Category: Workman

William Workman: Public Successes, Personal Problems

by

The Workman family plot in Montreal’s Mount Royal Cemetery is a large one, including six large tombstones engraved with the names of almost 30 people. But William Workman (1807-1878), a successful businessman who served as mayor of Montreal for three years, is not buried there. He was laid to rest alone, in a large mausoleum some distance from the family plot.

Before I started researching the Workmans, a cemetery staff member told me that William had wanted family members to be buried in the mausoleum with him, but they refused. Neither of us knew why, but now I have an idea.  

William Workman, 1866, Montreal, QC, William Notman Studio, McCord Stewart Museum online collection, I-22186.1.

Born in 1807, William was the fifth of nine children. The family lived near Belfast, in what is now Northern Ireland, where his father was a teacher and estate manager. In 1819, William’s oldest brother, Benjamin, immigrated to Montreal. Three brothers followed soon after and, in 1829, the rest of the family moved to what was then Lower Canada.1 Before emigrating, William worked as a surveyor for the Royal Engineers, mapping Ireland for the Ordnance Survey project. In Montreal, his first job was as assistant editor of theCanadian Courant and Montreal Advertiser, a weekly newspaper owned by brother Benjamin. Soon, however, William found his true calling: as a businessman.

Montreal Gazette, June 6, 1859, Newspapers.com, entry for Frothingham and Workman

He found employment with a hardware firm, Frothingham & Co., and within a few years he became a partner. As of 1836, the company was known as Frothingham and Workman, and it became the largest wholesale hardware company in Canada, selling scythes, shovels, augers and nails. When William retired from the hardware business in 1859, his brother Thomas took over running the company.2

Montreal was growing rapidly, and William found opportunities to invest in fields such as banking, transportation and real estate. William was elected president of the City Bank in 1849 and served in that capacity until 1874.3 In 1846 he was one of a group of prominent Montrealers who founded the City and District Savings Bank, established to help ordinary people save their money, and he was president of that institution for several years.

William invested in Canada’s first railway, the Champlain and St Lawrence, completed in 1836 to connect Montreal to Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River.4 He was also a shareholder in the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, and he collaborated with several other individuals to found the Canadian Ocean Steam Navigation Company in 1854.

Around 1850, he and a business partner became real estate developers. They bought a piece of land south-west of Montreal’s city limits, near the Lachine Canal. The canal attracted industries such as brass foundries and rolling mills, and nearby manufacturing facilities belonging to Frothingham and Workman employed hundreds of people. The partners laid out streets, built sewers and divided the property into housing lots. The area, known as Sainte-Cunégonde, became a village in 1876 and a tiny independent city in 1890, but eventually it became part of the City of Montreal.5 Workman Street, named after William, still exists in the area.

William was also a generous philanthropist. He was president of the St. Patrick’s Society at a time when that organization was involved with both the Roman Catholic and Protestant communities. Later, he supported the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society. In 1864, he helped create the Montreal Protestant House of Industry and Refuge, serving as president from 1874 to 1877. He was also president of the Montreal Dispensary and Hospital for Sick Children.

He was not deeply involved in politics, but he was elected mayor of Montreal from 1868 to 1872 and proved to be very popular. This aspect of his life will be the topic of another story.

Frothingham and Workman, Iron Mongers, Montreal, John Henry Walker, McCord Stewart Museum online collection, M930.50.7309.

Around this time, wealthy merchants began building large homes on the slopes of Mount Royal, an area that became known as the Golden Square Mile. William bought a full block on the north side of Sherbrooke Street, between Drummond and Stanley, and built a mansion he called Mount Prospect.

William Workman and Elizabeth (Eliza) Bethell were married at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church on February 10, 1831. Eliza came from the same part of Ireland where William had grown up, so perhaps they had known each other there. They had seven children, so the house should have been full of activity, but it didn’t turn out that way.

It was all too common for children to die young in 19th century Montreal, and William and Eliza lost three little ones. Their firstborn, Elizabeth, was born in December 1831 and died the following summer. Their third child, Emma, was born in August 1837 and died in April 1839. Another girl, Malvina, was born in July 1845 and died in April 1847. Two daughters, Louise (or Louisa) and Elizabeth (Eliza), grew to adulthood, but Eliza, who married Robert Moat, died in 1871. Louisa married Joel C. Baker, a lawyer who went into the hardware business with Louise’s uncle Henry Mulholland. But William found the death of his only son, also named William (1840-1865), the most devastating blow of all. By then, he and his wife may have already been living apart.

“Plan of property belonging to the Estate of the Late W. Workman Esq. subdivided into lots.” H.M. Perrault, 20 Novembre, 1879; Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, entry for William Workman, https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/3394052?docsearchtext=William%20Workman

An image of the 1861 census suggests that Eliza was not living at Mount Prospect house, but with her married daughter Louisa Baker and her husband,6 so perhaps William and Eliza had unofficially separated by then. In the 1871 census, seven people were listed as living at Mount Prospect, including a cook, a coachman and a horseman. William was the only family member listed.

In a book about William’s brother, The Father of Canadian Psychiatry, Joseph Workman, author Christine Johnston remarked that Joseph did not have a high opinion of William, commenting in his diary that he thought Wiliam had damage in his head, as well as bumps outside it.7 Perhaps William was also concerned about his own mental health: Johnson wrote that William visited a phrenologist in the United States to examine those external bumps. Johnston also noted that family records suggested William was an alcoholic. If true, that might explain the difficulties in the Workman household.

Nevertheless, many people admired him. When he died, Montreal’s English-language newspapers published extensive obituaries, describing William’s many accomplishments as well as the long and painful illness that led to his death.8 According to one newspaper account, some 400 people attended his funeral at St. James the Apostle Anglican Church, and many followed the hearse to Mount Royal Cemetery.

William Workman seemed to have everything, but without his family surrounding and supporting him, his life appears to have been a sad one, and those problems followed him to the grave.

This article is also posted on the collaborative blog https://GenealogyEnsemble.com  

Notes

William’s sister Ann (1809-1882), who married hardware merchant Henry Mulholland, was my great-great-grandmother.

Some photos of brother Thomas Workman’s house on Sherbrooke Street are erroneously identified as William’s house. I have not found a photo of Mount Prospect.

There are several photographs of a young man identified as William Workman in the McCord Stewart Museum’s online photo collection. This must the son who died in 1865.  

Phrenology was a popular pseudoscience in the 19th century. Its proponents believed that the measurements of the skull were indicative of mental faculties and character traits.

See also:

Benjamin Workman: Leading the Way, Writing Up the Ancestors, March 12, 2025, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2025/03/benjamin-workman-md-leading-the-way.html

“Dr. Joseph Workman, Pioneer in the Treatment of Mental Illness” Writing Up the Ancestors, Oct 26, 2017, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2017/10/dr-joseph-workman-mental-health-pioneer.html

“The Miller of Moneymore”, Writing Up the Ancestors, May 14, 2025,      https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2025/05/the-miller-of-moneymore.html

“Henry Mulholland, Hardware Merchant”, Writing Up the Ancestors, March 17, 2016,  https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2016/03/henry-mulholland-montreal-hardware.html

Mulholland Bros. Hardware Merchants, Writing Up the Ancestors, Jan. 15, 2025, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2025/01/mulholland-bros-hardware-merchants.html

“The World of Mrs. Murray Smith”,  Writing Up the Ancestors, Feb.24, 2016, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2016/02/the-small-world-of-mrs-murray-smith.html

Sources:

1.   Christine Johnston. “The Irish Connection: Benjamin and Joseph and Their Brothers and their Coats of Many Colours,” CUUHS Meeting, May 1982, Paper #4, p. 2. 

 2.  John Frothingham, Obituary. The Portland Daily Press, May 24, 1870, p. 3. Newspapers.com, accessed Jan. 5, 2026.

3. Nicholas Flood Davin, The Irishman in Canada, London: S. Low, Marston, 1877, p. 334, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/irishmanincanada00daviuoft/page/334/mode/2up accessed Jan. 5, 2026.

4. G. Tulchinsky, “Workman, William,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–,  https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/workman_william_10E.html accessed January 5, 2026

5. Olivier Paré, “Les bâtisseurs de la Petite-Bourgoyge” Encyclopédie du MEM, https://ville.montreal.qc.ca/memoiresdesmontrealais/les-batisseurs-de-la-petite-bourgogne5 accessed Jan. 5, 2026.

6. Ancestry.ca, 1861 Census of Canada. entry for Joel C. Baker, Canada East, Montreal. Library and Archives Canada, Canada East Census, 1861, p. 4210. accessed Jan. 6, 2026.

7. Christine I. M. Johnston, The Father of Canadian Psychiatry: Joseph Workman, Victoria: The Ogden Press, 2000, p. 122. 

8. “Late William Workman”, The Gazette, Feb. 25, 1878, p. 2. Newspapers.com, accessed Dec. 30, 2015. 

The Miller of Moneymore

by

If you are looking for the old corn mill in Moneymore, Northern Ireland, turn off High Street in the village centre and go to the end of Mill Lane. It’s right there, although you might not guess that old stone building was once a busy mill since the water wheel has gone and the water that powered it flows in an underground river.

The old corn mill in Moneymore, Northern Ireland. Photo courtesy Sebastian Graham, www.millsofnorthernireland.com

Long ago, this corn mill (corn refers to oats in Ireland) was a very important building in the community: this was where people brought their oats, wheat, barley, and rye to be ground into flour. In the mid-1700s, my five-times great-grandfather Benjamin Workman was probably well known in Moneymore because he was the local corn mill operator.

His great-grandson recounted the family’s history in a journal, written around the 1850s.1 He explained that Benjamin’s father, William, had a mill (probably a flax mill) and a farm at Brookend, County Tyrone, several miles south of Moneymore. Benjamin inherited the Brookend property from his father, but he was unhappy there because he didn’t get along with the neighbours.

When Moneymore needed a new miller, Benjamin left Brookend and took the job in town. He was not the owner – he rented the mill from the Drapers’ Company of London, which owned most of the property in the area – but everyone paid him to grind their flour.

It was a good move for Benjamin, and for the area residents. According to the journal account, when he died around 1767, he was mourned by Protestants and Catholics alike.

This story may be backed up by historical data: the 1766 Religious Census of County Derry confirms that Benjamin Workman, Protestant Dissident (in other words, Presbyterian,) was a landholder in Moneymore Townland, Barony of Loughinsholin, Derry County.2 An earlier census of Protestant householders in Ulster, carried out in 1740, showed there were several individuals with the name Workman in the area.3

Benjamin Workman, miller of Moneymore, and his wife (whose name is unknown) had at least one son, also named Benjamin. According to the journal, he succeeded to the business and property interests in Moneymore, and, like his father, he died at an advanced age.

This Benjamin married Ann Scott and the couple had four sons and two daughters. All but one of them left Ireland, although two returned and settled in other parts of the island. Only daughter Letitia stayed in Moneymore. According to the journal, she married, first, a man named Scott, with whom she had a daughter, and second, a man named McIvor. Letitia had five more children with her second husband. She died in Moneymore in 1832.4

That is all I was able to discover about the Workman family in eighteenth-century Moneymore, so my curiosity turned to the mill and the town itself.

More than 5000 mills were built in Northern Ireland, including 510 in County Derry (Londonderry) and 573 in neighbouring County Tyrone. There were several types, including corn, or grist mills, flax mills (flax is the plant that is used to make linen) and tuck mills (used to remove impurities from woolen cloth). Today, many have been demolished while others lie neglected, but studying them reveals much about the industrial and architectural history of the area.    

Moneymore’s corn mill was originally built around 1615, about the time Moneymore was founded. One and a half storeys high and 34 feet long, it was built almost entirely of wood, with a shingled roof. The smith at Moneymore provided most of the iron nails and fittings, the spindle shaft was manufactured in Ireland and other components were imported from London.5

This illustration of the Moneymore corn mill accompanied an 1817 report on the plantation. The mill had a thatched roof and two water wheels, which was unusual and ineffective.

It was rebuilt in 1785, but when a report was prepared on the plantation at Moneymore in 1817, the mill was found to be inefficient and in need of more repairs.6  Now, Sebastian Graham of the Mills of Northern Ireland heritage group, told me in an e-mail, “the mill is technically still there, but heavily changed. It became a flax mill as well as a corn mill around 1860 or so, and then a creamery.”

As for the village of Moneymore, it is located several miles west of Lough Neagh. It was founded in the early 1600s as a part of a scheme to populate Ulster with Protestant settlers from England and Scotland. Ulster was the name of the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, now Northern Ireland and part of the United Kingdom. For decades, the English army fought the native Irish forces, but things turned in favour of the English at the end of the 16th century. The English confiscated the properties of the Irish chieftains in Ulster and, in 1608, launched a plan to create the Plantation of Ulster.

English and Scottish landlords were granted vast estates. In return, they were required to build towns, fortifications and houses, and to bring settlers to the area. They leased out properties of about 15 acres each, including cultivated land, turf-bogs and rough pastures, to tenant farmers.The project required investors with deep pockets. The plantation of Moneymore was the property of the Drapers’ Company, a London trade association of wool and cloth merchants that had been founded in medieval times.

Like several other plantation-era villages, Moneymore was planned in a cruciform shape, with a marketplace at the intersection of two main streets. Proclamations were read out to the residents next to a tall wooden pole located beside the marketplace.  

From the beginning, however, the Drapers did not meet all the goals the government in London had set out. The fortifications at Moneymore were poorly built, the houses were tiny and the native Irish population remained larger than the number of settlers. Surveys carried out in the early 1800s found the manor house was in bad shape, as were the mill and the tenants’ cottages.

Today, the manor house has been restored and Northern Ireland is peaceful. As I researched this topic, I realized my husband and I visited the area near Moneymore in 2008, before I began researching my family history. If only I had known!

This article is also posted on the collaborative blog https://genealogyensemble.com.

Sources:

1.  Dr. Benjamin Workman, A Family Orchard: Leaves from the Workman Tree, Part 1. The Determinate Branch of the Compiler. Family History, Branch Introduction. https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~database/misc/WORKMAN.htm, accessed May 6, 2025. 

2.  1766 Religious Census for some parishes in Co. Derry, https://www.billmacafee.com/1766census/1766religiouscensusderry.pdf, Bill Macafee’s website, Family and Local History, Databases compiled from 18th Century Census Substitutes, https://www.billmacafee.com/18centurydatabases.htm, accessed May 6, 2025.

3.  Ireland, Ulster, Census of Protestant Households, 1740, results for Workman, Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62769/?name=_Workman&count=50, accessed May 6, 2025.

4.  Death notice for Letitia McIver; Belfast, Northern Ireland, The Belfast Newsletter, Birth, Marriage and Death Notices, 1735-1925, notice for Letitia McIver, Ancestry.com,  accessed May 7, 2025, https://www.ancestry.ca/family-tree/person/tree/117115991/person/432122459458/facts

5.  Philip Robinson, The Plantation of Ulster, Belfast: The Ulster Historical Foundation, 1994, p. 146.

6.  Reports of the Deputations of The Drapers’ Company of Jan. 23, 1817, … Estates of the Company in the County of Londonderry, in Ireland. Google Books. Accessed May 7, 2025. P. 32.