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Sir William Dawson,
C. M. G., M.A., L.L.D., F.R.S.,
Principal of McGill University
1855-1893
In his new home James Dawson soon prospered as a merchant and ship-owner, and later as a publisher, and in a few years he was head of one of the most successful business firms in Eastern Nova Scotia. In 1818 he married Mary Rankine, a Scotch girl from Lonerig, in the parish of Salamannan, who had emigrated to Nova Scotia after her parents' death with her brother William, the only other member of her family. Like the other pioneers of that time, they, too, were resolved to make a new home and to restore their shattered fortunes in the new world. To James Dawson and Mary Rankine two children were born, William and James, the latter of whom died while still a boy.
William Dawson was born in the town of Pictou, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, on October 13th, 1820, and there he received his early schooling. His parents believed in the value of education. Early in his career they determined that he should have whatever school privileges the country provided, and that he should later receive a college training. Many years afterwards he wrote: “To this day I cannot recall without deep emotion the remembrance of the sacrifices they made, and of the anxieties they incurred to secure for me opportunities of improvement.... I would specially record with gratitude that, at a time when he was in straitened circumstances, my father contributed liberally in aid of educational institutions then being established in Pictou, with the view of securing their benefits for his sons, and that he and my mother aided and stimulated our early tastes for literature and science.”
The childhood influences that moulded William Dawson were typical of the homes of the early Scottish pioneers in the Maritime Provinces of Canada at the beginning of the last century. They were characterised by simplicity, by frugality and by reverence. They were founded on an unwavering belief in religion and education and honest labour as necessary to the development of the individual and the nation. They were based on principles inculcated in the youth of these early Canadian days long before Carlyle with rugged pen and organ tone declared them. Later, when Principal of McGill, Dr. Dawson used to speak with affectionate remembrance of the agencies which fashioned him in the little seacoast town of black wharves, and tossing tides, and far-come sailing ships bearing mysterious cargoes from unknown and romantic lands, and manned by strangely-garbed and bearded seamen speaking a foreign tongue. “Our home,” he said, “was a very quiet one except when strangers, especially men engaged in missionary and benevolent enterprises, were occasionally invited as guests. To some of these I was indebted for much information and guidance ... There was always much work and study in the winter evenings, and I remember with what pleasure I used to listen to my father's reading, chiefly in history and biography, for the benefit of my mother when busy with her needle, as well as of my brother and myself, after our lessons were finished.... My early home had much in it to foster studies of nature, and both my parents encouraged such pursuits. A somewhat wild garden, with many trees and shrubs, was full of objects of interest; within easy walking distance were rough pastures, with second-growth woods, bogs, and swamps, rich in berries and flowers in their season, and inhabited by a great variety of birds and insects. Nothing pleased my father more than to take an early morning hour, or rare holiday, and wander through such places with his boys, studying and collecting their treasures. The harbour of Pictou, too, with its narrow entrance from the sea, affords ample opportunities for such investigations, and its waters teem with fish: from the gay striped bass and lordly salmon to the ever-hungry smelt—the delight of juvenile anglers. In such a basin, visited every day by the ocean tides, there is an endless variety of the humbler forms of aquatic life, and along the streams entering it a wealth of curious animals and plants with which an inquisitive boy could easily make himself familiar in his rambles and occasional angling expeditions.” It was here that the interest of the future scientist was first aroused in natural history. Of his mother he wrote: “She was a woman of deep affections and many sorrows ... her girlish years had been saddened by the death of her parents, and by the mournful breaking up of her old home ... She had a few warm and attached friends, and was very kind to such of the needy as she could help.”
The first scholastic training of William Dawson was received in a small private school in Pictou. From there he went to the recently founded Grammar School conducted on “the good old-fashioned plan of long hours, hard lessons, no prizes, but some punishments.” His parents desired that he should study for the Church; he began his college career with that object in view, but it was changed by circumstances. He entered Pictou Academy, which had just been established primarily for the training of young men for the Christian ministry; it was presided over by the Rev. Dr. Thomas MacCulloch, a Scottish teacher and preacher who exercised a large influence on the intellectual life of Nova Scotia. It was during his course at the Academy that William Dawson first became interested scientifically in geology and natural history, subjects which were later to form so large a part of his life work. As a result he took long excursions during vacations for the purpose of obtaining specimens and studying the minerals of his native province. In 1840, he entered Edinburgh University, where he completed his course in 1847. It was in one of his summer vacations in the Maritime Provinces that he first met Sir Charles Lyell, the distinguished geologist, and Sir William Logan, who later originated the Geological Survey of Canada. In 1847 he married Margaret Mercer of Edinburgh and with his wife he returned to Pictou. For a time he gave a special course of extension lectures at Dalhousie College, Halifax. In 1850, Joseph Howe, for whom he had a deep admiration, and with whom he had formed a friendship early in life, offered him the Superintendency of Education in Nova Scotia,—a newly established office. He accepted the post with many misgivings; and for the next few years he devoted all his efforts to bettering the educational conditions of the Province, addressing school meetings throughout the country and stimulating improvements.
In 1853 while he was still Superintendent of Education, his old friend, Sir Charles Lyell, revisited Nova Scotia and the friendship formed a few years before was renewed. On the same ship with him was Sir Edmund Head, then Governor of New Brunswick, who, on this first meeting, was deeply impressed by Mr. Dawson's views on educational reforms. As a result he appointed him the following year to the commission formed to report on the re-organisation of the University of New Brunswick, which was then in a precarious state.
In 1854, the Governors of McGill, on the advice of Sir Edmund Head who was about to become Governor-General of Canada in succession to Lord Elgin, offered the Principalship to William Dawson. He accepted the post and began his duties in the autumn of 1855. The outlook of the University when he arrived was not encouraging. The College buildings were not used for classes, but part of them was occupied by professors and students; Medical classes were held in the Coté Street building; classes in Arts and Law were held in part of the High School building. The conditions of James McGill's will were not being carried out; there was a College building on the Burnside Estate, it was true, but it was not in operation.