Chapter 14: McGill University Will The most important act of his life, James McGill wrote his will. -- Canadian novelist Hugh MacLennan (1907-90) MacLennan, who was an English professor at McGill University from 1951 to 1981, was referring to late eighteenth- through early nineteenth-century Montreal business magnate James McGill''s pledge in his will to support the establishment of an institution of higher learning in Montreal to have the name "McGill." Some large donors give anonymously, not seeking credit; James wasn''t of this ilk. He was one of the earliest, maybe theearliest, financial benefactors of a university to make such a demand. One of Canada''s wealthiest businessmen, James McGill died in 1813 at the age of sixty-nine. His will didn''t provide an outright gift to establish the university; there were conditions. An ace at the art of the deal, James McGill regarded what he was doing as another deal in which he set the terms: my way or nothing. His strategy was "carrot and stick," a mixture of inducement and coercion.
His will promised that the province''s Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning would receive a large trust fund plus his forty-six-acre estate, "Burnside," at the foot of Montreal''s Mount Royal, as the site for what would be the first university in Montreal, but only if a college bearing his name was built within ten years of his passing. If this condition wasn''t met, everything would go to his stepson. The stepson, heavily in debt at the time of McGill''s death, threw every legal obstacle possible to prevent the condition from being met so that he would get the money and land. Adding to the acrimony was that the will said the university was to be an English-language one, irritating the stepson, a French Canadian by birth. It was a microcosm of the disharmony between the English and French in Montreal and elsewhere in Quebec. Two distinct cultures -- "Two Solitudes" as Hugh MacLennan titled one of his books -- at odds and vying for supremacy. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 6, 1744, James McGill was the son of a prosperous merchant. After graduating from the University of Glasgow, he immigrated to Montreal in the late 1760s and went into the fur trade, then added general merchandise to his business, dealing throughout Lower Canada (Quebec), including with the Indigenous First Nations, and also with the northern United States, the West Indies, and Britain.
He learned French to do business with French Canadians as well as English Canadians. On December 2, 1776, James married Marie-Charlotte Guillemin Trottier Desrivières. Although Desrivières was Catholic, like the majority of French Canadians, the couple married in an Anglican service, James''s religion. The daughter of a Montreal lawyer, Marie-Charlotte was the widowed mother of two boys, François-Amable and Thomas Hippolyte. James, who hadn''t had children of his own, was reported to have treated his stepsons well. Charlotte''s excellent social connections quickly helped James move into Montreal''s upper echelons, giving a boost to his business ventures. He served several terms as a justice of the peace and became a member of both the province''s legislative assembly and executive council. The family divided its time between a mansion James bought near Montreal''s Notre-Dame cathedral, convenient for the Catholic-worshipping Charlotte, and Burnside.
Since James had been born in Scotland, perhaps Burnside was named in honour of Scottish poet Robbie Burns (1759-96), "the national poet of Scotland." The home was described as "large and commodious" by contemporary visitors. The estate wasn''t a "gentleman''s hobby farm," as only seventeen acres of the estate were cultivated, and that was in the form of gardens and an apple orchard. James had more in common with stepson François, who shared his interest in business, than he did with Thomas, who instead was interested in military service. When old enough, François joined James''s firm and was soon appointed a junior partner. Later, he was promoted to a senior partner. Thomas was killed in a duel in 1799, leaving behind a young son named James McGill "Guy" Trottier Desrivières. James took Guy into his home and paid for his upbringing and education.
McGill gave considerable thought to his will. He sought advice from John Strachan, a schoolmaster and ordained Anglican minister who was rector of Cornwall, Ontario, and from Scotland, like McGill. Their friendship dated back to when Strachan had come to Canada in the 1790s after a short time in the United States, and McGill had befriended the new arrival. Further linking them was that Strachan had married the widow of James''s deceased brother Andrew, who''d also come to Canada from Scotland. Strachan was an enthusiastic supporter of university education affiliated with religion. In 1827, he was instrumental in the establishment of King''s College in Toronto, affiliated with the Anglican Church of England, and was its first president. He was also Toronto''s first Anglican bishop. When King''s College was secularized in 1848 and renamed the University of Toronto, Strachan, enraged that it no longer was religion-affiliated, started a privately operated Anglican-affiliated college nearby called Trinity College, which was federated with the U of T.
(Trinity would later become open to students of all faiths.) According to a record Strachan made of his conversation with McGill, he advised McGill: "Give by will some assistance for the future education of youth. It would be doing something to the glory of God and hand down your name with praise to posterity." McGill took up Strachan''s idea of endowing in his will the establishment of a university, but he didn''t accept Strachan''s concept of affiliating it with religion. It was to be a secular institution. The first half of McGill''s nine-page will, drawn up with his lawyer on January 8, 1811, dealt with bequests to individuals; the second dealt with the university. The first beneficiary named in the will was McGill''s "dear wife" Marie-Charlotte. She received £2,000 outright plus a life annuity of £600, payable half-yearly.
(Canada then used British currency.) François-Amable Desrivières inherited £23,000, extensive lands, and James''s gold watch. Guy received £5,000 cash and another £5,000 to pay for his schooling. James also willed money and land to nineteen other people and five charities. He then proceeded to his plan for a university. It was in two parts -- first the land, then the money -- both with the same four appointed administrators: Strachan; Montreal businessmen John Richardson and James Dunlop; and James Reid, a Montreal lawyer who would later become chief justice of Quebec from 1825 to 1848. All, like McGill, had emigrated from Scotland, had had great success, and were in the same upper society circle. Instead of simply stating who was to get his land, he embarked on a mammoth 268-word, twenty-six-comma sentence with mind-numbing legalese, including "give and devise," "appurtenances," "convey," "hereinafter," "for uses, intents and purposes," and "intuited.
" Boiled down to its essence, it said that Burnside was to go the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning for the erection of a "University College." But it wasn''t an outright gift; instead, McGill, ever a bargainer, said the institution had to build the college within ten years of his death and name it after him -- a first-of-its-kind combined demand in a will. The Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning at all levels of schooling had been established by provincial legislation in 1801 but didn''t get going until 1819. The convoluted wording was as follows: "The said Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning within the space of ten years to be accounted from the time of my decease do and shall cause to be erected and established upon the said tract or parcel of land a University or College for the purposes of education and the advancement of learning in the Province with a competent number of Professors and Teachers to render such establishment effectual and beneficial for the advancement of learning. The said College to be called McGill College." What a thicket of words! This was followed by the instruction that until a building was erected, his wife was to have "full use" of Burnside, and, on her death, this right would go to François-Amable. Further, if the university wasn''t built by the ten-year deadline, there would be no extension but, rather, the property would go to François and his heirs. Having dealt with the issue of land for a campus, McGill proceeded to the topic of money.
He allocated £10,000 from his estate to be held in trust, as with the land, by John Richardson, James Reid, John Strachan, and James Dunlop, with the money to be paid, plus interest on it accrued from three years after his death, to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, provided that the university or college had been erected in his ten-year time frame. The will decreed: "It is to be applied towards defraying the expense in establishing the said University or College and towards maintaining it." The will went on to say again that if the ten-year-date wasn''t met, the money was to go to François or his heirs, the same as would happen with Burnside. (£10,000 in 1813 would be worth close to Can$1 million today.)