Notre histoire

Despite protest from the Archbishop of Montréal, Ignace Bourget, who was an ardent advocate of an independent university in Montréal, Rome gave Laval University in Québec City its blessing to open a campus in Montréal. The dependent campus had 86 students and three faculties: theology, law and medicine, which were housed, respectively, in the Grand Séminaire de Montréal, the Society of Saint-Sulpice’s Cabinet de lecture and Château Ramezay. While it was not yet known as the Université de Montréal, the institution had nonetheless been born.

In order to make up for disparities among the programs taught in classical colleges, the University set up a fourth faculty, a kind of university college, which dispensed a preparatory program designed to harmonize new students’ knowledge and skills. Abolished in 1920 but reinstated in 1927, the Faculty of Arts, which was also called the “college faculty,” continued operating until 1972, five years after the creation of Cegeps.

Founded in 1873, in 1887 the École Polytechnique de Montréal became affiliated with the new Faculty of Arts at the Montréal campus of Laval University. From then on, its diplomas were awarded by the University and recognized by employers and other universities. The École Polytechnique is a technology institute that trained the first generations of French Canadian engineers in the various forms of engineering that were indispensable to the great building and rail projects of the time. In 1905, it moved into a new building on Saint-Denis Street, across from Saint-Jacques Church. Today the property is owned by UQAM.

On October 8, 1895, the University inaugurated a new building to bring all of its faculties under a single roof. It was located as the south-east corner of Saint-Denis and Sainte-Catherine Streets (where UQAM’s Hubert-Aquin Pavilion is now situated), at the heart of the Saint-Jacques Parish and near the École Polytechnique. The building could accommodate over 1000 students and included classrooms, laboratories, a library, a recreation room and a reception hall. For over 40 years, the University was the cradle of cultural and social life in the Latin Quarter.

The University inherited 20,000 documents from Judge George Baby, including papers in the hand of Louis XIV and letters from Louis-Joseph Papineau on the plan to unite the two Canadas. Considered to be one of the largest private collections in Canada, the Baby Collection is a veritable mine of information on the seigneurial system and French Canada’s political, social, military and economic history. It took 10 years to classify and index the archival jewel, and its catalogue, which was published in 1951, is a valuable tool for historians.

He was the most famous giant in Canadian history. Afflicted with a tumour in his pituitary gland, Édouard Beaupré was 2 m. 50 cm. tall at his death in 1904. Three years later, his mummified body was found in a shed in Montréal. Professor Louis-Napoléon Delorme, who hoped to establish an anatomy museum, had it brought to the University, where it long remained in a display case in the anatomy laboratory. In 1990, at the Beaupré family’s request, the University had it cremated. Beaupré’s ashes have now been laid to rest in his home village of Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan.

The Montréal Chamber of Commerce opened the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC), which was the first school of its kind in Canada and had the mission of integrating French Canadians into the world of “commerce, industry and finance.” The HEC was officially inaugurated in the building constructed for it on Viger Street, and which now houses the Montréal branch of Québec’s national archives. In 1915, the HEC became affiliated with the Université de Montréal and established Canada’s first museum of industry. In 1917, it innovated by launching the first continuing education program for adults.

The University awarded a diploma to a woman for the first time. Marie Gérin-Lajoie obtained a Bachelor of Arts and one of the highest scores in the province. She simultaneously became the first French Canadian woman to earn a Bachelor’s degree. She was soon followed by Flora Abergson, who became the first woman to earn a graduate degree in 1921, and Marthe Pelland, who was the first woman to graduate from medical school. The daughter of a pioneer of the feminist movement in Québec, Marie Gérin-Lajoie continued her mother’s work by setting up night school for young women.

At the agricultural institute in Oka, Father Wilfrid created a new breed of gallus gallus. With a stubby head, short strong yellow beak, wide back, medium-sized tail, black and white plumage, and bright red comb and wattles, the Chantecler Chicken is, in accordance with its creator’s plans, a “practical,” “truly Canadian” bird with “a special style.” It took 10 years to create and is based on the five best breeds in Canada. Along with melons and Oka cheese, it was the pride of the Trappist monks at the agricultural institute in Oka, which had been founded in 1893, was affiliated with the University in 1908 and remained so until it closed in 1962.

On January 9, 1919 the first edition of Le Quartier Latin was published. It made a name for the students of the Université de Montréal. Twenty-five issues were published between September and April each year. The newspaper was like a major daily newspaper, and covered political and cultural news as well as university events. Many budding journalists learned their craft by working on it, but it finally folded in 1969 after the dissolution of the AGEUM, of which it had been the official mouthpiece since 1922.