(born 27 April 1799-26 Feb. 1875), clergyman. (Angus Macdonell, V. G., with title Very Reverend) (also found: died aged 76) Born at St. Raphael’s, GC. Angus Macdonell was the nephew of Bishop Alexander Macdonell, the bishop of Upper Canada. The young man’s education included study at the College of Nicolet, Que. He was ordained to the priesthood on All Saints’ Day, 1822, by his uncle Bishop Macdonell. Angus Macdonell was the fourth pastor of St. Raphael’s, GC, serving from 1826 to 1830. His immediate predecessor as pastor at St. Raphael’s was his uncle, Bishop Macdonell, and his successor was the celebrated Fr John (John Macdonald 1782-1879). From 1831 to 1843, at Sandwich, which is now a part of Windsor, Angus Macdonell was pastor of the French-speaking parish of Assumption. He came to Assumption in difficult circumstances. The parish had been troubled by the irregularities of two area priests, and was torn by hostility to the powerful local Baby family, and Macdonell himself was not well received by the parishioners. He was apparently often absent during his period as pastor there. He was also at some time pastor at Toronto and Bytown.

     During many years he was vicar-general of the diocese of Kingston. He assisted his uncle Bishop Macdonell in founding Regiopolis College at Kingston, and he served as first principal (rector) of the college. (Regiopolis College closed in 1869.) While vicar-general and rector, he also served as chaplain of the penitentiary and chaplain of the first Hotel Dieu in Kingston. At the last of his life, when his health was failing, he lived at the Hotel Dieu; and it was at the Hotel Dieu that he died.

     The present paragraph is based on an obituary. Fr Macdonell visited Europe 17 times between 1832 and his death. “He travelled also through Egypt and Algiers where he was a guest of Marshal MacMahon, and in addition to making himself acquainted with every State in the American Union, he made the tour of the West Indies.” The obituary writer thought that if Fr Macdonell had written an autobiography, it would have been “of a highly entertaining and instructive character for he was both a gentleman and a scholar and obtained entree into the best society wherever he went.…A large number of the clergy of the Diocese together with many Protestants joined in the [funeral] procession to do honor to one of whom it is truly said that he was ‘a deep thinker, a profound scholar, a learned divine, and a kind-hearted Christian gentleman’.”

     Some non-committal testimony from him is published (pp. 33-34) in the Seventh Report on Grievances (Toronto, 1835).

     He was survived by a brother Duncan Macdonell (Duncan B. Macdonell) of Alexandria, Ont., who was the father of Alexander Duncan Macdonell. The aforementioned Duncan Macdonell, of Lot 1 in the 3rd Concession of Kenyon Township, whose farm address at this location made him, in effect, a resident of Alexandria, died 1 May 1883, aged 83.

Obit. (undated clipping) ASC ii, 75 (QF); also, ASC ii, 109 has handwritten note from him on death of Bishop Phelan, 1857 * obituary (not same as in ASC), True Witness 12 March 1875 * Flynn: index * Sinnsearachd 170, with extract from Fr E. J. Lajeunesse’s history of Assumption Parish * mentioned Dictionary of Canadian Biography, VII, 661-662, 705, VIII, 34, XIV, 913 * Franklin A. Walker, Catholic Education and Politics in Upper Canada (1955): index * death near Alexandria of vicar general’s brother Duncan B. Macdonell, CF 4 May 1883, and again DTL, Standard Freeholder 1 May 1948 * St. Finnan’s CRNI, II, 369 (death of Duncan Macdonell) * Archibald MacKinnon’s Address Delivered at Regiopolis College, on the Eve of the Anniversary of the Rev. Angus McDonell, V. G. of Kingston (Kingston, 1863) about Scottish history with no biog. data on Macdonell