Samuel McLaughlin
Canadian businessman, philanthropist (1871-1972)
Colonel Robert Samuel McLaughlin, (September 8, 1871 – January 6, 1972) was a Canadian businessman and philanthropist. He started the McLaughlin Motor Car Company in 1907, one of the first major automobile manufacturers in Canada, which evolved into General Motors of Canada. McLaughlin lived to the age of 100.
Life and career
McLaughlin was born near Bowmanville in the hamlet of Enniskillen, Ontario, the son of Robert McLaughlin and Mary Smith. As a young man, he worked for a short time in a local hardware store, then in 1887 became an apprentice in the upholstery shop of his father's company, McLaughlin Carriage Works, which had opened in 1867.. At one time, it was promoted as the largest manufacturer of horse-drawn buggies and sleighs in the British Empire. In 1890, McLaughlin took a job at H. H. Babcock, an upholstery company in Watertown, New York.
In 1892, McLaughlin and his brother George become junior partners in their father's company. In 1898, he married Adelaide Mowbray.
The McLaughlin Motor Car Company was incorporated on November 20, 1907.
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This entry incorporates text from “Samuel McLaughlin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.