Thomas Workman’s Legacy

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A wealthy Montreal businessman during his lifetime, Thomas Workman (1813-1889) has been largely forgotten, however, several of the companies he helped to found still exist, and his bequest to McGill University supports cutting-edge research today.

Thomas Workman, 1869

Thomas was the eighth of the nine children of Joseph Workman (1759-1848), a teacher turned estate manager, and his wife, Catherine Gowdy (1769-1872). Thomas was probably born at the family home in Ballymacash, a village near Belfast, Ireland (now Northern Ireland). His parents were strict and ambitious for their children and believed that too much hugging would spoil them.

Members of Thomas’s family moved to Canada a few at a time. In 1819, the oldest son, Benjamin, decided to start a new life in North America and booked passage on a ship bound for Quebec. Over the next few years, brothers Alexander and John followed. Fourteen-year-old Thomas, accompanied by Samuel (16) and Francis (12), arrived in Montreal in 1827, following a hazardous voyage across the Atlantic. The brothers lived with Ben and his wife and attended the Union School that Ben owned, studying grammar, mathematics and the classics. Their parents, sister Ann (who was my two-times great-grandmother) and brothers William and Joseph followed in 1829.

In Ireland, the family attended the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland in Dunmurray, and, like its minister, they strongly believed in freedom of thought in religion. When Thomas first arrived in Montreal, he attended a Presbyterian church, but after his brother Benjamin played a key role in founding a Unitarian congregation in the city in 1842, Thomas became a life-long Unitarian.

Like a number of Irish-born Protestants, Thomas joined the Doric Club, an organization founded in Montreal in 1836 to help maintain Lower Canada’s British connection.1 Along with a number of other Doric Club members, Thomas participated as a loyalist volunteer in the bloody battle of Sainte-Eustache during the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837-38. The following spring, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant.

Thomas was described as someone who did not show much emotion, but he did have a life-long close bond with his brother Dr. Joseph Workman, who lived in Toronto. They visited each other and shared interests, such as the new theory of evolution.2 In 1845, Thomas married Scottish-born Anna Eadie (1822-1889). Although they had no children, they moved into a large house at the northwest corner of Sherbrooke and University Street in 1877.

The house built by Thomas Workman, on Sherbrooke Street, near University, Montreal. Photos of this house have sometimes been erroneously identified as his brother William Workman’s home.

Thomas began his business career working for a Montreal merchant. In 1834, he was hired as a junior clerk at the hardware firm Frothingham and Workman, where his brother William was a partner. Nine years later, Thomas became a partner, and when both William Workman and John Frothingham retired in 1859, Thomas became head of the company. At this time, Frothingham and Workman was the largest hardware wholesaler in Canada, importing tools and supplies from Britain and the U.S. and with its own manufacturing facilities near Montreal’s Lachine Canal. 

Like many of his peers, Thomas was involved with several companies over the course of his career. He was a director and later the vice-president of Molson’s Bank, which was incorporated in 1855 and merged with the Bank of Montreal 70 years later. He was a founding director and first president of Sun Mutual Life Insurance Company of Montreal (now simply known as Sun Life) from 1871 until his death 18 years later. He was also involved with the City and District Savings Bank, founded by the Bishop of Montreal and a group of city business leaders to help working people save money. It is now the Laurentian Bank. His other business interests included shipping, insurance and real estate.

A Liberal in politics, Thomas was elected in 1867 to Canada’s first federal parliament, representing the riding of Montreal Center. He did not run in the following two elections, but in 1875 he returned to the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for Montreal West. The topics he addressed in parliament mainly focused on business interests such as canals, railways and exports and imports.   

Governments did not fund health and social services as they do today, so Montreal’s wealthy citizens gave generously to a variety of causes. Thomas donated to the Mackay Institution for Protestant Deaf Mutes (now the Mackay Centre School), and he was president of the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society for two years. He was also a governor of the Fraser Institute and Free Library of Montreal, known in recent years as the Fraser Hickson Library.

Thomas’s wife Anna died in June 1889, and his brother Joseph commented that when Thomas succumbed to diabetes a few months later, he probably died of a broken heart.

Thomas and Anna are buried in the Workman family plot in Mount Royal Cemetery where their massive headstone is inscribed with their names on one side, and the names of his parents and brother Samuel on the other. 

The smith workshop in the Workman Engineering Building, McGill University, around 1901.

Thomas was reputed to be a millionaire – a rare achievement in Canada at the time. The organization that benefited the most from his estate was his neighbour, McGill College, now McGill University. He bequeathed his house to McGill, and it became home to the School of Music. The Otto Maass Chemistry Building is now located on this spot.

In addition, he left $120,000 to the fledgling department of mechanical engineering, then known as the Applied Science Faculty. Half of that sum paid for the construction of a new building to house machine and technical shops, including a foundry, hydraulics and electrical science.3 The Governor General of Canada laid the building’s cornerstone at a ceremony on Oct. 30, 1890.4 The Workman Wing of the Engineering Building is still there, although it has undergone many changes over the past century and a quarter.5

Thomas also provided long-lasting funds for research. The current Thomas Workman Professor of Mechanical Engineering studies satellites and space robotics, while the current Thomas Workman Emeritus Professor’s expertise is in the interactions between fluids and structures, with applications in the power-generating industry and the aeronautical industry.

This article is also posted on the collaborative blog https://genealogyensemble.com.

Photos credits:

Thomas Workman, Montreal, QC, 1869. William Notman, I-36832, McCord Stewart Museum

Thomas Workman’s House, Sherbrooke Street, Montreal, Quebec, 1912-13. Wm. Notman & Son, VIEW-12850, McCord Stewart Museum

Smith’s Shop in the Workman Building, McGill University, Montreal, about 1901. Photographer unknown. MP-000025286, McCord Stewart Museum

Sources:

1.  Gerald J. J. Tulchinsky, “WORKMAN, THOMAS,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed May 4, 2026, https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/workman_thomas_11E.html.

2.  Christine I. M. Johnston, The Father of Canadian Psychiatry: Joseph Workman, Victoria: The Ogden Press, 2000, p. 94. 

3.  MacDonald Engineering, the Workman Wing and the Electrical Wing. https://cac.mcgill.ca/campus/buildings/Macdonald_Engineering.html, accessed May 4, 2026.

4.  Keen Science’s New Home. Laying the Corner Stone of McGill’s Latest Buildings, The Gazette, Oct. 31, 1890, p. 2. www.newspapers.com accessed March 10, 2026.

5.  McGill. Civil Engineering. History of the Department, https://www.mcgill.ca/civil/about-us/history, accessed May 4, 2026.

Montreal Mayor William Workman

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Mayor William Workman in his robes of office.

In 1848, Montreal hardware merchant William Workman was encouraged to run for mayor. He refused. Twenty years later, Workman was elected as the city’s mayor, bringing his extensive experience in business, banking and philanthropy to the position for three years.  

A Protestant immigrant from Ireland, Workman (1807-1878) came from a middle-class family. He became a partner with the Montreal wholesale hardware company Frothingham and Workman and, after retirement in 1859, he remained active on the boards of several banks and philanthropic organizations.1

In politics, he was a liberal and, like several of his eight siblings, a member of the Unitarian Church. “All the (Workman) brothers had been instilled with a strong sense of morality, had learned skills to earn their living, possessed an ability to think through issues for themselves, and seemed to seek knowledge for its own sake,” Christine Johnston wrote in her biography of Willam’s brother Dr. Joseph Workman.2

In 1868, when Workman agreed to run, democratic institutions were relatively new. Montreal had been incorporated as a city in 1833, but its mayor was not elected by public voters until 1852, and there was no secret ballot until 1889. At first, only property owners were eligible to vote. As of 1860, renters – and in this city, most people were renters – could vote, provided they had paid their taxes. Anyone running for mayor, however, had to own property worth at least 1000 pounds.3 Thus, most of the city’s early mayors were from the business community, and about 60 percent of the people elected to city council were anglophones.

Banker and railway entrepreneur William Molson put Workman’s name forward at a nomination meeting. His opponent was Jean-Louis-Beaudry, a businessman who had already served several years as mayor. At first, there was a question as to whether Workman was eligible to run, then Beaudry claimed that Workman should be disqualified. His objections were dismissed and Workman beat Beaudry with 3134 votes to 1862.4

In 1869 and 1870, Workman was acclaimed mayor, but he did not run again in 1871.

This photo was taken in the municipal council chambers, then on the ground floor of the Bonsecours Market building. Mayor Workman is the gentleman standing on the raised floor in the back.

Montreal was changing fast and faced many problems. The population had grown from 58,000 in 1850 to approximately 107,000 by 1870.5 Many newcomers were immigrants from Britain and Ireland, while others had come from rural Quebec to find jobs. Located on the vast St. Lawrence River, Montreal was a transportation hub and industries were expanding. however, many jobs paid poorly, the city’s air was heavily polluted and its streets filthy.

The most distressing of Montreal’s problems was the high mortality rate for young children. Some people suspected that this was linked to its water supply. Cholera epidemics had reached Montreal in 1832, 1849 and 1854, but even most physicians did not understand that cholera was caused by bacteria, spread in contaminated drinking water. Instead, they believed that disease was spread by miasma, or unpleasant vapours in the air. William Workman, however, may have had some understanding of the contagiousness of cholera because his brother Joseph had done his thesis on cholera while a medical student at McGill University.6

As president of the Montreal Sanitary Association, William realized the importance of clean water. Over the three years he served as mayor, he looked at municipal economic development and urban life as two sides of the same coin. He was the first mayor to do so.7 His administration focused on improving the city’s water system, improving sanitation and making the city more livable for residents.

Workman improved the city’s aqueduct system to ensure it could provide enough water to everyone. He ensured that the sewer system was modernized, replacing rotting wooden sewer pipes with clay ones. He also saw to it that low-lying areas, where potentially contaminated water could accumulate, were drained.7

He turned his attention to garbage collection, introducing regulations concerning the pickup of manure, dead animals, soot and ashes. People were required to store waste in boxes or barrels, and the city now picked up garbage on a daily basis. The city built public baths, since many homes did not have hot running water, and it constructed municipal slaughterhouses.

To ensure that the city benefit all residents, he advocated for the creation of large public parks, on the top of Mount Royal and on Île Sainte-Hélène, where people could breathe pure air.8 Not long after Workman left office, the city purchased the necessary land and hired famous landscape architect Frederick Olmstead to design Mount Royal Park. It was officially opened in 1876 and it is still today a much-loved feature of Montreal. Île Sainte-Hélène, in the St. Lawrence River, also remains a popular green space.  

One of the most exciting events of Workman’s time as mayor may have been the clear, crisp October day in 1869 when 19-year-old Prince Arthur, Queen Victoria’s third son, arrived in Montreal as part of a Canadian tour. Workman greeted the prince in the old port and made a short welcoming speech, then he and his guest took part in a procession through the streets. People cheered as they passed by, and homes and commercial buildings were decked out with banners and flags. The following day a lacrosse tournament took place.

Workman, the tall man on the left in the back row, posed with a group of indigenous people during the lacrosse tournament activities.

Workman proved to be a very popular mayor among both English- and French-speaking Montrealers, and when he left office, citizens showed their appreciation. A public banquet was organized in his honour, and people from all classes came to thank him for his hard work and the generous hospitality he had offered to visitors. The Gazette was effusive in its description of the banquet and the expensive thank-you gifts of a diamond ring and silver dishes that Workman received.

The speech Workman gave during this dinner revealed that he had had concerns about going into politics. Addressing the crowd, and especially members of municipal council, he said, “I entered upon the duties of my office under great inexperience.… I laboured under great misgivings and suspicions as to the conduct of affairs in your corporate administration. Then, as now, the press had been sounding the alarm as to combinations, jobs and rings. I watched with great attention and anxiety in every department to discover the truth of these assertions, but I watched in vain and, after three years experience, I can truly say that, if it is one of the great blessings of a city … and of the citizens to find the corporate action of its representatives in unison with right and honest discharge of duty, then Montreal enjoys that blessing to its fullest extent.”

This post also appears on the collaborative blog https://.genealogyensemble.com.

See also:

Janice Hamilton, “William Workman: Public Successes, Personal Problems,” Genealogy Ensemble, Jan. 7, 2026, https://genealogyensemble.com/2026/01/07/william-workman-public-successes-personal-problems/

Photo credits:

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