On October 30th the city mourned the loss by death of a great Montrealer, the late Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott, K. C, M.G., a former mayor of the city and a prime minister of Canada. His burial took place on November 2d and his remains were followed by his successor, Sir John Thompson, and by many hundreds of the leaders of Canada.
The most important event closing the year of 1893 was the inauguration of the Royal Victoria Hospital in honour of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.
On November 27th, Montreal experienced a shock of earthquake which was felt over Canada with no loss of life and little of property.
In 1894, Sir William Van Horne, the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and one of its pioneers, was knighted.
This year closed on December 31st with one of the greatest windstorms ever recorded in the history of Montreal, the velocity of the wind reaching eighty miles per hour, so that much damage was done.
In 1894, the first attempt towards a public portrait gallery, a museum of antiquities and the securing of the Château de Ramezay as its permanent home originated with the members of the Antiquarian Society of Montreal, the idea of the picture gallery arising with Mr. de Léry MacDonald, that of saving the Château from passing into private hands, with Mr. Roswell Lyman, and the employment of it as a public historical museum by Mr. W.D. Lighthall, which was promoted by a petition to the mayor and aldermen organized by Mr. R.W. McLachlan and others and signed by about three thousand principal citizens. The agitation was successful and the first reception was given in the Château de Ramezay on November 11, 1897.
The next year, 1895, was marked with the inauguration of other public movements. On June 6th the statue of Sir John A. MacDonald was unveiled in Dominion Square by Sir Donald A. Smith and the Maisonneuve monument by Phillipe Hébert was unveiled on the Place d’Armes on Monday, July 1st, by the Hon. J.A. Chapleau, lieutenant governor of the Province of Quebec, the president of the committee being M.S. Pagnuelo and the secretary being the Vicomte H. de la Barthe. This was followed on October 8th by the inauguration of the new edifice of the Montreal branch of Laval University, but recently established in the city.
In 1896, Sir Donald A. Smith, later Lord Strathcona, was appointed High Commissioner for Canada. Another prominent Montreal citizen, Mr. Charles M. Hays, was appointed general manager of the Grand Trunk Railway.
Among the notable city events of 1897 were the meeting, in Montreal, of the Behring Sea Commissioners on June 16th, the celebration of the first day of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, the consecration on June 30th of His Grace, Archbishop Bruchesi, by the Apostolic delegate, Mgr. Merry del Val, and the great meeting of the British Medical Society on August 31st.
In 1898 the public benefactions of a notable citizen, Sir William C. MacDonald, were rewarded by a knighthood.