Bethune, John Wadden

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: John Irwin Cooper, “BETHUNE, JOHN (1791-1872),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bethune_john_1791_1872_10E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Anglican clergyman, dean of the diocese of Montreal, acting principal of McGill University; b. 5 Jan. 1791 at Charlottenburg (Williamstown), U.C.; d. 22 Aug. 1872 in Montreal, Que.
    • John Bethune, brother of Alexander Neil Bethune, was the third son of Véronique Waddin and the Reverend John Bethune, a minister of the Church of Scotland. During the American Revolution, the elder Bethune served as chaplain in the 84th Regiment (Royal Highland Emigrants). Upon its demobilization he took up residence in Montreal, and in March 1786 organized that city’s earliest Presbyterian congregation (later First Presbyterian Church of Montreal). In 1787 he moved to the Scots and American royalist settlement in Glengarry, west of Lake St Francis.
    • In 1818 Bethune was posted to Montreal as minister of Christ Church and first rector of the Anglican parish of Montreal, which the provincial government had set up that year, its boundaries to be coterminous with those of the Roman Catholic parish of Notre-Dame. The parishes included all of the city of Montreal and its suburbs. As rector, Bethune made his presence felt. The new Christ Church, begun on Notre-Dame Street in 1805, was completed and freed of debt. It was consecrated in 1830 by Bishop Charles James Stewart. Bethune multiplied agencies depending on Christ Church, many of which, though operated by that church, performed services open to all Montrealers. He organized a Sunday school, which also supplied secular instruction for adults. Aided by the National School Society, in 1819 he established a monitorial school (one in which the senior pupils taught the younger). The Pastoral Aid Society collected money to provide religious ministrations in outlying parts of Montreal. The Committee of Managers for the Poor was reorganized to cope with destitution. Poverty had been greatly aggravated by the termination of the War of 1812–14 and the Napoleonic wars in 1815, bringing a dislocation of the economy and adding large numbers of immigrants.
    • In November 1835 Bethune was appointed principal pro tem. of McGill University. He pressed at once for the erection of suitable buildings and for the teaching of disciplines other than medicine, the only faculty with which the college had opened in 1829. (Medicine at that time occupied quarters in the lower town.) Bethune’s proposals involved him with the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning. This was the body that held in trust the property left by James McGill in 1813 to endow a university or college. It named the governors of the college, principal, and staff, all subject to the approval of the secretary of state for the colonies. Though over 20 years had passed since McGill’s death, and six since the college had opened, much of the money was still held up in litigation, and the governors of the college were still not free of the supervision of the Royal Institution. In spite of the battle with the Royal Institution for funds, the governors, led by Bethune, succeeded in getting plans approved and building under way. By September 1843 the central section of the arts building and the principal’s residence were completed. Teaching, chiefly in classical languages and mathematics, began with three students, two of them nephews of the principal, who acted as professor of divinity as well. These achievements were suitably recognized in the same year by the awarding to Bethune of an honorary dd by McGill University. He had received a similar award from Columbia University in 1837.
  • Son of Proven Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=565
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/227234281/john_wadden-bethune