[timeline_excerpt]Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona) was McGill’s chancellor from 1889 to his death in 1914 and one of the biggest donors in the history of the school. Perhaps most notably, in 1884, Smith made an endowment for $120,000, “on the condition that the standard of education for women should be the same as that for men […]
[timeline_excerpt]McGill was initially not a prestigious academic institution. The school’s infrastructure was decrepit, few courses were taught, and only a handful of degrees were conferred annually. Often instructors could not be compensated and resources like candles and fuel were scarce. These financial problems culminated in the 1850s when McGill buildings had to be evacuated due […]
[timeline_excerpt]William Wright (1827-1908) graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the age of 20, becoming the first Black medical doctor in British North America. He went on to teach at McGill for thirty years, co-founded and edited the The Medical Chronicle or Montreal Monthly Journal of Medicine & Surgery, and was the Chair of Pharmacology […]
[timeline_excerpt][content warning for racist language] James McGill (1744-1813) was a prominent Scottish merchant who made a fortune trading furs and other goods in the colonial New World. McGill’s will bequeathed £10 000 and his 46-acre Burnside estate to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning (RIAL), on the condition that they establish a college […]