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Mount Royal Cemetery

Mount Royal Cemetery Gate in 1895
Details
Established	1852
Location	Outremont, Montreal, Quebec
Country	Canada
Coordinates	45°30′33″N 73°35′53″W / 45.509123°N 73.598005°W / 45.509123; -73.598005Coordinates: 45°30′33″N 73°35′53″W / 45.509123°N 73.598005°W / 45.509123; -73.598005
Type	Protestant cemetery, now non-denominational
Size	165 acres (67 ha)
No. of graves	200,000
Website	Official website
National Historic Site of Canada
Designated	1999

Opened in 1852, Mount Royal Cemetery is a 165-acre (67 ha) terraced cemetery on the north slope of Mount Royal in the borough of Outremont, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Temple Emanu-El Cemetery, a Reform Judaism burial ground is within the Mount Royal grounds. The burial ground shares the mountain with the much larger adjacent Roman Catholic cemetery, Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery, and the Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery, a Ashkenazi Jewish cemetery. Mount Royal Cemetery is bordered on the southeast by Mount Royal Park, on the west by Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery and on the north by Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery.

Although the cemetery is non-denominational today, it continues to be governed by its original charter with a board of trustees representing the founding Protestant denominations.

The cemetery is a private non-profit organization. Burial rights have always been offered in perpetuity, with the commitment that no graves would ever be reused or abandoned. The founding charter stipulates that all profits should be entirely devoted to the embellishment and improvement of the property.

Mount Royal Cemetery is in operation and even the old portion of the cemetery still has some burial sites available.^[1]

War Graves

The cemetery contains 459 war graves of Commonwealth service personnel, 276 from World War I and 183 from World War II, most of which form two War Plots in Section G. A Cross of Sacrifice stands on the boundary with Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery.^[2]

Military graves at Mount Royal did not take significance until World War I, when Canada lost over 60 000 soldiers. After this event, the population of the city started looking toward public memory more seriously, and gave an entire section to war veterans and fallen soldiers.^[3]

Mount Royal Crematory

The first crematory in Canada was built by Sir Andrew Taylor in 1901 on the eastern side of the Mount Royal Cemetery property with funds donated by Sir William Christopher Macdonald, a well-known tobacco tycoon and great philanthropist. This building is the oldest of its kind in the country and it remained the only crematorium in Quebec until 1975. The first cremation took place on April 18, 1902.

Built with Montreal limestone, the original building had a chapel, a room for the cremation chambers, a large winter storage vault and a conservatory filled with exotic plants. In the 1950s, for maintenance reasons, the conservatory was demolished but the original chapel, on the left of the building, is still intact with a beautiful hand made mosaic floor.^[1]

Notable interments

A few of the prominent people interred in the cemetery are:

• 
  Sir John Abbott (1821–1893), prime minister of Canada


• 
  Sir Hugh Allan (1810–1882), financier and shipping magnate


• 
  Sir Montagu Allan (1860–1951), businessman, Hockey Hall of Fame member


• 
  Richard Bladworth Angus (1831–1922), banker


• 
  William Thomas Benson (1824–1885), businessman, politician


• 
  Frank Calder (1877–1943), National Hockey League executive


• 
  William Cecil Christmas (1879-1941), businessman, Canada's Sports Hall of Fame


• 
  William Clark-Kennedy (1879–1961), Scots-born Victoria Cross recipient


• 
  Sir Arthur Currie (1875–1933), First World War military commander, educator


• 
  Sir Mortimer Barnett Davis (1866–1928), businessman and philanthropist


• 
  J. William Dawson (1820–1899), scientist, educator


• 
  George Mercer Dawson (1849–1901), scientist


• 
  William Dow (1800–1868), brewer and businessman


• 
  Sir George Alexander Drummond (1829–1910), entrepreneur


• 
  William Henry Drummond (1854–1907), Irish-Canadian poet, doctor


• 
  Edith Maude Eaton (1865–1914), author, a.k.a. "Sui Sin Far"


• 
  Charles Edward Frosst (1867–1948), pharmaceuticals manufacturer


• 
  Henry Fry (1826–1896), ship-broker, ship owner and commission merchant based in Quebec City.


• 
  Sir Alexander Galt (1817–1893), businessman, statesman, Father Of Confederation


• 
  Horatio Gates (1777–1834), businessman, statesman


• 
  Samuel Gerrard (1767–1857), businessman


• 
  Hugh Graham, 1st Baron Atholstan (1848–1938), newspaper publisher


• 
  Joseph Guibord, (1809–1869), printer, temporarily interred here six years pending litigation about his disputed burial in Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in 1875


• 
  Charles Melville Hays (1856–1912), Grand Trunk Railway executive and Titanic victim


• 
  Charles Heavysege (1816–1876), author, poet


• 
  Sir Herbert Holt (1856–1941), financier


• 
  C. D. Howe (1886–1960), American-born politician and engineer


• 
  Anna Leonowens (1834–1915), governess (Anna of Anna and the King of Siam), founder of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design


• 
  Robert Mackay (1840–1916), businessman, statesman


• 
  Sir William C. Macdonald (1831–1917), tobacco manufacturer, philanthropist


• 
  John Wilson McConnell (1877–1963), publisher, philanthropist


• 
  David Ross McCord (1844–1930), lawyer, philanthropic founder of the McCord Museum of Canadian History
  


• 
  Air Vice Marshall F.S. McGill (1894-1980), professional athlete, businessman, RCAF officer


• 
  John Jones McGill (1860-1942), industrialist, philanthropist


• 
  Peter McGill (1789–1860), businessman, municipal politician


• 
  Duncan McIntyre (1834–1894), businessman


• 
  Charles Meredith (1854–1928), president of the Montreal Stock Exchange


• 
  Frederick Edmund Meredith (1862–1941), chancellor of Bishop's University


• Sir Vincent Meredith (1850–1929), 1st Baronet of Montreal, president of the Bank of Montreal


• 
  William Campbell James Meredith (1904–1960), Dean of Law, McGill University


• 
  Shadrach Minkins (c. 1815 – 1875), American-born fugitive slave rescued from federal custody in Boston in 1851.


• 
  Hartland Molson (1907–2002), brewing magnate, World War II fighter pilot, statesman


• 
  John Molson (1763–1836), brewing tycoon


• 
  Howie Morenz (1902–1937), Hall of Fame ice hockey player


• 
  Henry Morgan (1819–1893), opened first department store in Canada


• 
  Arthur Deane Nesbitt (1910–1978), decorated soldier of World War II, stockbroker


• 
  Arthur J. Nesbitt (1880–1954), cofounder of Nesbitt Thomson & Co. and Power Corporation of Canada
  


• 
  J. Aird Nesbitt (1907–1985), owner/operator of Ogilvy's department store in Montreal


• 
  William Notman (1826–1891), photographer and businessman


• 
  Alexander Walker Ogilvie (1829–1902), miller, statesman


• 
  William Watson Ogilvie (1835–1900) miller


• 
  Frank L. Packard (1877–1942), mystery writer


• 
  John Redpath (1796–1869), contractor, built the first sugar refinery in Canada


• 
  Robert Wilson Reford (1867–1951), shipping executive, artist, photographer


• 
  Mordecai Richler (1931–2001), author


• 
  Anne Savage (1896–1971), painter and art teacher


• 
  F. R. Scott (1899–1985), scholar


• 
  Francis Scrimger (1880–1937), physician, Victoria Cross recipient


• Sir George Simpson (c1786–1860), Hudson's Bay Company administrator, explorer, author


• 
  Denis Stairs (1889–1980), chairman, Montreal Engineering Co.


• 
  George Washington Stephens (1832–1904), businessman, lawyer, politician, philanthropist


• 
  David Thompson (1770–1857), mapmaker, astronomer and explorer


• 
  David Torrance (1805–1876), merchant, banker


• 
  John Torrance (1786–1870), merchant, shipper


• 
  Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead (1895–1954), delivered the fatal sucker punch to magician Harry Houdini.


• 
  Thomas Workman (1813–1889), businessman, politician, philanthropist


• 
  William Workman (1807–1878), businessman and municipal politician


• 
  Walter P. Zeller (1890–1957), founder of Zellers.

See also

• Mount Royal Park

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mont Royal Cemetery.

• Mount Royal Cemetery Website


• Entrance to Mount Royal Cemetery in 1866