McGill University

McGill University is the oldest university in the city of Montreal and this building is the first one dedicated to this institution.

University was named after James McGill a fur merchant involved in his community. Mr McGill gave all his land (46 acres) and £ 10 000 of this times for a future academic institution which will obtained its founding charter in 1821. The university gaves his first classes in 1829 in the old James McGill’s house (Burnside). The first principal was George Jehoshaphat Mountain, an Anglican priest.

The old stone house soon became too small so the this building was built on McGill land.

In 1832 the first faculty of medicine in Canada is built near this building. McGill College is now a Campus.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, McGill College grows his reputation in the same time as his campus. College receives considerable funds from wealthy donors such as Lord Strathcona, Sir William Macdonald, William Molson and Peter Redpath, influent citizen of their time. Their names were given to McGill College pavilion.

As time is passing, university’s reputation and campus has grown and have now almost 30 building, in a beautiful site in north area of downtown Montreal, at the foot of the Mont-Royal mountain.

Today McGill University awards more than 7000 degrees per year and has more than 33 000 students including a large number of foreign students. Professors are around 1600.