Agnes Macdonald, 1st Baroness Macdonald of Earnscliffe

Agnes Macdonald, 1st Baroness Macdonald of Earnscliffe
Agnes Macdonald

Susan Agnes Macdonald (née Bernard), 1st Baroness Macdonald of Earnscliffe (August 24, 1836 – September 5, 1920) was the second wife of Sir John A. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada.

She was born near Spanish Town, Jamaica to The Hon. T.J. Bernard and his wife, Theodora Foulks. She was raised there and in England before she came to Canada with her mother to live with her brother, Hewitt, a lawyer and private secretary to political leader John A. Macdonald. It was through him that she met Macdonald for the first time in 1856. It was in 1866, in London, England, where Miss Bernard had been with her mother that she again met her husband to be who was there to prepare the British North America Act. They married on February 16, 1867, and had one daughter, Margaret Mary Theodora Macdonald, who was born severely handicapped, both mentally and physically (1869–1933).

On the first voyage of the transcontinental voyage of the Canadian railroad, Macdonald built Agnes a platform on the cowcatcher of the train and had a chair nailed to it so she could see the land united by the train. During her stay in Canada with her husband, she became intimately acquainted with many of the intricacies of the political and historical events of the country. After her husband's death in 1891 she was raised to the peerage in his honour as Baroness Macdonald of Earnscliffe, in the Province of Ontario and Dominion of Canada.[1][2]By 1896 she left her home at Earnscliffe to go back to England. Despite the weight of years, her participation in social and philanthropic work was active.[2]She died in England in September 1920, aged 84, and was buried in the Ocklynge Cemetery in Eastbourne, a town just south of London. The barony became extinct on her death.

See also

References

  1. ^ London Gazette: no. 26192. p. 4378. 14 August 1891.
  2. ^ a b Baroness Macdonald's Death, The Globe. A1. September 8, 1920.

External links

Honorary titles
Preceded by
None
Spouse of the Prime Minister of Canada
1867–1873
Succeeded by
Jane Sym Mackenzie
Preceded by
Jane Sym Mackenzie
Spouse of the Prime Minister of Canada
1878–1891
Succeeded by
Mary Bethune, Lady Abbott
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Baroness Macdonald of Earnscliffe
1891 – 1920
Extinct

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”