Colonel Robert Samuel McLaughlin, CC, ED, CD, LLD, an important Canadian businessman, philanthropist and founder, in 1907, of the McLaughlin Motor Car Co


Thursday 6th January 1972

Colonel Robert Samuel McLaughlin, CC, ED, CD, LLD, an important Canadian businessman, philanthropist and founder, in 1907, of the McLaughlin Motor Car Co. – the first major automobile manufacturers in Canada, died at the magnificent age of 100. In 1892 McLaughlin and his brother George become junior partners in their father’s company – McLaughlin Carriage Works, which had opened in 1867 and at one time was the largest manufacturer of horse-drawn buggies and sleighs in the British Empire. In 1898 he married Adelaide Mowbray. With engines from William C. Durant of Buick, he produced the McLaughlin-Buick Model F, establishing The McLaughlin Motor Car Company, incorporated on November 20, 1907. In 1908, its first full year of operation, it produced 154 cars.
In 1910, he became a director of General Motors. He sold his Chevrolet company stock in 1918, becoming president of General Motors of Canada, which continued to sell cars under the McLaughlin-Buick brand until 1942. He retired in 1945, but remained chairman of the board until his death. He remained on the board of General Motors until the early 1960s, and was coincidentally replaced by Royal Bank of Canada president Earle McLaughlin, his first cousin once removed.
His brother, chemist John J. McLaughlin, founded the Canada Dry company. After his brother’s death in 1912, McLaughlin became president of this company briefly until it was sold around 1917.

His mansion, Parkwood Estate, begun in 1916, was designed by the Toronto architectural firm of Darling and Pearson. In 1989, the Parkwood estate was officially designated a National Historic Site of Canada.


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