank was closely tied to the CPR. He was also first president of the Montreal Safe Deposit Company and president of the Royal Trust Company, and invested in telephones and coal.

established Investor, not financier. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography calls him "an investor rather than a financier". He did not build industrial empires of his own; he put money into enterprises that others ran. By 1883 he was the largest shareholder in the Hudson's Bay Company, and in 1889 he was elected its governor. He held the post until his death; McGill's archive describes his tenure with the company as a record.

established Hudson's Bay Company governor. In the 1870s he had been the company's chief commissioner and then land commissioner, as its business shifted from furs to land sales. He was accused at the time of neglecting the fur trade, and he feuded with the company's land commissioner Charles Brydges. As governor from 1889 he presided over a company that was increasingly a land and retail business.

High Commissioner and peer

established London. On 24 April 1896 Smith was appointed High Commissioner for Canada in London, succeeding Sir Charles Tupper. He refused the $10,000 salary. He offered to resign in 1909 and again under Robert Borden, but both Laurier and Borden asked him to stay. He held the post until his death. (The Hudson's Bay Company Archives sheet gives his term as 1896–1911; the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and McGill both give 1896–1914.)

established The title. He was made KCMG in 1886, GCMG and a privy councillor in 1896, and GCVO in 1908. In 1897 he was raised to the peerage. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says he first chose the title Lord Glencoe, then adopted "Strathcona", a Gaelic variant, with Mount Royal added for Montreal. Because he had no son, a second peerage created on 26 June 1900 allowed the title to pass to his daughter and her male heirs. She succeeded him as Baroness Strathcona and Mount Royal.

Strathcona's Horse

established A private regiment. On 10 January 1900, during the South African War, Strathcona offered to raise a mounted regiment at his own expense. It was recruited entirely in western Canada, from Manitoba, the future Saskatchewan and Alberta, and British Columbia. Its commander was Sam Steele of the North-West Mounted Police. The Canadian Encyclopedia puts its strength at over 500 mounted riflemen, and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography puts the cost at over $1 million.

established Service. The regiment reached Cape Town on 10 April 1900. From June it served with General Redvers Buller's Natal Field Force. On 5 July 1900, at Wolve Spruit, Sergeant Arthur Richardson won the Victoria Cross for rescuing a wounded and unhorsed comrade under fire. In January 1901 King Edward VII presented the regiment's medals in London. Its successor is Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians), an armoured regiment of the Canadian Army.

shared Opposition. The regiment was popular in English Canada. French-Canadian anti-imperialists, led by Henri Bourassa, denounced a private citizen paying for troops in an imperial war.

Philanthropy

established Montreal. In 1887 Smith and George Stephen announced a gift of $1 million for a hospital to mark Queen Victoria's jubilee. The Royal Victoria Hospital opened on the slope of Mount Royal in 1893. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry on George Stephen records that each man gave $500,000 for the building and another $500,000 later for the building and endowment.

established McGill and women's education. Smith was chancellor of McGill University from 1889 until his death. In 1884 and 1886 he funded the Donalda Endowment, named after himself, to give women university education at McGill. He built Royal Victoria College for women, which opened in 1900 with a $1 million endowment. He also built and endowed McGill's Strathcona Medical Building, with chairs in pathology and hygiene, and gave $750,000 to the medical faculty.

established Elsewhere. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography totals his gifts and bequests at more than $7.5 million. They included $500,000 to Yale, $500,000 for the Strathcona Trust to fund physical training and cadets in Canadian schools, $150,000 for YMCA buildings in the West, and support for Wilfred Grenfell's medical mission in Labrador. In 1904 his gift allowed the University of Manitoba to hire its first six science professors. He was Lord Rector of the University of Aberdeen and one of its benefactors.

established Forres. Smith did not forget his birthplace. He offered £5,000 in 1888 for a cottage hospital in Forres and promised a further £3,000 in 1891 once the buildings were complete. Leanchoil Hospital, on St Leonard's Road, opened on 24 April 1892. Its buildings are listed by Historic Environment Scotland. Other local donors also contributed.

Glencoe and Colonsay

established The Highland laird. In 1894 Smith acquired the Glencoe estate in Argyll and built Glencoe House, a large mansion near the village. In 1904 he bought the island of Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides. National Records of Scotland's copy of his estate inventory describes him as late of Glencoe and Colonsay.

established After him. The Glencoe Heritage Trust records that in 1935 the Strathcona family sold most of the Glencoe estate, keeping a portion. Glencoe House became a hospital in the 1950s and remained one until 2008. The last part of the estate was put up for sale by his descendants in 2001.

shared Why Glencoe? Smith had no family tie to Glencoe. His home country was Moray, not Argyll, and his family were townspeople of Forres. The title reflects the estate he bought, not his ancestry. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography simply records that he chose "Glencoe" first and then the Gaelic variant "Strathcona".

Persian oil

established Anglo-Persian. William Knox D'Arcy obtained a sixty-year oil concession in Persia in 1901. BP's history records that the Concessions Syndicate, backed by Burmah Oil, was formed in 1904, that oil was struck at Masjid-i-Suleiman on 26 May 1908, and that the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was incorporated on 14 April 1909. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says Smith subscribed £50,000 in 1904 and became the new company's first chairman in 1909, a post he held until his death. Anglo-Persian became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and later BP.

Death

established London, 1914. Lady Strathcona died in London on 12 November 1913. Smith died at his house, 28 Grosvenor Square, on 21 January 1914, aged 93, and was buried beside her at Highgate Cemetery. National Records of Scotland holds the inventory of his estate, presented in Scotland in May 1914 with a corrective inventory in 1916. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography values the estate at $28,867,635 and records trusts worth more than $26.5 million.

The Scottish verdict

established What is Scottish. Strathcona was Scottish by birth, family and schooling. He was born in Forres to a Forres saddler and a mother whose brother was a Strathspey fur trader, and he emigrated at seventeen. His closest business partner, George Stephen, was a cousin from Dufftown. He kept up his Scottish ties: a hospital in Forres, gifts to Aberdeen, estates at Glencoe and Colonsay, and a title taken from the Highlands.

shared How to judge him. He is often presented as the model emigrant Scot who built Canada. Devine cautions that the "narrative of the enterprising, nation-building Scot" is part of Canada's national story and needs testing against the evidence, and that most Scots in Canada never joined the business elite. Smith did. His life shows how far the fur trade, the railway and the bank could carry a Forres boy, and it also shows the costs: to the Métis at Red River, to the politics he treated with indifference, and to the wife whose ancestry he hid.

• In Winnipeg, Donald, Smith and Strathcona Streets are all named after him, as is the Rural Municipality of Strathcona in Manitoba.
• His first blow on the last spike bent it, and he kept the bent spike as a souvenir.
• He refused the $10,000 salary of the High Commissioner for eighteen years.
• His wife's grandmother was Cree, a fact he and his daughter kept out of biographies.
• He and his cousin George Stephen each gave $1 million to found Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital.
• He paid for a whole cavalry regiment, Strathcona's Horse, for the South African War.
• The Forres parish register gives his birthday as 5 August; he and most Canadian sources used 6 August.
• At nearly ninety he became the first chairman of the company that became BP.

• Disputed: his date of birth. The Forres parish register, held by National Records of Scotland, gives 5 August 1820. Smith and most Canadian sources, including the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, give 6 August.
• Myth: Simpson exiled him to Labrador as a punishment. A popular story, not supported by the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, which records only a rebuke over his bookkeeping and a trip to Montreal to have his eyes treated.
• Disputed: whether the Red River mission succeeded. Ottawa called it a success in public. The Manitoba Historical Society says it was privately judged a failure, and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography records his use of bribes. Métis historians see him as an agent of annexation.
• Myth: Smith built the Canadian Pacific Railway. George Stephen led the syndicate, Van Horne ran construction, and Smith was a backer and director. His money and his credit mattered at the crisis of 1883–85.
• Disputed: the "Stand fast, Craigellachie" telegram. The Grant battle cry gave the last-spike site its name, but the story that Stephen cabled the words to Smith is not in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
• Disputed: how long he was High Commissioner. The Hudson's Bay Company Archives sheet says 1896–1911. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography and McGill say he held the post until his death in 1914.
• Myth: his wife was simply an HBC officer's daughter. Isabella Hardisty's mother was the daughter of a Scottish trader and a Cree woman, and Isabella had an earlier country marriage. Smith and his daughter kept this out of biographies.
• Disputed: his reputation. He is honoured as a philanthropist and nation-builder. Contemporaries accused him of electoral corruption, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography criticises his political judgement, and Preston's 1914 biography insinuated financial impropriety.