Item 0021 - Letter, 15 February 1882

Richard Bladworth Angus, banker, railway executive, businessman, and philanthropist was born on May 28, 1831, in Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland.

By 1857 he had secured a position with the Bank of Montreal. He emigrated to North America and represented the bank in its offices in Chicago and New York City, prior to moving to the bank's headquarters in Montreal, Quebec in 1864. In 1910, he became president of the Bank of Montreal, a position which he held until November 1913.

Angus was one of the wealthiest men in Montreal and well known for his philanthropic activities and generous donations to the causes he allied himself to. He was a founder and governor of the Alexandra Contagious Diseases Hospital of Montreal; President of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal; Vice-President to the Victorian Order of Nurses; Director of the Charity Organisation Society, which he funded; Governor of the Montreal General Hospital; Governor of the Fraser Institute Free Public Library, president of the Mount Royal Club, and an honourary member of the Antiquarian and Numismatic Society of Montreal. He supported McGill University with a considerable sum and served as president of the Montreal Art Association. He was the natural successor to Lord Mount Stephen as president of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1888, but he did not desire the position; he twice refused a knighthood. The CPR Angus Shops were named for him, as was one of the later CP Ships.

In 1878, Angus and his family moved into his new house at 240 Drummond Street in the Golden Square Mile which featured a large conservatory. It provided a suitable space for the art collection that he had started with purchases from Montreal and London dealers in the late 1870s. His collection contained many fine examples of the Old Masters, six of which he donated to the Montreal Art Association. Before his Montreal home was demolished in 1957, it served as McGill University's conservatory of music.

In 1901, Angus commissioned the construction of a grand country house on an estate named Pine Bluff at 218 Senneville Road in Senneville, Quebec, overlooking the Lake of Two Mountains. It was designed in the Châteauesque style by Edward Maxwell and his younger brother, William Maxwell. The house was completed in 1904 and replaced a home that had been built on the site in 1886 for Angus and then remodeled by Edward Maxwell from 1898 to 1899 before being destroyed by fire soon after. The new home, which included an ice house and a beach house, was later remodelled and eventually demolished in the 1950s.

In 1857, he married Mary Anne Daniels and they had three sons and six daughters. He died on Sept. 17, 1922, in Senneville, Quebec.