Douglas Mackinnon Baillie Hamilton Cochrane, , 12th Earl of (29 Oct. 1852-12 April 1935), soldier. Born in Banff, Scotland. He inherited the earldom in 1885, on the death of his father, the 11th earl. The 12th earl, the Dundonald of the present entry, fought in the Sudan and in the Boer War, and had the rank of major general by 1900. He came to Canada in 1902 to take charge of the militia. In an incident which provoked much public controversy at the time, he resigned in 1904 in disagreement with the Laurier government and returned to Britain. For reasons which are now obscure, but which must have included his Highland connections, Dundonald was a great favourite of the Canadian Glengarrians, who seem publicly at least to have suspended their Liberal versus Conservative rivalries for this purpose. Dundonald, for his part, responded well to the Glengarrians’ overtures. Dundonald left a valuable description of his impressions of the Glengarrians in his memoirs My Army Life (London, 1926, 1934; the GC passages are the same in both editions). Dundonald died in London, Eng.

     Dundonald was entertained at a great gathering in Alexandria on 2 Sept. 1903. The event was almost cancelled by a hoax phone call sent to him during the night. However, the truth was discovered soon enough for him to reach Alexandria in good time thanks to a special train made available by John Booth. Dundonald was met at the station by J.A. Macdonell, A.G.F. Macdonald, J. Lockie Wilson and others. He was again in GC to spend his last Sunday in Canada there, on 24 July 1904. On this occasion he dined with Bishop Macdonell. Earlier in the day he “attended a large gathering of people from Maxville, Williamstown, Laggan, Caledonia and elsewhere at Mr. Lockie Wilson’s house.” He noted as a curiosity that on the train back to Ottawa he sat next to the French Canadian nationalist leader Henri Bourassa. Two days later, on 26 July, when his train stopped at Alexandria on his way to Montreal preparatory to leaving Canada, he was presented with addresses by D.A. McArthur and J.A.C. Huot, and “Four pretty maidens, representing the four nationalities of the district” presented bouquets.

     The hoax telephone call has sometimes locally been remembered as the Dundonald Incident (a name also for the dispute with Laurier). In a document in the files of Bell Canada, Clarence Ostrom recorded that “In those days there was great rivalry between Alexandria and Williamstown and it was always thought that some of the Williamstown citizens had bribed a telephone lineman to tap the line and send the message for them. A freshly climbed pole was found near the Greenfield railway crossing,” which place was the most immediate point of access to the telephone line from Williamstown.

     In GC Dundonald met MacKinnons who reminded him of his own MacKinnon relatives (his mother was a MacKinnon, a daughter of the MacKinnon chief). Dundonald told the Glengarrians how greatly his father, who had been in Canada at the time of the suppression of the 1837-1838 rebellion, had been impressed by the appearance of the Macdonalds and other clansmen from GC who served in the loyal forces at that time.

     In March 1904, a proposal was reported to be afoot to form “two independent companies of infantry” in Highland uniform in GC to be permanently maintained in tribute to Dundonald. (Cornwall Freeholder 18 March 1904) In the London Times of 31 Aug. 1904 Dundonald denied a current report that he had accepted the Conservative nomination for the Glengarry (Canada) parliamentary seat. When the railway contractor John Angus D. D. Mcdonald was buried at Williamstown in 1938, friends and relatives “called at the old homestead, Dundonald.” (Standard Freeholder 6 April 1938) Also, Dundonald Cottage, Alexandria, has been noticed various times in the Alexandria press over the years. It is not clear, however, whether these Dundonald names come from the 1903-1904 visits or simply from the historic place Dundonald in Scotland.

     It may be guessed, admittedly more on general principles than documentary evidence, that the Glengarrian principally responsible for the Dundonald visits was the well-connected John A. (Jack Greenfield) Macdonell. Macdonell was Dundonald’s travelling companion during the earl’s last six weeks in Canada, and later visited Dundonald in Britain. (See Macdonell’s entry) Macdonell was a Conservative, though hardly a bitter partisan. And more importantly, he was a natural community organizer. (Admittedly, this was a role in which a few of his fellow citizens seem to have resented him.) But in any case, GC political rivalries had some of the artificial intensity of sports rivalries. The rivalries were fierce and showy, but shallow. It was the interest of the community and of friends on either side of the political barrier that always came out first.

Dundonald, My Army Life (1926, 1934); GC extracts are printed MacGillivray & Ross 654-65, see also 695 * life of Dundonald in DNB supplement 1931-1940 & (with portrait) ODict * Boase (for Dundonald’s father) * visits: Glengarry News & Glengarrian both 4 Sept. 1903, GN 29 July 1904, & other sources listed in these notes * hoax phone call: Cornwall Standard 11 Sept. 1903 (editorial comment, strongly anti-Liberal); Clarence Ostrom in Bell records as cited; Clarence Ostrom, “The Hoax That Hoodwinked an Earl,” Maclean’s Magazine, 21 May 1960; Clarence Ostrom, “Telephones in Alexandria,” GHS, 14th Annual Volume (1974-1975) * T. A. Haultain, Goldwin Smith: His Life and Opinions (1913) 181 (Smith’s probable reference to Dundonald in GC)