George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen, (5 June 1829 – 29 November 1921), known as Sir George Stephen, Bt, between 1886 and 1891, was a Canadian businessman. Originally from Scotland, he made his fame in Montreal and was the first Canadian to be elevated to the Peerage of the United Kingdom. He was the financial genius behind the creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He was President of the Bank of Montreal and is remembered as one of the greatest philanthropists of his time: he built a new wing at the Montreal General Hospital, donated generously to various hospitals in Scotland and gave over £1.3 million to the Prince of Wales Hospital Fund in London, working closely with George V. He and his first cousin, Lord Strathcona, purchased the land and then each gave $1 million to the City of Montreal to construct and maintain the Royal Victoria Hospital. His home in Montreal's Golden Square Mile later became the Mount Stephen Club. In 1888, he retired to England, living between Brocket Hall and 17 Carlton House Terrace. His first wife is credited with introducing the canoe to Scotland. From starting life as a bare-footed stable boy, he became the richest man in Canada and closely associated with George V, whose wife, Queen Mary, was a lifelong friend and confidante of the second Lady Mount Stephen. Early years Stephen was born in 1829 at Dufftown, Banffshire, in a cottage built by his grandfather. He was the son of William Stephen (b. 1801), a carpenter, and Elspet, daughter of John Smith, a crofter at Knockando, Moray. His mother was a first cousin of the philanthropic Grant brothers of Manchester, immortalised as the "Cheeryble Brothers" in Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. Stephen began life as a boy running barefoot through fields to carry letters for the Duke of Richmond for a shilling. He was educated at the parish school, leaving at the age of fourteen to work variously as a stable boy, shepherd and in a local hotel. The following year he was apprenticed to a draper and silk mercer at Aberdeen, before moving to London in 1848 - first working for a draper and then at a wholesale dry goods house. George Stephen's first cousin, William Stephen, had already emigrated to Montreal and established a wholesale dry goods business on St. Paul Street. At William's invitation, the Stephen family came to Montreal in