Smith, afterwards Baron Strathcona [q.v.], Norman W. Kittson, John Kennedy, and R. B. Angus. Stephen visited Holland and bought out the owners, Dutch bondholders, for a low price; the group finished the line and made their fortunes; the railway later grew, under Hill's management, into the Great Northern.
It was this same group, with a few changes, that built the Canadian Pacific Railway. Some 700 miles of the transcontinental line had been constructed by the Canadian government, but work was languishing and British Columbia dissatisfied. The ministry of Sir John Alexander Macdonald [q.v.] resolved to transfer the railway to private enterprise. Stephen was reluctant to undertake the task, but he and his group finally consented, and formed a company of which he was president from 1880 to 1888. There were enormous difficulties, natural, financial, and political; for surmounting the last two Stephen, more than any man, was responsible; (Sir) William Van Horne [q.v.] saw to construction. Stephen showed great courage and determination; with his associates he pledged all his resources; he wrung financial aid from a reluctant Cabinet. From January 1884 to April 1885 he nearly despaired, but at the last minute, bankruptcy being a matter of hours, the railway was saved by the intervention of the acting minister of railways, (Sir) Joseph H. Pope, with the government. In November 1885 D. A. Smith drove the last spike at Craigellachie. Stephen was not satisfied even with a coast to coast railway; from the first it was his aim that the company should run its own ships to England and China, and his views have proved justified by the Company's later expansion.
In 1888 Stephen retired from the railway presidency, and in 1893 made his home in England. He was created a baronet in 1886, and a peer in 1891, taking his title from a peak in the Rockies named after him by railway surveyors. He showed no political ambitions, and in England lived chiefly at Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire. He had no passion for continuing in harness, his tastes were simple, his ambition satisfied, and he cared little for publicity. He lived for nearly thirty years after his retirement, giving generously to hospitals in London, Montreal, and Aberdeen, distributing over £1,000,000 in his lifetime and leaving the residue of his estate to King Edward's hospital fund. He died at Brocket Hall 29 November 1921. He married, first, in 1853 Charlotte Annie (died 1896), daugter of Benjamin Kane; secondly, in 1897 Gian, daughter of Captain George Robert Tufnell, R.N. He had no children, but left an adopted daughter, who married Henry Stafford Northcote, Baron Northcote [q.v.].
There is a portrait of Stephen, painted by Sir George Reid in 1894, in the Canadian Pacific Company's offices, Toronto.
[The Times, 1 December 1921; Keith Morris,Story of Lord Mount Stephen, 1922; Life and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Tupper, 2 vols., 1916; Correspondence of Sir John Macdonald, 1921; O. D. Skelton, The Railway Builders, 1916.]
STEWART, CHARLES STEWART VANE-TEMPEST-, sixth Marquess of LONDONDERRY (1852-1915), politician. [See VANE-TEMPEST-STEWART. ]
STIRLING, Sir JAMES (1836–1916), judge, was born at Aberdeen 3 May 1836, the eldest son of the Rev. James Stirling, minister of the George Street United Presbyterian church, Aberdeen, by his wife, Sarah Irvine. He was sent to the grammar school and to the university of Aberdeen, where he showed marked ability as a mathematician. Proceeding to Trinity College, Cambridge, he was senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman in 1860. The fact that he was not a member of the Church of England prevented his election to a fellowship. Having read in the chambers of Charles Turner Simpson, a well-known conveyancer, he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1862.
After serving on the staff of the New Reports, Stirling joined that of the newly-founded Law Reports in 1865, and reported chancery cases in the Rolls court under two masters of the Rolls, Lord Romilly and Sir George Jessel. He did not give up this occupation till 1876. Meanwhile, unlike most reporters, he acquired a considerable practice at the bar. Learned and industrious, he was at the same time diffident and distrustful of his powers. It was said of him that his opinion was the best in Lincoln's Inn if one could only get it. In 1881 (Sir) John Rigby, the attorney-general's ‘devil’, became a Q.C., and Sir Henry James (afterwards Lord James of Hereford) selected Stirling as his successor. For the Treasury work which now fell to him he was well suited. In 1886 Sir John Pearson died, and Lord Herschell appointed Stirling to the vacant chancery judgeship. As a judge, he was careful and painstaking to a fault, and the slowness of his methods was a subject
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