Robert Meighen (1837-1911)

He was born at Dungiven, 18-miles east of the City of Londonderry in Northern Ireland. His father was a farm worker and died in 1838 leaving Robert's mother penniless and with five young children to bring up. The following year, they sailed for Canada and removed to Perth in Ontario where Robert's uncle, Charles McLenaghan, took in the fatherless family on his farm. At the age of 14, Robert joined his elder brother, Arthur, in Perth where he ran a grocery store. The firm, Meighen & Brothers, would grow to become the largest mercantile house in Lanark County and Robert was taken in as a partner in 1867. The following year, he married Elsie, the sister of the future Lord Mount Stephen who was then a rising star in the world of textiles and with whom he'd enjoy a close working relationship for the remainder of their lives.

In 1879, he founded the Lake of the Woods Milling Company, with mills at Keewatin and Portage-La-Prairie. He was a director the Canadian Pacific Railway; the Montreal Street Railway Company; Canadian North-West Land Company; the Bank of Toronto; and the Dominion Transport Company. He was a Member of the Montreal Board of Trade and the Corn Exchange. Having moved to Montreal in 1881, from 1888 until his death in 1911 he lived at the mansion originally built for his brother-in-law, Mount Stephen House on Drummond Street. He and his wife were the parents of a son and two daughters and when he died in 1911 his estate was valued at $2.2-million.