William MacNider (1814-1846)

He was born in Montreal and graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1836 after having obtained a license to practice from the Royal College of Surgeons, also at Edinburgh. While there, he married Philadelphia Wishart, of Foxhall, niece of John Henry Wishart (1781-1834), co-founder of the Edinburgh Eye Dispensary, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and Surgeon in Scotland to King George IV. The MacNiders returned to his native city and in 1841 he founded Montreal's first maternity hospital, the Lying-In Hospital on Bonaventure Street. Because MacNider had been denied a position with McGill University, he barred McGill students from the hospital and in further protest against McGill's empirical bearing over Montreal's medical community, in 1843 he co-founded the rival medical school, the Montreal School of Medicine & Surgery. The Lying-In Hospital folded after MacNider's premature death at the age of 31 in 1846, but the idea had impressed several important women connected to McGill and in 1843 they had established the University Lying-In Hospital. In 1840, Dr MacNider had inherited the Seigneury of Metis which had been developed by his great-uncle, John MacNider. He divided it with his brother, John, taking the half that became known as Métis-sur-Mer or Little Metis. After his death in 1846, his widow sold the seigneury to their friends the Ferguson brothers and returned to her native Edinburgh.