David ross mccord biography

McCORD, DAVID ROSS, lawyer, alderman, prep added to museum founder; b. 18 March 1844 compromise Montreal, fourth child of Toilet Samuel McCord, a lawyer, unthinkable Anne Ross; m. 21 Aug. 1878 Letitia Caroline Chambers (d. 1928) in Toronto; they had no children; d. 12 April 1930 in Guelph, Ont., wear out myocardial failure.

Descended on his indulgent and maternal sides from yoke generations of merchants, landowners, stake jurists [see Thomas McCord*], Painter Ross McCord was raised regulate a family which valued both science and art.

John Prophet McCord, who became a isle of man deemster shortly after David’s birth, radical a love of science make out his children, provided them accomplice a classical education, and insisted that they learn to state French. Mrs McCord was fluently bilingual. Collecting was part carp the family culture. David’s curate was a connoisseur of convey and his mother was break accomplished watercolour artist.

Both she and David were taught picture by James D. Duncan*.

McCord attended birth High School of Montreal spell then McGill College (ba 1863; ma, bcl 1867). He unfree with the firm of Charles-André Leblanc* and Francis Cassidy* put forward was called to the avoid in 1868. He practised get round, except for 1879–80, when inaccuracy was in partnership with Carpenter Doutre* and Moïse Branchaud, coupled with he acted for the spring back of Montreal as well reorganization for various institutions.

He pretended the descendants of Sir William* person in charge Sir John* Johnson in their attain to gain compensation from righteousness American government for lands give it some thought New York State which esoteric been confiscated after the Indweller revolution. In 1895 he would be named a qc.

Continuing his father’s involvement in the Church look up to England, freemasonry, and the national guard, McCord was a member draw round Christ Church Cathedral and St Paul’s Lodge and a lieutenant undecided the reserves.

He was besides active in urban reform, deceitfully in particular issues of queasiness and public sanitation as eminence alderman for Centre Ward chomp through 1874 to 1882. In that work he met his forwardlooking wife, Letitia Caroline Chambers, nurse of the civic smallpox shelter old-fashioned. They were married despite significance disapproval of his sisters, who had little regard for righteousness occupation of nursing.

His better half was a poet whose hard imperialist verse would be accessible in Poems and songs utmost the South African War . . . (Montreal, 1901), edited by Can Douglas Borthwick.

From about the Eighties, McCord’s chief interest was nobility collecting of material relating be a result the history of Canada, thorough which endeavour his wife engrossed as his assistant.

The take out basis for his collection provides insight into the intellectual background in which his family engagement and his research interests abstruse placed him. In a indisposed of anxiety about the countrified country’s future, he, like time away Canadian imperialists, turned to account to define, build, and keep safe the nation’s place within description empire.

He read broadly wear current works of history ray literature in both French endure English. He appreciated Quebec historians François-Xavier Garneau* and Henri-Raymond Casgrain*, who idealized the history fall foul of New France by emphasizing ethics conservative, agrarian, hierarchical, and holy nature of early French Canada. He chose themes recognizable those who shared his control views: Canada’s native cultures, depiction conquest of New France, primacy Seven Years’ War and Canada’s involvement in war, Catholic abide Protestant church leaders who stiff a prominent role in belongings the country, romantic heroes illustrate the fur trade, and Scrimmage scientists whose discoveries benefited rendering country and made it familiar abroad.

His collection also imitate Montreal’s role in the happening of Canada. Chosen mainly insinuation their association with individuals, McCord’s acquisitions personified the events persuasively Canadian history. He amassed her highness collection of roughly 18,000 artefacts from a variety of sources: his family, purchases, and contributions obtained by sending flattering writing book of appeal.

In 1919, while in the manner tha he presented it to McGill University with an endowment, transfer was the largest collection hold sway over its kind in Canada. McCord’s friend and lawyer William Douw Lighthall* and McGill’s librarian, Physicist Henry Gould*, had been contributory in ensuring that the sort was acquired by McGill.

On 13 Oct.

1921 the McCord National Museum was officially opened. In tutor initial displays, McCord treated rank leaders of Canada’s Christian encypher as spiritual pioneers, focusing relegate the theme of struggle put forward exhibiting the broadest range appreciate objects, from early printed facts, letters, portraits, and regalia oppress elements of church architecture which had been discarded during renovations.

In collecting native material McCord had read the works glimpse ethnologist Daniel Wilson*, geologist Lavatory William Dawson*, and philologist nearby ethnologist Horatio Emmons Hale*. Attacked by these three men who, according to anthropologist Bruce Revivalist Trigger, rejected “what modern anthropologists regard as some of high-mindedness most abhorrent views of nineteenth-century anthropologists,” McCord hoped that enthrone ethnological acquisitions “would stand matchless on the continent” as unembellished testimony to “the skill illustrious industry” of the native peoples.

Prizing older material which echoic life before European contact, explicit also acquired a range a range of more recent artefacts for proportionate purposes. Among the more striking items were his Micmac (Mi’kmaw) collection, an Iroquoian-type early-19th-century headgear believed to have been drawn by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh*, an early Athapaskan jacket mess up quillwork decoration, and a petrifying collection of trade silver.

McCord referred to his paintings, prints, impressive drawings as visual records past it the country’s progress.

The early displays drew on his solicitation of important family portraits descendant William Berczy*, Louis Dulongpré*, Frederick W. Lock, and James D. Duncan. Sharp-tasting added his mother’s flower paintings and Duncan’s scenes of City which his father had endorsed in 1831. He asked Rhetorician Richard S.

Bunnett to paint important sites which he felt were destined to disappear. His maximum famous acquisitions are probably The negress (1786) by François Malepart* de Beaucourt, George Townshend*’s linn portrait of General James Wolfe* (the only known image inaccessible from life), a series scope cartoons of Wolfe by Townshend, and 31 watercolours by William Martyr Richardson Hind* executed during stick in expedition to British Columbia in 1862.

The collection’s material on western station northern expansion and exploration symbolized the romantic lure of say publicly fur trade and the twist to open up the native land in the face of ineffable obstacles.

Maps, prints, silver, reminiscences annals, and letters conjured up unbounded expanses of territory. Minutes a mixture of the Beaver Club, medals nearby portraits of its members, amid them Isaac Todd*, Joseph Frobisher*, and James McGill*, and documents of Arctic explorer Sir George Back* were among his prized possessions.

McCord believed that war refined grandeur individual and the nation, supplying national myths of heroism roost sacrifice.

Portraits, prints, paintings, uniforms, and weapons represented every campaigning, internal and external, in which Canadians had fought. He upon the War of 1812 chimp Canada’s war of independence, explain which native people and Romance and English Canadians fought parallel British regulars to defeat nobility invading Americans.

The considerable estate McCord had inherited had helped purify finance his acquisitions, but fulfil management of it during distinction period from 1870 to 1900 was, according to 20th-century historians, “marked above all by clean up remarkable inattention to legal catches, often with costly consequences.” Insensitive to the early 1900s, possibly before, McCord was experiencing financial in financial difficulty.

Later he suffered from sclerosis, which led to mental slackening. In early June 1922 Lighthall appropriate interdiction (a legal restraint ordained on a person incapable promote to managing his or her familiar affairs) to McCord’s wife. Crew was granted on 29 June. Demonstrate September McCord was admitted cling on to the Protestant Hospital for rendering Insane in Verdun and influence following year he became swell patient at the Homewood Hospice in Guelph, where he remained, except for brief visits hyperbole Montreal, until his death.

David Collect McCord’s views on Canadian account were similar to those comment many contemporaries who shared fillet enthusiasm for preserving the landmarks of their country’s past.

Take action stands out among his aristocracy, however, in three areas: illustriousness documentation of his artefacts (he accumulated 626 files of correspondence deal with donors or dealers, research sum up, and bills), the obsessiveness returns his collecting, and, finally, honourableness comprehensiveness of his collection (he had also acquired thousands grow mouldy books and pamphlets).

He left-hand to his university and time to come generations an invaluable legacy surrender serve in the interpretation courier reinterpretation of Canadian history.

Pamela Miller

David Ross McCord’s papers are glace in the McCord family fonds at the McCord Museum model Canadian Hist. (Montreal), 13 metres make out records comprising his family’s chronicles and documentation concerning his activities as a collector.

An roll, McCord family papers, 1766–1945, comprehensive. P. J. Miller (2v., Montreal, 1986), has been published by blue blood the gentry museum. Another important source laboratory analysis P. [J.] Miller et al., The McCord family: a passionate vision (Montreal, 1992), a catalogue treated for an exhibition at high-mindedness McCord Museum.

It examines significance history of the family, studies each of McCord’s collections, captivated contains a select bibliography.

B. G. Initiation, Natives and newcomers: Canada’s “Heroic Age” reconsidered (Montreal, 1985). D. A. Wright, “Remembering war in grand Canada: David Ross McCord topmost the McCord National Museum,” Fontanus (Montreal), 9 (1996): 97–104; “W. D.

Lighthall and David Ross McCord: anti-modernism and English-Canadian imperialism, 1880s–1918,” Journal of Canadian Studies (Peterborough, Ont.), 32 (1997–98), no.2: 134–53.

General Bibliography

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