Rev Alexander MacLennan Gordon was a Minister of the Presbyterian Church in Quebec City, Quebec. Born in Ottawa in 1873, he was the eldest son of Queen's University Principal Daniel Miner Gordon and Eliza MacLennan. He served as a senior chaplain in the 4th Canadian Division in WWI. Rev A.M Gordon died in Kingston in 1965.
Born at Pictou, Nova Scotia, on January 30, 1845 Rev. Gordon was educated at Pictou Academy, at Glasgow University (M.A. 1863, B.D. 1866, D.D. 1895), and at Berlin University. He was ordained a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in 1866 and he served successively in charges at Truro, Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Halifax. From 1894 to 1902, he was a professor of systematic theology and apologetics at the Halifax Presbyterian College and in 1902 he was appointed Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University. He retired from this position in 1917 because of ill health. He served as a chaplain in the North West Rebellion of 1885 and in 1896 he was elected moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. In 1915 he was created a C.M.G., and he held the honorary degree of LL.D. from Dalhousie University (1904) and the University of Toronto (1911). He was also the author of Mountain and Prairie. He died at Kingston in 1925.
Donald Gordon, a banker and businessman, was born in Old Meldrum, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on 11 Dec. 1901, the son of John Gordon and Margaret L. (Watt) Gordon. In 1914 the Gordon family emigrated to Canada and settled in Toronto where Donald got a job in a box factory for a short time before being sent to Manning Avenue School. When he reached the legal school-leaving age of fourteen, he began work as a blacksmith’s helper. He worked as an electrician’s helper and a magazine delivery boy during the next two years. In 1916 Gordon accepted a job at the bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto. Over the next seven years, Gordon spent five of those years at night school. He took commercial correspondence and extramural courses at Queen’s University and earned the equivalent to a degree in Economics as a Fellow of the Canadian Bankers’ Association.
In February 1935, Gordon was appointed as the Secretary of the Bank of Canada on its establishment. Becoming Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada in 1938, he then served as chairman of the Wartime Prices and Trade Board. Between November 1941 to April 1947, Gordon was was appointed Director of the Industrial Development Bank on its creation in 1944. After he resigned from the Wartime Prices and Trade Board, he returned to the Bank of Canada and the Foreign Exchange Control Board. In 1948 he was appointed Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. On January 1, 1950, Gordon became Chairman, President and Director of the Canadian National Railways, which he held until 1966. He was also Director of Air Canada from 1950 until 1966. In 1967 he became President of British Newfoundland Corporation Limited (Brinco) and Chairman of Churchill Falls (Labrador) Limited, A Brinco subsidiary.
Donald Gordon’s association with Queen’s University extended over four decades. It began with his enrolment in the courses in Banking. In 1947 the University conferred an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws on him. In 1951, the Board of Trustees elected him to this Board. Appointed to the Executive Committee in 1964 Gordon was also a member of the Finance Committee from May 1965 until his death. He was highly effective in helping to raise funds for Skelton-Clark Foundation and was indefatigable in his work of soliciting “special names” in the Capital Appeal of 1964. The University has honoured Mr. Gordon by naming a residence “Donald Gordon Hall” and also the “Donald Gordon Hotel and Conference Centre.”
Donald Gordon died in Montreal on May 2, 1969.
Born in Winnipeg in 1886, Wilhelmina Gordon was one of Queen's University's first full time female instructors, teaching in the English Department from 1909 until her retirement in 1950. In 1887 the Gordon family moved to Halifax where Miss Gordon attended Halifax Ladies College and Dalhousie University, studying Latin and English Literature. When her father, Daniel Miner Gordon, moved to Kingston to become Principal of Queen's University, Wilhelmina resumed her studies at Queen's University, graduating with a M.A and the medal in English in 1905. Having won a graduate scholarship, Miss Gordon went on to study at Bryn Mawr College, 1905-1906, and spent the summer of 1907 at University of Chicago. By 1909 she was back at Queen's assisting and later teaching in the English department. In 1925 she was made an assistant professor of English and five years later became an associate professor. Miss Gordon also devoted a great deal of time to the Imperial Order of the daughters of the Empire. She died in 1968.
R. Gosselin was a student in the School of Mining at Queen's University.