William Dow (March 27, 1800 – December 7, 1868) was a Scottish-born brewer and financier of

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pea ...

, Canada. Born at

Muthill Muthill, pronounced , is a village in Perth and Kinross, Perthshire, Scotland. The name derives from scottish gaelic Maothail meaning “soft-ground”. The village lies south of Crieff, just west of the former railway line connecting Crief ...

Perthshire Perthshire (locally: ; gd, Siorrachd Pheairt), officially the County of Perth, is a historic county and registration county in central Scotland. Geographically it extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, ...

, he was the eldest son of Dr William Dow (1765-1844),

Brewmaster A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of beer ...

, and Anne Mason. Since 1652, his family had been brewing in

. Having gained an extensive experience in brewing under his father, he emigrated to Montreal,

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec an ...

from

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

in about 1818. He was employed as foreman of Thomas Dunn's brewery in Montreal and quickly became a partner. His younger brother, Andrew, who had also trained as a brewer, joined him, and on the death of Dunn, the company became known as ''William Dow and Company'', later known as

Dow Breweries Dow Breweries was a brewery based in the province of Quebec, Canada. The company was founded by William Dow (1800–1868). The Dow Brewery eventually came under the control of National Breweries of Quebec in the 1920s, which itself was bought ...

. It soon was a strong competitor to

Molson The Molson Brewery is a Canadian based brewery company based in Montreal which was established in 1786 by the Molson family. In 2005, Molson merged with the Adolph Coors Company to become Molson Coors. Molson Coors maintains some of its Can ...

's, the biggest brewery in the city. Dow was also a

financier An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...

and in 1860 he built his home, ''Strathearn House'', in Montreal's

Golden Square Mile / ''Mille carré doré'' , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = List of neighbourhoods in Montreal, Neighbourhood , image_skyline = Ravenscrag.jpg , image_alt = , image_caption = ''Rave ...

External links

Biography at ''the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''

William Dow House, Montreal

Anglophone Quebec people Businesspeople from Montreal Canadian financiers People from Perthshire People in food and agriculture occupations Scottish emigrants to pre-Confederation Quebec Scottish emigrants to the United States 1800 births 1868 deaths Immigrants to Lower Canada Brewery workers Burials at Mount Royal Cemetery {{beer-stub