(Lady Hingston) (died 7 Nov. 1936, aged 87), charitable worker. Born at Alexandria, GC. Parents: Hon. D.A. Macdonald and his wife Catherine Fraser, daughter of Col. Alexander Fraser of Fraserfield. Married in Toronto on 16 Sept. 1875 to Dr William Hingston, in the year in which he became mayor of Montreal. Earlier in that year her father had become lieutenant-governor of Ontario, and in the interval between his taking up office and her marriage she acted, with her sisters, as a hostess for her father at Government House, Toronto.
She was involved, over many years, in charitable activities in Canada, and especially in Montreal, many of them connected with the Catholic Church. She was the founder of the Catholic Literary Club of Montreal, which was later named the Catholic Truth Society, and was principal founder of the Catholic Girls’ Club and honorary president of the Loyola Literary Club. She was one of the founders of the Montreal Society of Decorative Art, and was vice-president of the Needlework Guild of Canada, Montreal Branch. For the advancement of hospitals she did much work. She was a member of the Victorian Order of Nurses. The prevention of tuberculosis was another cause for which she worked. In World War I she was on the executive of the Red Cross, worked for the Patriotic Fund, and was president of the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Knights of Columbus Catholic Army Huts. She continued her charitable activities until checked by old age, making occasional appearances at charitable functions and meetings till almost the end of her life.
She was a person of substantial achievement in her own right, quite apart from her importance as the wife of the well known Sir William Hingston, and she accordingly was given her own biographical entry in the 1912 edition of Morgan’s biographical dictionary, issued after the death of her husband in 1907. (One of her sons appears in the same volume.) She was honorary national president of the Catholic Women’s League. The Margaret Hingston Chapter of the IODE was named after her. She died at her home in Montreal. (six children, three surviving her) She was the sister of Col. A.G.F. Macdonald, of Alexandria.
Her son Lt. Basil Hingston was killed in World War I. Another son, Dr Donald Alexander Hingston (5 April 1878-18 Nov. 1950) was a highly distinguished, very well known physician in Montreal. Dr Hingston visited his uncle A. G. F. Macdonald in Alexandria “on many occasions and was widely known in Alexandria and Glengarry.”
Another son, William H. Hingston, S.J. (15 Jan. 1877-30 Nov. 1964), was rector of Loyola College, Montreal, from 1918 to 1925. He was provincial of the Upper Canada Vice-Province of his order from 1928 to 1934. In his later years he wrote frequently for the Canadian Messenger of the Sacred Heart and The Canadian Register. He assisted in founding the new religious community of women called Our Lady’s Missionaries. (See entry for Mgr Donald Ranald Macdonald for the Glengarry connections of this community). In this connection, in late 1949, Fr Hingston visited Alexandria to preach at a retreat for eight postulants to Our Lady’s Missionaries. (Standard Freeholder 3 Dec. 1949)
Standard Freeholder 11 Nov. 1936, Glengarry News 13 Nov. 1936 * H. J. Morgan, Types of Canadian Women, I (1903) 159 (portrait) * Morgan (1912) 536 * biog. entry in Prominent People of the Province of Quebec 1923-24 (1924?) [unpaginated] * William H. Hingston, S.J., “William Hales Hingston, M.D. (1829-1907),” Canadian Catholic Historical Association, Report 1951, pp. 109-120 (includes tribute to both Sir William and Lady Hingston) * Macdonald, Sandfields, 42-43, 49-50 * Basil Hingston: killed in action in France, GN 16 Aug. 1918, Cornwall Standard 22 Aug. 1918; his son Capt. Basil Hingston missing in action, GN 27 Oct. 1944 * Dr Donald Alexander Hingston: Morgan (1912) 536; obituary GN 24 Nov. 1950 (QF) * Fr William H. Hingston, S.J.: MDict and obituary GN 3 Dec. 1964 but esp. his life in Dictionary of Jesuit Biography: MInistry to English Canada 1842-1987 (1991)