page_title: Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal
section_title: Family
hierarchical_section_title: Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal / Family
caption_attribution_description: English: Baroness Strathcona and Mount Royal by William Notman
context_page_description: Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal GCMG GCVO PC DL FRS, was a Scottish-born Canadian businessman who became one of the British Empire's foremost builders and philanthropists. He became commissioner, governor and principal shareholder of the Hudson's Bay Company. He was president of the Bank of Montreal and with his first cousin, Lord Mount Stephen, co-founded the Canadian Pacific Railway. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba and afterwards represented Montreal in the House of Commons of Canada. He was Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1896 to 1914. He was chairman of Burmah Oil and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. He was chancellor of McGill University and the University of Aberdeen.
  King Edward VII called him "Uncle Donald". His estate was valued at $5.5 million. During his lifetime, and including the bequests left after his death, he gave away just over $7.5 million plus a further £1 million to a huge variety of charitable causes across Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. He personally raised Lord Strathcona's Horse, who saw their first action in the Boer War.
context_section_description: In 1853, he married Isabella Sophia Hardisty (1825–1913), daughter of Richard Hardisty (1790–1865), Chief Trader of the Hudson's Bay Company, and Margaret Sutherland (1802–1876), daughter of the Rev. John Sutherland, a native of Caithness who lived at Lachine, Quebec. Lady Strathcona's father was a native of London, England, and her mother was of Indian and Scottish parentage. Her brother was the Hon. Richard Charles Hardisty. She was presented to King Edward and Queen Alexandra, 13 March 1903, and with her daughter donated $100,000 to McGill University in Montreal to erect a new wing to its Medical Building. The couple lived at 53 Cadogan Square, London; Knebworth House; Glencoe House, Scotland; Colonsay House, Scotland and 1157 Dorchester Street, in Montreal's Golden Square Mile.
  Lord and Lady Strathcona were the parents of one child, the Hon. Margaret Charlotte Smith.  In accordance with the special remainder to the 1900 barony, she succeeded her father as Lady Strathcona in 1914.  In 1888, she married Robert Jared Bliss Howard OBE FRCS (1859–1921), son of Robert Palmer Howard (1823–1889), Dean of Medicine at McGill University.
  Robert Howard and Lady Strathcona had the following children:
  The Hon. Frances Margaret Palmer Howard (born 13 February 1889, died 5 October 1958)
  The Rt Hon. Donald Sterling Palmer Howard, 3rd Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal (born 14 June 1891, died 22 February 1959)
  The Hon. Robert Henry Palmer Howard (born 1893, killed in action 8 May 1915)
  The Hon. Edith Mary Palmer Howard (born 7 April 1895, died 1979), married John Brooke Molesworth Parnell, 6th Baron Congleton on 6 April 1918
  The Hon. Sir Arthur Jared Palmer Howard, KBE CVO (born 30 May 1896, died 26 April 1971)
  His Montreal home was located in the Golden Square Mile. In 1905, he bought the island of Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides, which remains in the hands of his successors today.
caption: Isabella Sophia, Baroness Strathcona and Mount Royal, by William Notman
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