McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Shaughnessy, Thomas George, Baron, 1853-1923
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1853-1923
History
Thomas George Shaughnessy, 1st Baron was born on October 6, 1853, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
He was an American-Canadian railway administrator who rose from modest beginnings as a clerk and bookkeeper for the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad to become the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, serving in that capacity from 1899 to 1918. Under his administration, the CPR's mileage in western Canada almost doubled. His home in Montreal's Golden Square Mile, designed by Montreal architect William Thomas in 1876 was declared a National Historic Site of Canada in 1974 and is now part of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
In recognition of his stewardship of the CPR and its contributions to the war effort during the Great War, Shaughnessy was elevated to the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1916 as Baron Shaughnessy, of the City of Montreal in the Dominion of Canada and of Ashford in the County of Limerick.
In 1880, he married Elizabeth Bridget Nagle. He died on December 10, 1923, in Montreal, Quebec.