Fonds

Born in London, England, Edward Rawlings (1839-1911) came to Montréal in 1863 to establish a branch office of the European Life and Guarantee Company. When the parent company failed in 1868, Rawlings joined Hugh Allan's Citizen Insurance Company of North America. In 1872 Rawlings and Alexander Tilloch Galt founded a fidelity insurance business, the Canada Guarantee Company. In 1881 the name of the firm was changed to the Guarantee Company of North America, and Rawlings served as its president from 1892 to 1911. In 1865 he married Lucretia Carter (d. ca. 1917) and they had at least one child, Henry Edward Rawlings (1875-ca. 1940), who became the president of the company in 1917.

(Source: Guide to Archival Resources at McGill University: Private Papers at McGill University. McGill University Archives. 1985. Vol. 2, p. 182.)

Henry Edward Rawlings married Laura Snowball in 1893. Laura Snowball was the daughter of Jabez Bunting Snowball, a businessman and politician who lived in Chatham, New Brunswick. H. E. & Laura Rawlings had at least one daughter, Margaret Snowball Rawlings, who was born in 1910. They had at least one son, Henry Millar Fitzwilliam Rawlings, born in 1912. On June 30, 1939, Margaret married Lawrence Michael Hart, Junior. They had two children, L. M. Robin and Susan Airdrie. Lawrence Michael Hart Jr. was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1912. He is described in the Canadian Who's Who (1961-1963) as a company executive who held many positions, including vice president and general manager of Canadian Thermo Control Co. Ltd. after 1958.

(Source: Information contained in the fonds, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Canadian Men & Women of the Time, 1912 and Canadian Who's Who, 1961-1963.)