Sir William C. Macdonald: A Biography.

Ashley Thomson is a full librarian at Laurentian University and co-editor or co-author of nine books, most recently Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005.

The idea of picking up a biography about a man who made his money in tobacco may not immediately appeal to the average non-smoker. But what if it be known that William C. Macdonald himself abhorred smoking and that the business that had made him Canada’s richest man was, in many ways, a sideline to philanthropy, his main passion in later life?

Born in 1831, the sixth of seven children of Donald McDonald, himself a descendent of a prominent Catholic Scottish clan who had left the old country to settle on Prince Edward Island, early on Macdonald rejected much of his heritage. Temporarily settling in Boston and later and more permanently in Montreal, in 1858 he and his brother opened up McDonald and Brothers, a company that sold tobacco products. Much of the interest in this book is how Macdonald was able to grow this firm into the largest of its kind in Canada. Even today his trademark Scottish lass is with us on Export “A” cigarettes.

And yet, this is not just the story of one of Canada’s most successful businessmen; it is also the story of his passion for philanthropy. As a short, frugal, somewhat reclusive bachelor who had a falling out with his six siblings and their less-than-ambitious offspring, Macdonald focused most of his giving on various educational projects, most especially those connected with McGill University. In fact, this book appears in conjunction with the centennial of Macdonald College, which houses McGill’s Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

While Macdonald’s life is certainly worth examining, an article might have been a better vehicle than a book. The reason is that the primary sources on which it has been based are sketchy at best, and the end result in a padded, discursive text. As one of many examples, Fong provides an interminable listing of Macdonald’s individual donations—$500 for this, $1,200 for that, $15,000 for something else. That said, the book contains a large number of photographs and is printed on superior glossy paper—an extravagance that Macdonald himself, however, would not have approved of.