Sir John A.’s birthplace razed for condos, retail
Derelict Scottish structure was last home to pub, massage parlour
The presumed birthplace of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s founding prime minister, has been demolished as part of a long-awaited redevelopment in downtown Glasgow.
A spokesman for Glasgow City Council confirmed Tuesday that the derelict two-storey structure, which was last home to the Fox and Hound Pub, was razed in September 2017.
The loss of the historic site was first discovered by Carleton University professor Randy Boswell, whose sleuthing helped to make the case that Macdonald was born in the building, on what’s now Brunswick Street.
During its lifetime, the centuries-old building has been home to pubs, a massage parlour and, more than likely, an infant Glaswegian named John Alexander Macdonald.
Its unceremonious demolition, Boswell said, means Canadians have lost their last physical link to the Scottish origins of their foremost nation builder.
“It’s a shame the place has been levelled,” said Boswell, a former Citizen reporter who often wrote about the mystery that surrounds Macdonald’s birth.
“The apparent lack of interest in his birthplace has always puzzled me, especially considering how the United States has mythologized George Washington’s birthplace.”
Historica Canada’s Anthony Wilson-Smith called the demolition an unfortunate loss. “It’s a shame, of course, anytime you lose a historical landmark, but having said that, I understand it was in bad disrepair for years,” said WilsonSmith, president and chief executive of the Toronto organization that tries to improve the public’s knowledge of Canadian history.
“I don’t think there are any villains in this piece,” he said. “I think the whole building was pretty untenable.”
Glasgow city officials were aware of the building’s connection to Macdonald but approved its demolition since the shuttered pub sat at the heart of a $190-million project to revitalize a full block of the business district, Merchant City.
The urban renewal project is to include more than 500 condominium and apartment units, a hotel, student housing and retail stores set around a new public square.
Glasgow City Council spokesman Paul Kane said the 1.5-hectare site will feature an “appropriate tribute” to Macdonald, possibly a plaque or public art installation. The precise nature of the commemoration is expected to be decided when the city considers site plans for the new development, which will be known as Candleriggs Quarter.
A plaque honouring Macdonald already exists at the Ramshorn Kirk, about 200 metres from his former home, Kane noted.
While historians agree that Macdonald was born in Glasgow to Hugh and Helen Macdonald in January 1815, the unanimity ends there. It’s uncertain exactly when or where he was born. (Although his official birthday is celebrated on Jan. 11, there’s evidence he was born late on Jan. 10.)
As for where, Boswell said the most compelling evidence now suggests that Macdonald was born at 20 Brunswick Street, in Glasgow’s merchant district.
Previously, historians relied on the recollection of Macdonald’s 86-year-old cousin, Maria Macpherson, who reported to an early biographer that the family was living on the south side of the Clyde River, across from downtown Glasgow, when John Alexander was born.
Evidence uncovered by Boswell has strengthened the case for Brunswick Street (formerly Brunswick Place) as Macdonald’s birthplace.
Among other things, he uncovered an 1891 “memorial album,” published by The Empire newspaper in Toronto after Macdonald’s death, that identified his birthplace as Brunswick Place. The finding held additional weight because The Empire was founded in 1887 by Macdonald, along with other Conservatives, and was published by his friend and fellow Glaswegian David Creighton.
What’s more, in 2015, University of Edinburgh researchers reported that Scottish church records indicate Macdonald was born in a parish north of the Clyde River — an area that includes Brunswick Street — and not south of the river.
Canadian heritage officials also identified the same Brunswick Street address in the mid-1960s when they sought to locate Macdonald’s birthplace before the 150th anniversary of his birth.
City records show that Macdonald’s father owned a textile business at the address in the early 1800s. Historians have speculated that the family lived in the rooms above it.
The building has been under threat by the wrecking ball since 2011, when a redevelopment proposal first went before Glasgow City Council.
It’s not yet known if Canadian diplomats rescued any artifacts from the building or created a digital record of the heritage site before it was destroyed.
The destruction of his original home is the latest in a bruising year for Macdonald, whose legacy has been called into question by his treatment of Indigenous and Chinese Canadians.
In August 2017, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario called on school boards to strip his name from the province’s schools. The organization said Macdonald was an “architect of genocide against Indigenous Peoples.”
In January, for the second consecutive year, celebrations to mark Macdonald’s birthday in Kingston were cancelled after the organizer’s home was vandalized. Macdonald’s statue was covered in red paint.
Even a Kingston pub repudiated the Old Chieftain, who famously enjoyed a stiff drink and had to be carried several times from the House of Commons because of it. Sir John’s Public House, located in a downtown building where Macdonald once had his law office, was renamed The Public House in January as an act of reconciliation with the Indigenous community.
Macdonald’s family left Scotland when he was five and settled in Kingston where he studied and practised law before moving into politics.
Widely regarded as the principal architect of Confederation, Macdonald was knighted for his efforts in 1867. He served 19 years as leader of a young, sprawling and tenuous nation, and died in office on June 6, 1891 at his Ottawa home, Earnscliffe, which now serves as the official residence of the British High Commissioner to Canada.