He and his first cousin, Lord Mount Stephen, purchased the land and then each gave $1 million to the City of Montreal to construct and maintain the Royal Victoria Hospital.

Smith was educated at Anderson's Free School and on leaving at age sixteen he was apprenticed to become a lawyer in the offices of Robert Watson, Town Clerk of Forres.

By the age of eighteen, Smith chose another career path: offered entry into mercantile life at Manchester, and a career in the Indian Civil Service, his choice was to pattern himself on his uncle John Stuart (who had by then returned to live near Forres) who offered him a junior clerkship in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company.

He was given administrative control over the seigneury of Mingan (in modern Labrador) in late 1843, where his innovative methods met with the disapproval of HBC governor Sir George Simpson.

The person in charge of HBC's nominal head office in Montreal was Smith, and he was asked by the Governor-General to investigate and write a Royal Commission report.

Smith travelled to (present-day) Manitoba, and negotiated at Fort Garry with Louis Riel,[4] who had been voted the leader of the resistance.

Smith's offers, including land recognition for the Métis, led to Riel calling a Council of 40 representatives, drawn half-and-half from the Metis and the HBC settlers, for formal negotiations.

Smith returned to Ottawa in early 1870, and communicated the Royal Commission on the North-West Territories,[8] which effectively made his name in Canada and London.

Smith succeeded in gaining clemency for some prisoners within the region; he was not, however, able to prevent the execution of Thomas Scott by Riel's provisional government.

He was appointed that year to the office of President of the HBC's Council of the Northern Department (effectively becoming administrator of the Northwest Territories, including Manitoba).

[citation needed] Politicians were allowed to serve in both the provincial and federal parliaments in this period of Manitoba history, and Smith was elected to the House of Commons of Canada for the newly formed riding of Selkirk in early 1871.

Easily re-elected in 1872, Smith was a strong defender of HBC interests in the House of Commons, and also spoke for issues concerning Manitoba and the Northwest.

The Manitoba Free Press, at the time, suggested that Smith had encouraged Bannatyne's candidacy to prevent more serious opposition from emerging.

His business ventures increasingly dominated his labours, and he formally resigned as land commissioner in early 1879, though he remained a leading figure in the HBC's operations for another 30 years.

Aided on this occasion by the Manitoba Free Press, Smith defeated Morris by 555 votes to 546; local Conservative organizers protested the result, and it was overturned two years later.

He was subsequently a leading figure in the creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway, although he was not appointed as a director of the organization until 1883 because of his lingering animosity with Sir John A. Macdonald (who had again become prime minister in 1878).

During his tenure on the board, Smith had the honour of driving the last spike[4] at Craigellachie, British Columbia to complete the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway rail line.

Smith remained on the board of directors for several years, although he was by-passed for the company's presidency in 1888,[4] in favour of William Cornelius Van Horne.

His attempt to take over the Toronto Globe in 1882 was unsuccessful, though he took effective control of the Manitoba Free Press from William Fisher Luxton in 1893.

The position of Prime Minister instead went to Sir Charles Tupper, who appointed Smith as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom on 24 April 1896.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier retained Smith as High Commissioner following the Liberal election victory of 1896, although his powers were somewhat undercut.

He raised Strathcona's Horse, a private unit of Canadian soldiers, during the Second Boer War, and became one of the leading supporters of British imperialism within London.

[19] He received the honorary degree Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) from the University of Oxford in October 1902, in connection with the tercentenary of the Bodleian Library.

Strathcona also made a major donation to McGill University in Montreal, where he helped establish a school for women in 1884 (Royal Victoria College).

[22] In 1910, Strathcona deposited in trust with the Dominion Government the sum of $500,000, bearing an annual interest of 4%, to develop citizenship and patriotism, for example in the Royal Canadian Army Cadets movement, through physical training, rifle shooting, and military drill.

She was presented to King Edward and Queen Alexandra, 13 March 1903, and with her daughter donated $100,000 to McGill University in Montreal to erect a new wing to its Medical Building.

Robert Howard and Lady Strathcona had the following children:[citation needed] His Montreal home was located in the Golden Square Mile.

Lord Strathcona is commemorated in Montreal by several McGill University buildings; he gave freely of his time to this institution, and a great quantity of his wealth.

Owned by the Dominion Line, Lord Strathcona was bound from Wabana, Newfoundland to Sydney, Nova Scotia with iron ore when the vessel was torpedoed and sunk by U-513 on 5 September 1942.