(10 Feb. 1851-?), contractor, political figure. Born in Toronto. Parents: Duncan Macdonell (d. 30 Jan. 1887), and his wife Maria Charles (d. 8 May 1886). Duncan Macdonell, the father of the subject of the present sketch, was of Glengarry U E Loyalist origins, and “was for years one of the most prominent merchants in Toronto, doing an extensive business as a wholesale grocer.” Duncan’s wife, Maria Charles, was of French Canadian origins, and was a near relative, probably a first cousin, of the Abbé J.-B.-A. Ferland of Laval University, the distinguished early historian of French Canada. George Hugh Macdonell, the subject of the present sketch, attended grammar school in Toronto and at Williamstown, GC. He then attended the junior department of Bishop’s College, Lennoxville, Que. This junior department where he was listed as a student in 1865 was subsequently known as Bishop’s College School. He did not, however, graduate from the College itself. For several years afterwards, he took military training in Montreal, perhaps with some view to following a military career. He took part in Garnet Wolseley’s Red River Expedition of 1870 to suppress the first Riel rebellion. In the expeditionary force, he rose in rank from private to staff sergeant.
Afterwards, he was for several years in business in Montreal as a warehouseman. Beginning in 1875, he was an employee of Sifton, Ward & Co. on CPR construction. He then went into business himself as a contractor, and “put through several important undertakings, including a difficult section of the Canadian Pacific, west of Jackfish Bay, on the north shore of Lake Superior, and the breakwater at Port Arthur, the latter the greatest work of its kind on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes.” Settling at Port Arthur (today a part of Thunder Bay), he carried on “business as a contractor, insurance, mining and financial agent,” and was active in promoting mining development in that area, and was himself an owner of mining properties. He was mayor of the town of Port Arthur for three years, 1886-1888. In 1887 it was reported in the Glengarrian, 27 May 1887, of Alexandria, GC, that George M’Donell, mayor of Port Arthur, who “hails from Williamstown,” would run as Conservative candidate for MLA or MP. In the Ontario general election of 1890, he was defeated, though by a small margin, as the Conservative candidate for the constituency of Algoma West. He was elected as MP for the constituency of Algoma as a Conservative in the 1891 federal general election; and served one term, being defeated at the general election of 1896. He was elected mayor of Port Arthur again in Jan. 1900, but did not complete his term, leaving Port Arthur in July 1900 for railway contracting in the West. With this, his association with Port Arthur seems to have ended. He was living in the area of Carman, Manitoba, in 1902. It is not known when he died. His father and mother and his sister the author Blanche Lucille Macdonell are all buried in Mount Royal Cemetery, Montreal, in a burial plot which George Hugh bought probably in 1886, but he himself is not buried there.
He was married at least twice, (1) in 1876, to Eliza McCracken (d. 31 Jan. 1893), of Cornwall, and (2) on 11 April 1894, while he was MP, to Miss Margaret Tathan Procter, or Margaret Tatrum Proctor, of Westmoreland, Eng. Given how unusual it is for a former MP to disappear as he did from the historical record, with nothing known about his later days, it may be wondered whether he migrated to England with his wife. He was an Anglican. For another GC connection with the municipal government of what is now Thunder Bay, see Alexander McNaughton.
Biog. sketch in G. Mercer Adam, ed., Prominent Men of Canada (1892) 191-192: has much valuable detail, esp. on his military and business life (QF) * Johnson (1968) 404 * Roderick Lewis, 15 * second marriage, undated clipping in ASC ii, 168 * Archives, Bishop’s University, Lennoxville, Que. * F. Brent Scollie, Thunder Bay Mayors and Councillors…: a Biographical and Genealogical Dictionary (2000) * marriage 1836 of, presumably, his parents, Reid, MN, 122 * information kindly supplied Jan. 2007 from Mount Royal Cemetery records