Since being founded by a legacy gift over 200 years ago, McGill University has been shaped by its people, places, and memorable events. Here are just a few of the milestones – ranging from quirky to compelling – that made McGill what it is today.
1821: McGill College receives a Royal Charter from King George IV. Other notable 1821 events: the death of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the birth of Canada’s third prime minister, Sir John Abbott, BCL 1854.
1848: William Wright becomes the first person of colour to earn a medical degree in British North America (now known as Canada). He would go on to teach at McGill and serve as Chair in Pharmacology.
1855: Total student enrolment is 64.
1874: Teams from McGill and Harvard play the first modern football game in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, MDCM’18, would put McGill football back on the map in 2020 when he helped the Kansas City Chiefs win Super Bowl LIV.
1882: The Redpath Museum opens its doors.
1885: The Board of Governors adopts the name McGill University.
1889: Georgina Hunter, BA’88, is named the first president of the McGill Women's Alumnae Association, which is the oldest organization of its kind in Canada.
1897: The first volume of the Old McGill annuals is published. Yearbooks were digitized for the University’s 190th anniversary and can be viewed here.
1899: Fifteen years after women are admitted to study on campus, Royal Victoria College welcomes McGill’s first female residents.
1907: Macdonald College opens its doors in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. It would become the Macdonald Campus of McGill University in 1965.
1908: Robert Stanley Weir, BCL 1880, DCL 1897, pens an English version of Canada's national anthem, which was originally composed in French. It was officially adopted in 1980.
1909: McGill awards its first PhD degree – in physics – to Robert William Boyle, BSc 1905, MSc 1906, PhD 1909. He would go on to work on the development of sonar.
1925: The Roddick Gates are completed.
1925: Hochelaga Rock, a memorial stone commemorating the Iroquois village that stood close to campus, is placed on Lower Field by Parks Canada. McGill’s downtown campus is on land which long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations.
1931: The Three Graces fountain, also known as the Three Bares, is installed on McGill campus. The statue’s sculptor, heiress Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, opened New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art the same year.
1931: A new method for producing Plexiglas is patented by William Chalmers, PhD’30. He did his research while still a McGill graduate student.
1944: Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt receive honorary McGill degrees while attending the Second Quebec Conference. The ceremony took place at the Quebec Citadel, with both men dressed in academic robes.
1948: The United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. John Peters Humphrey, BCom'25, BA'27, BCL'29, PhD'45, LLD'76, was the principal author of the first draft.
1952: McGill's Institute of Islamic Studies is founded, the first of its kind in North America.
1957: Thomas M S Chang, OC, BSc'57, MDCM'61, PhD'65, creates the first artificial blood cell - in his residence room in Douglas Hall.
1958: The Gault Estate in Mont Saint-Hilaire is gifted to McGill in a bequest. Now known as Gault Nature Reserve, it's used for scientific research and outdoor recreation.
1959: McGill acquires its first mainframe computer. It’s used for University administration and research. (Source)
1962: H. Rocke Robertson, BSc’32, MDCM’36, LLD’70, is named McGill’s 12th Principal and Vice-Chancellor (1962-1970). He is the first McGill graduate to hold the offices. (Source)
1967: In celebration of Founder’s Day and Canada’s Centennial, all ten provincial premiers receive honorary degrees. (Source)
1968: McGill opens the Department of Jewish Studies.
1968: Changes in University governance dictate that eight students be elected to the Senate and five Senators sit on the Board of Governors. The first student sits on the Board of Governors the following year. (Source)
1971: McGill celebrates its 150th anniversary. The festivities include a skydive jump onto lower campus by Kathy Fox, BSc’72, MBA’86.
1982: Believed to be the inaugural year of Open Air Pub, now run annually by the Engineering Undergraduate Society. Cheers!
1985: Six Inuit women received diplomas from the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders; courses are taught in the Inuktitut language. (Source)
1986: The McGill Advancement Program, established in 1973, is flourishing: funds raised between 1980-86 endow 38 new professorial chairs. (Source)
1988: McGill libraries are computerized for campus-wide accessibility. (Source)
1989: Bernard Belleau, PhD’50, lays the foundation for the development of anti-HIV/AIDS drug Lamivudine, commonly known as 3TC. The discovery is said to have saved millions of lives and changed AIDS from an automatic death sentence to a chronic disease.
1989: The McGill Symphony Orchestra performs at New York’s Carnegie Hall to critical acclaim. (Source)
1989: Proving that McGill engineers are full of great ideas, they open the Frostbite ice cream store.
1996: The University’s 175th anniversary celebrations include the construction of an Ice Pantheon – similar to Rome’s and built at a scale of approximately 1:5 by architecture students and staff.
2007: The plaza outside Burnside Hall transforms into an urban garden for the Edible Campus project.
2009: An all-McGill study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, confirms that childhood trauma can shape human genes. (Source)
2011: Five McGill students are recruited by the New Democratic Party to run against incumbent MPs in Canada’s federal election. All five win their seats, astounding pundits and helping make party leader Jack Layton, BA’71, the NDP’s first-ever Leader of the Opposition.
2016: The McGill Black Alumni Association (MBAA) is established. Their newest initiative, the McGill Black Mentorship Program, launched in January 2021 as a pilot project.
2020: Moderna, Inc, co-founded and chaired by Noubar Afeyan, BEng'83, announces that their mRNA COVID-19 vaccine has an efficacy rate of more than 94 per cent.
2020: Made by McGill stories makes its digital debut; thus far over 240 McGillians have participated in the project. Share your McGill experience, the impact McGill has had on your career and life, or the ways McGill helped you make the choices that have shaped you.
Want even more McGill facts? View the historical timeline celebrating McGill’s Bicentennial.
What will your legacy be?
McGill is celebrating its 200th anniversary with the goal of securing 200 legacy gifts. For more information, please contact us.
