(died March 1962), secretary. (Archibald MacGillivray Jr., Archie MacGillivray) Born presumably in Alexandria, GC. Parents: Archibald Duncan MacGillivray and his wife Charlotte Anne Chisholm. Clarence Ostrom reported that about 24 Oct. 1897 when MacGillivray was 11, he was operated on for appendicitis by a Montreal doctor in the kitchen of the MacGillivray house, Mill Square, Alexandria, in what was believed to be the first appendicitis operation performed locally. In 1903, he was reported as about to take a course at a Brockville business college. (Glengarry News 29 May 1903) In the fall of 1904 he returned home to Alexandria after several months in New Mexico and Southern California. (GN 28 Oct. 1904) From about late 1909 to mid 1910, he was evidently employed as a secretary in London, Eng., to Lord Northcliffe, the legendary newspaper magnate, one of the great figures of 20th-century journalism. (GN 12 Nov. 1909, 29 July 1910) A standard biography of Lord Northcliffe related that “when a new young Canadian secretary named McGillivray joined him [Northcliffe] in Paris for a spell of duty,” and it was found that McGillivray had neglected to bring a typewriter, the erratic Northcliffe made the young man go right back to London to get it. The incident was said to have “startled witnesses,” and the anecdote, otherwise somewhat pointless, was expressly included in the biography as an example of how “imperious” Northcliffe could be.

     In 1916, when he was slightly wounded by shrapnel, Archibald MacGillivray, the subject of the present biography, was a private on active war service with an English regiment. (GN 16 Dec. 1916) In 1918, again wounded, his rank was lieutenant. (GN 18 Oct. 1918) If we move now to his obituary, many years later, we find the statement, “During World War I he served overseas as an officer with the 10th Royal Fusiliers. He resided in London for ten years during which time he served as secretary to Lord Beaverbrook, Canadian-born British publisher.” (GN) It will be noted that the passage does not expressly say that he was Lord Beaverbrook’s secretary during the whole of the ten-year period. Nor does it state expressly when the employment was. By way of evidence, however, there is a letter dated 17 Aug. 1912 at Montreal, signed by A. MacGillivray, in the papers of Bonar Law the future British prime minister, which seems to relate to a visit of Sir Max Aitken, the future Lord Beaverbrook, to Canada, in which MacGillivray certainly sounds as if he was Aitken’s secretary. The letter writer had accompanied Aitken to North America, for he mentions the good weather “we” had in crossing. Apart from this, inquiries made by the present author in 1977 turned up no documentary evidence from the Beaverbrook papers or other related sources with regard to MacGillivray being Beaverbrook’s secretary. However, it is far from certain that a secretary would have left many traces in the Beaverbrook records. Tradition confidently reports that the claim about the Beaverbrook connection is correct.

     However extended his involvement with England may have been, it did not long survive the war, for in the spring of 1920 it is mentioned that Archibald MacGillivray has now left Canada for Oklahoma, having taken employment with the Standard Oil Co. (Glengarry News 30 April 1920) And when his father died in Dec. 1920, the son’s location is given in the obituary as Tulsa, Okla. At any rate, after apparently finally severing his connections with Britain, he was an oil company employee in the United States. In 1949, his address is given as Fort Worth, Texas. He died in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He appears not to have been married. He was the brother of E. A. MacGillivray, the MLA.

     The family’s eminent McDougald and McMartin associations (for which see the entry for his father) may help to explain connections with the London publishing world which must otherwise seem little less than baffling.

Glengarry News 29 March 1962 * Ostrom 189 * Reginald Pound and Geoffrey Harmsworth, Northcliffe (NY 1960) 341 (QF); the secretary’s name is not given beyond the surname and the incident described gave him his sole appearance in the book’s index * Bonar Law Papers, House of Lords Record Office * correspondence of the present author with the custodians of the Beaverbrook LIbrary, 1977 * MacLeods, i, 287, ii, 340: Oliver [MacLeod?] (1882-1969), a Glengarrian or of GC descent, was Lord Beaverbrook’s chauffeur for some years in England