====== McDougald, John Angus ====== (14 March 1908-15 March 1978), businessman. (Bud McDougald, John A. McDougald) Born in Toronto. Parents: Duncan J. McDougald and his wife Margherita Emelie Murray. Having the privileged upbringing of the son of a wealthy Toronto family, he attended Upper Canada College and St. Andrew’s College, and toured Europe with a private tutor. He briefly considered attending Cambridge University in England, but did not value formal education and congratulated himself in later years on escaping it easily and at an early age. At age 18 he began work in Sept. 1926 as an office boy in Dominion Securities, Toronto. As office boy, he was driven to the office in the morning by the family chauffeur. Showing from the beginning of his working years his extraordinary natural aptitude for business, McDougald rose quickly through the ranks to become one of the most successful and powerful Canadian businessmen of his time. He remained with Dominion Securities till 1945. With the financier E. P. Taylor, he was a partner in Taylor, McDougald and Co. Ltd. McDougald was one of shapers and managers of the powerful Argus Corporation. At the time of his death he was chairman and board president of Argus Corporation, and was director or otherwise involved in the management of many other corporations, including Hollinger Mines, Domtar, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Dominion Stories and Massey-Ferguson Ltd . In the 1970s his personal fortune was estimated at over $250 million. Peter C. Newman thought him “nearly invisible” and little known, but unquestionably the Canadian business establishment’s “most powerful” member and its “grand master.” (31,32) Newman speaks of him in his last years as “growling at the galloping imperfections of the soft, liberal society he despised.” (p. 25) McDougald lived the life of the very wealthy, travelled much in connection with his business, knew the wealthy and famous, maintained palatial homes in Toronto and Palm Beach, Fla., kept racehorses in England, and collected paintings and vintage cars. He did not smoke or drink. Roman Catholic. Contributor to Catholic charities. He worked with spectacular success on a fund drive in the mid-1950s for St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto. He died at his home in Palm Beach, Fla., the day after his 70th birthday. The funeral mass was at St. Michael’s Cathedral, Toronto. Burial was in Mount Hope Cemetery, Toronto. He was married on 6 Nov. 1934 to Hedley Maude Eustace Smith, a noted figure skater. They had no children. There is a detailed, vividly written biographical study of McDougald, with a brilliant character sketch based on much personal information from interviews and a long friendship, in Peter C. Newman’s well-known book, //The Canadian Establishment//. Until Newman published his book, McDougald was, outside of business circles, relatively little known to the Canadian public. McDougald’s reputation was next reinforced by the wide press coverage of his death in 1978. After his death, the rising Conrad Black and his brother Montegu Black obtained control of Argus Corporation. John A. (Bud) McDougald was perhaps the most brilliantly successful of all the eminent businessmen descended from Glengarrians (as distinguished from those, such as Peacock, who were Glengarrians by birth). The fact that the statement has to be qualified with the word “perhaps” in itself shows something of the Glengarry achievement. “Master John Angus McDougald” attended the funeral in Alexandria in 1923 of his grandfather and namesake John A. McDougald. (//Glengarry News// 19 Jan. 1923) When young McDougald married in 1934, the report of his marriage was featured prominently on the front page of the //Glengarry News// of 9 Nov. 1934. But that presumably was because the McDougalds of the stock of the original John A. were still involved in GC affairs and well known in Alexandria. Thereafter, John A. (Bud) McDougald was unknown in GC till national fame reached him in his later years. And he himself seems to have had no interest in his ancestral county. There was, however, speculation in the 1970s that he might be the source of monthly cheques that an elderly connection of the McDougalds was thought to be receiving from Toronto. As a businessman, McDougald was long associated with the Hollinger business interests of his McMartin relatives (see Mr & Mrs John McMartin). With regard to Argus, see also Igor Kaplan. ---- //Globe & Mail// 16 & 17 March 1978: front page, with portrait, & editorial of tribute * CP e.g., //London Free Press// and //Kitchener-Waterloo Record// 16 March 1978 (not identical, and with different portraits) * Hugh Anderson, “Breakup, Control Fight Are Forecast for Argus,” //Globe & Mail// 18 March 1978 (with portrait) * Peter C. Newman, //The Canadian Establishment//, Vol. I: //The Old Guard// (1989, first published 1975) * //Who’s Who in Canada// 1945-1946 p. 763 and 1964-1965 pp. 673-674 (with fine portraits) * //Who’s Who in Finance and Industry//, 18th edn.: 1974-1975 (Chicago, n.d.) 553 * life: Hurtig, II, 1263 * Conrad Black, //A Life in Progress// (1993) [<6>]