Robert McLaughlin (November 16, 1836 – November 23, 1921) was a Canadian industrialist and businessman. He founded McLaughlin Carriage then

McLaughlin Motor Car Company McLaughlin Motor Car Company Limited was a Canadian manufacturer of automobiles headquartered in Oshawa, Ontario. Founded by Robert McLaughlin, it once was the largest carriage manufacturing factory in the British Empire. Around 1905, Rober ...

which later became part of

General Motors Canada General Motors of Canada Company (french: La Compagnie General Motors du Canada), commonly known as GM Canada, is the Canadian subsidiary of US-based company General Motors. It is headquartered in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. In the aftermath of the ...

Life and career

McLaughlin was born in Cavan Township,

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of th ...

in 1836, the son of an Irish immigrant, John McLaughlin. He moved to Darlington Township with his family in 1837. He married Mary Smith in 1864,"The McLaughlins - Sleighs, Buggys, Cars and Ginger Ale". ''The Clarington Promoter'', September 2016, pages 1 and 4. by Myno Van Dyke and bought a plot of land near the village of Tyrone from his father. He built a house and a workshop, and began building cutters and wagons. By 1869 his workshop was too small, and he set up a carriage works at

Enniskillen, Ontario Enniskillen is a township in the Canadian province of Ontario, within Lambton County. It is located at the intersection of Highway 21 (Oil Heritage Road) and Rokeby Line. The economy of the township is based on agriculture. It was named after Sir ...

. McLaughlin also taught Sunday school in the

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

church there. In 1877, he moved his growing business to Oshawa to take advantage of available labour and railway access in the larger urban centre. He established the Oshawa Carriage Works, later known as McLaughlin Carriage. In 1878, he married Sarah Jane Parr; his first wife had died of

consumption Consumption may refer to: *Resource consumption *Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically * Consumption (ecology), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms * Consumption (economics), the purchasing of newly produced goods for curren ...

. His sons George William and Sam also became involved in the business (George later served as of GM Canada), but eldest son John James left to become a chemist, started a soft drink company in Toronto, and invented

Canada Dry Canada Dry is a brand of soft drinks founded in 1904 and owned since 2008 by the American company Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Dr Pepper Snapple (now Keurig Dr Pepper). For over 100 years, Canada Dry has been known mainly for its ginger ale, though ...

ginger ale.Arculus, Paul. ''Durant's Right Hand Man'', Freisen Press, 2011. page 45. During the 1880s, McLaughlin designed a new type of steering gear for carriages; through a distributor, the company sold about 20,000 of these gears to other carriage companies.Petrie, Ray. ''Sam McLaughlin'', Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1975. pages 11-12. McLaughlin served on the board of health and board of water commissioners at Oshawa and also served as mayor. He was the first president of the local

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

. After his carriage works was destroyed in a fire in 1899, he relocated to

Gananoque Gananoque ( ) is a town in the Leeds and Grenville area of Ontario, Canada. The town had a population of 5,383 year-round residents in the 2021 Canadian Census, as well as summer residents sometimes referred to as "Islanders" because of the Tho ...

but returned to Oshawa the following year, rebuilding the business with a loan from the city. In 1901, he married Eleanor McCulloch after the death of his second wife. In 1907, on the advice of his sons Sam and George, he set up the

to manufacture automobiles. McLaughlin supported tariffs restricting trade with the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and opposed Sir

Wilfrid Laurier Sir Henri Charles Wilfrid Laurier, ( ; ; November 20, 1841 – February 17, 1919) was a Canadian lawyer, statesman, and politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911. The first French Canadian prime minis ...

free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econ ...

proposals in 1910–11. In 1915, he sold off his carriage manufacturing business. In 1918, his companies were taken over by General Motors. McLaughlin died at Oshawa in 1921 of colon cancer. His brother

James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguati ...

was a doctor and member of the Ontario assembly.

References

External links

Biography at the ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''Oshawa MuseumMcLaughlin family fonds
Archives of Ontario {{DEFAULTSORT:McLaughlin, Robert 1836 births 1921 deaths Canadian automotive pioneers Canadian people of Irish descent Mayors of Oshawa Canadian founders of automobile manufacturers Deaths from colorectal cancer Deaths from cancer in Ontario