Old Photograph Drumcross Road Bathgate Scotland

Old photograph of cottages, houses and children on Drumcross Road in Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland. This Scottish town is by the M8 motorway 5 miles West of Livingston. Nearby towns are Armadale, Blackburn, Linlithgow, Livingston, West Calder and Whitburn. Richard Bladworth Angus was born on 28 May 1831, in Bathgate. He was a younger son of Alexander Angus, a merchant grocer from Rafford, Morayshire, and his wife Margaret Forrest from Bathgate. Alexander Angus was a friend of the father of Sir James Young Simpson, and five of his eight children came to Canada at various stages. Educated at Bathgate Academy, Richards' first employment was in Manchester, England, as a clerk with the Manchester and Liverpool Bank. In 1857, at Manchester, he married his wife, Mary Anne Daniels, the daughter of a Montreal wine merchant. In the same year as his marriage he went with his wife to Montreal and found employment as a book keeper with the Bank of Montreal, from where he advanced rapidly. He was a co-founder and vice president of the Canadian Pacific Railway; President of the Bank of Montreal; President of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal; President of the Montreal Art Association and co founder and President of the Mount Royal Club. He was the natural successor to Lord Mount Stephen as President of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1888, but did not desire the position; and he twice refused a knighthood. As one of Montreal's most prominent Scots Quebecers, he was elected President of the St Andrew's Society. In 1889, he co-founded the Mount Royal Club, where he was later President, and was a member of more than a dozen clubs throughout Canada, including: the St. James Club, of which he was formerly chairman; the Montreal Jockey Club; the Auto Club and Aero Club; the Forest and Stream Club; the Winter Club; the Rideau Club of Ottawa; The Toronto Club; the York Club and the Manitoba Club. He was an honorary member of the Antiquarian and Numismatic Society of Montreal. He died at his summer house, Pine Bluff, on 17 September 1922. On the day of his funeral, two days later, the CPR stopped all trains for two minutes, a symbolic gesture to one of its founding partners. He was buried at the Mount Royal Cemetery.



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