Everything about Samuel Mclaughlin totally explained
Colonel
Robert Samuel McLaughlin ,
CC,
ED,
CD, LLD (
September 8,
1871 -
January 6,
1972) was an important
Canadian businessman, philanthropist and founder, in 1907, of the
McLaughlin Motor Car Co., one of the first major automobile manufacturers in Canada.
Born near
Oshawa in
Enniskillen,
Ontario, the son of
Robert McLaughlin, he started working, in
1887, for his father's company, McLaughlin Carriage Works, at one time the largest manufacturer of horse-drawn buggies and sleighs in the British Empire. With engines from
William C. Durant of
Buick he produced the McLaughlin-Buick Model F, establishing The McLaughlin Motor Car Company, incorporated on
November 20,
1907. In 1908, its first full year of operation, it produced 154 cars. In
1910 he became a director of
General Motors and sold his company in
1918 becoming president of
General Motors of Canada, which continued to sell cars under the McLaughlin-Buick brand for the next few years. He retired in
1945, but remained chairman of the board until his death.
He remained on the Board of
General Motors until the early 1960's, and was coincidentally replaced by Royal Bank of Canada President
Earle McLaughlin, his first cousin once removed.
His brother, chemist J.J. McLaughlin, founded the
Canada Dry company. After J.J.'s death, Sam also became President of this company briefly until it was sold about 1917.
McLaughlin was appointed Honorary Lieutenant Colonel of the
34th Ontario Regiment in 1921 and held this position until 1931, at which time he was appointed Honorary Colonel of same unit, later designated as
The Ontario Regiment (RCAC), a reserve armoured regiment based in Oshawa. Affectionately known as "Colonel Sam," McLaughlin served as Honorary Colonel until 1967, earning the distinction as the longest continuously serving Honorary Colonel in the history of the
Canadian Forces. In
1967 Sam McLaughlin was appointed a Companion of the
Order of Canada.
Philanthropy
In
1951 he established the McLaughlin Foundation which donated nearly $200 million, including the
McLaughlin Planetarium to the
Royal Ontario Museum. His mansion,
Parkwood Estate, begun in 1916, was designed by the Toronto architectural firm of
Darling and Pearson. In 1989, the Parkwood estate was officially designated a National Historic Site.
He was also a major contributor to
Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario. The University's Mechanical Engineering Department is housed in McLaughlin Hall which was his donation in 1948. The McLaughlin Hall in the Queen's University's
John Deutsch University Centre is also named for him. His wife Adelaide McLaughlin was honoured in 1957 by Queen's, which named the women's residence Adelaide Hall for her.
He provided partial funding to build a college at
York University in Toronto. Opened in 1968, it was named McLaughlin College in his honour.
McLaughlin also endowed the Regimental Foundation of The Ontario Regiment (RCAC) and quietly paid the salaries of some of the regiment's soldiers during times of severely curtailed government funding.
Thoroughbred horse racing
In his youth, Samuel McLaughlin competed in
cycling and
yachting and was an
equestrian show jumping champion at competitions in Canada and the
United States. His love of horses led to the establishing of
Parkwood Stable, a
thoroughbred horse racing and
breeding farm located a few miles north of Oshawa, Ontario.
McLaughlin's horses won numerous races in Canada and in the U.S. his horses won important races including the 1942
Peter Pan Stakes at
Belmont Park. A three-time winner of Canada's most prestigious race, the
Queen's Plate, in 1934 his future Hall of Fame
colt Horometer won both the Queens Plate and the
Breeders' Stakes. In 1950, the nearly eighty-year-old McLaughlin retired from racing, selling his Parkwood Stable to
E. P. Taylor under whom it would become known as
Windfields Farm.
A long-time director of the
Ontario Jockey Club, Colonel McLaughlin was inducted into
Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1963 and the
Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 1977.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Samuel Mclaughlin'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://samuel_mclaughlin.totallyexplained.com">Samuel McLaughlin Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
