Samuel McLaughlin

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Colonel Robert Samuel McLaughlin

Robert Samuel McLaughlin CC (September 8, 1871 - January 6, 1972) was an important Canadian businessman, philanthropist and founder, in 1907, of the McLaughlin Motor Car Co., the first major automobile manufacturer in Canada.

Born near Oshawa in Enniskillen, Ontario, he started working, in 1887, for his father's company, McLaughlin Carriage Works, a manufacturer of horse-drawn buggies and sleighs. With engines from William C. Durant of Buick he produced the McLaughlin-Buick Model F, establishing The McLaughlin Motor Car Company, incorporated on November 20, 1907. In 1908, its first full year of operation, it produced 154 cars. In 1910 he became a director of General Motors and sold his company in 1918 becoming president of General Motors of Canada, which continued to sell cars under the McLaughlin-Buick brand for the next few years. He retired in 1945, but remained chairman of the board until his death.

After being made an Honorary Colonel of the 11th Ontario Regiment, he was thereafter affectionately called "Colonel Sam." In 1967 Sam McLaughlin was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

1 Philanthropy
2 Thoroughbred horse racing
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Philanthropy

In 1951 he established the McLaughlin Foundation which donated nearly $200 million, including the McLaughlin Planetarium to the Royal Ontario Museum. His mansion, Parkwood Estate, begun in 1916, was designed by the Toronto architectural firm of Darling and Pearson. In 1989, the Parkwood estate was officially designated a National Historic Site.

He was also a major contributor to Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario. The University's Mechanical Engineering Department is housed in McLaughlin Hall which was his donation in 1948.

[edit] Thoroughbred horse racing

In his youth, Samuel McLaughlin competed in cycling and yachting and was an equestrian show jumping champion at competitions in Canada and the United States. His love of horses led to the establishing of Parkwood Stable, a thoroughbred horse racing and breeding farm located a few miles north of Oshawa, Ontario.

McLaughlin's horses won numerous races in Canada and in the U.S. his horses won important races including the 1942 Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park. A three-time winner of Canada's most prestigious race, the Queen's Plate, in 1934 his future Hall of Fame colt Horometer won both the Queens Plate and the Breeders' Stakes. In 1950, the nearly eighty-year-old McLaughlin retired from racing, selling his Parkwood Stable to E. P. Taylor under whom it would become known as Windfields Farm.

A long-time director of the Ontario Jockey Club, Colonel McLaughlin was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1963 and the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 1977.