William McDonell Dawson

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

William McDonell Dawson (1822 – August 9, 1890) was a Quebec businessman and political figure, and a Scottish Roman Catholic.

He was born in Redhaven,

Nepean Township near Bytown around 1836. He served as Crown Lands agent at Ottawa
and was superintendent of the woods and forests branch in the Crown Lands department from 1852 to 1857. Dawson was founder and present of the North-West Transit Company.

In 1858, he was elected to the

County of Ottawa in the 1861 general election. During his first term in office, he travelled to London
in an attempt to secure financing for a transcontinental railroad.

He died at Montreal in 1890.

His brother

Aeneas McDonell Dawson
was a priest and author at Ottawa.

External links

  • "Biography". Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours (in French). National Assembly of Quebec.
  • The Canadian parliamentary companion : first year, HJ Morgan (1862)
  • Les députés de la région des Trois-Rivières,FJ Audet (1934)
Political offices
Preceded by
Trois-Rivières
18581861
Succeeded by