biography
| name: |
Strathcona (of Mount Royal and of Glencoe), Donald Alexander Smith, Baron
|
pronunciation:
[strathkohna]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1820–1914)
|
| biography:
| Canadian businessman and statesman, born in Forres, Moray, NE Scotland, UK. Apprenticed to the Hudson's Bay Co in 1838, he worked as a fur trader, and became principal shareholder and governor of the company from 1889. He entered Canadian politics in 1870 as a Conservative, but withdrew his support during the Pacific Scandal (1873). Chief financier of the Canadian Pacific Railway (completed 1885), he became president of the Bank of Montreal in 1887, and returned to parliament the same year until 1896, when he was appointed high commissioner for Canada in London. Knighted in 1886, he was granted a peerage in 1897. |
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