MORE BOSWELL ON
A pity the wrecking ball smashed a piece of our history, Randy Boswell laments.
A long-vacant building in downtown Glasgow has been demolished to make way for a major commercial-residential development described as key to revitalizing the heart of the Scottish city.
The removal of the derelict structure — once the home of the popular Mitre bar, the Fox and Hound pub and an upstairs massage parlour — would be unremarkable except for one thing: It may have been the place where John A. Macdonald was born.
It’s a shame the place has been levelled, worse that it happened unceremoniously some months ago. The Canadian High Commission in London evidently knew the demolition was about to occur. How our diplomats responded isn’t entirely clear, but unless steps were taken to digitally document the place or preserve some of its parts — the kinds of things museums can use to evoke a noteworthy locale — the loss of Macdonald’s possible birthplace is a scandal.
Try to imagine how Americans would react to the proposed demolition of George Washington’s birthplace. The significance of the Glasgow site for Canada is constrained, to be sure, by lingering uncertainty over Macdonald’s true birthplace and the ocean between Scotland and the nation where Macdonald made his indelible mark in history. But Canadians should care that what may be the strongest link to the Scottish roots of the country’s patriarch is now gone.
The old building, which heritage experts had determined was erected in the late 1700s, was part of the bustling Merchant City business district when Canada’s leading Father of Confederation was born in January 1815. Macdonald’s father, Hugh, is known to have been running a textile firm along Brunswick Place, a commercial lane later renamed Brunswick Street.
There’s some evidence — none of it conclusive — that the Macdonalds were living above Hugh’s shop in 1815. But other possible birthplace sites have been discounted over the years, so it was remarkable that the building most likely to have been the spot where Macdonald came into the world was still standing for the bicentennial of Sir John A.’s birth in 2015.
Even then, though, the shadow of a wrecking ball loomed over the site. Postmedia News first reported in 2005 that the building — then owned by Canadian retail baron Galen Weston — was slated for demolition as part of his plan to construct a new, Selfridges-anchored shopping hub for Glasgow.
That plan fizzled. The old Fox and Hound was then sold and soon stood in the way of another developer’s vision. The Candleriggs project, which would bring a badly needed mix of condos, rental units and shops to downtown Glasgow, is now ready to move forward. That’s why the city’s municipal government gave a green light last year to the demolition of various dilapidated buildings in the redevelopment zone — including 20 Brunswick St.
There had been talk in Glasgow over the past decade of honouring Macdonald in some way as part of the redevelopment, perhaps a statue might be erected or a public square named for one of Scotland’s most successful sons on the world stage, the architect and first prime minister of what became the planet’s second-biggest country.
The latest design plan merely proposes dubbing Candleriggs’ main plaza “Brunswick Place” to recall the original name of the street linked to Macdonald. That’s barely a tribute at all to modern Canada’s seminal statesman.
It must be acknowledged, of course, that Macdonald’s reputation has dimmed in recent years. Indigenous leaders, diligent scholars and others have rightly exposed Macdonald’s failings as a political leader, including his racist views about Chinese Canadians and his tragic blind spots in various dealings with First Nations and Métis peoples.
Macdonald was a man of his time and shared the prejudices of his contemporaries. Even so, the historical record should reflect his shortcomings as well as his achievements. Some critics decry the “revisionism” that has cast Macdonald in a harsher light and denounce efforts to strip schools and prizes of his name.
But good history should revise — deepen, enrich, challenge — our understanding of the past. And Sir John A.’s legacy can withstand some dilution. The nation and its citizens are better served when the laurels of history are shared more widely and reflect a more balanced view of our national
Warts and all, Macdonald is a fascinating and important shaper of Canadian history.
backstory, as well as the changing composition of the country.
We can live without another Macdonald Boulevard and perhaps with fewer elementary schools bearing Sir John A.’s name.
What we shouldn’t do is become indifferent to history or forsake opportunities to enliven it, which appears to be what’s happened in the case of Macdonald’s possible birthplace. Warts and all, Macdonald remains a fascinating and fundamentally important shaper of Canadian history. His personal story, reflective of so many immigrants’ overseas origins and tremendous attainments in their adopted homeland, is worth knowing in rich detail — and the storytelling gold of 20 Brunswick St. should not have been so casually squandered.