Jamaicans abroad
  • start here
    • gallery
    • contact and comment
  • in North America
    • ~ John Brown Russwurm
    • ~ Robert Campbell >
      • in the USA
      • in Africa
    • ~ Robert Sutherland
    • ~ Susan Agnes Bernard >
      • from Jamaica
      • on to Canada
      • Lady Macdonald >
        • two songs
        • Ladies Home Journal article
      • Baroness Macdonald >
        • Sources and links
    • ~ Shackleton Balm Slack >
      • in the United States
      • the war correspondent
    • ~ Raphael J. de Cordova >
      • visits to Jamaica
    • ~ Robert Brown Elliott >
      • career in the USA
    • ~ Henry Laird Phillips >
      • in the United States
      • the 'social reformer'
    • ~ Joel Augustus Rogers >
      • - some assessments
    • ~ Wilmot A Barclay
    • ~ Robert Josias Morgan/Fr Raphael >
      • becoming Orthodox
      • later visits to Jamaica
      • and then?
    • ~ Samuel Benjamin Marlowe >
      • U Theo McKay
    • ~ James Samuel Watson >
      • the Watson family
    • ~ Walter Vivian Moses
    • ~ Eugene Nathan Thornley
    • ~ Frank Olivier duCille >
      • - Dusselle/Ducille family
    • Maurice Ashley
  • in Britain
    • ~ Francis Williams
    • ~ Francis Barber
    • ~ Robert Wedderburn >
      • on to Britain
    • ~ William Davidson
    • ~ Andrew Bogle
    • ~ Henry Beckford
    • ~ E. Maunde Thompson
    • Ernest & Alan Goffe
    • Harold Moody
    • ~ Louis Drysdale
    • Ronald Moody
    • Coleridge Goode
    • Oswald Russell
  • and everywhere else
    • ~ 'Billy Blue' >
      • ~ Thomas Day
    • Joseph Jackson Fuller
    • ~ Lucy Imogene Stewart
    • ~ Amos Shackleford
    • the Phang family
    • Cicely Williams
    • ~ Robert N Robinson >
      • ~ some thoughts about Robert Robinson
in north america
susan  agnes  bernard
from Jamaica
on to canada
lady macdonald

Baroness Macdonald​

Picture
_  
      After the death of Sir John A. the British government made up for not having given Canada's first Prime Minister a peerage, as it had probably intended to do, but left it too late. Susan Agnes Bernard of Spanish Town, Jamaica, became Baroness Macdonald of Earnscliffe in honour of her husband's great services to the nation; some Canadians were not in favour, but Agnes received many letters and telegrams from well-wishers. The title did prove to be a financial burden to her, but the photograph of her in her robes to attend the coronation of Edward VII, show her fully enjoying the status the title gave her. Her years of widowhood were largely occupied with caring for Mary; they travelled; she wrote letters and articles for newspapers; she still expressed her opinions firmly. But after her life with John A, everything else was just a postscript. She died in Eastbourne, in England in 1920, and her death was noted in the Gleaner, where no further references to her have so far been identified. Her daughter Mary lived on until 1933.


mother and daughter
mother and daughter after Sir John A's death
Mary Macdonald
Mary Macdonald in 1893
_
   References to the story of Susan Agnes Bernard may be found on many sites, mostly from Canada, but very few linked to Jamaica. Although her marriage to Sir John A Macdonald puts her at the heart of a vital period in Canadian history, some memory of her should be part of our history too, as someone who took on the world, mostly on her own terms.
sources and links
Picture

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