Clarence I. De Sola

The great industrial undertakings which have led to the substantial development and upbuilding of Canada have found a prominent representative in Clarence I. de Sola, today regarded as one of the foremost men engaged in public works and in shipbuilding in Canada. Moreover, he is prominent in the consular service and is a recognized leader in various movements for the improvement of the economic condition of the Hebrew people, some of his work in that direction being of world-wide significance. Montreal numbers him among her worthy and honored native sons, his birth having occurred here on the 15th of August, 1858. He is a member of an ancient and illustrious Jewish family that long resided in Spain, where it produced many distinguished men. He is the third son of the late Rev. Abraham de Sola, LL. D., who was one of the most eminent and scholarly exponents of orthodox Judaism in America and an author of international repute.

Liberal educational opportunities were accorded the subject of this sketch, and his life has been one of steadily expanding and increasing usefulness. Step by step he has advanced in business connections, and in 1887 he was made managing director of the Comptoir Belgo-Canadien, a syndicate of the leading Belgian manufacturers of steel and other structural material and builders of bridges, railroads and canal locks. The syndicate includes the famous Cockerill Works, of Seraing, employing eighteen thousand hands. His duties and responsibilities in this direction are most important. He secured and executed contracts in the building of the Soulanges and Trent canals, in re-laying large portions of the track of the Inter-Colonial Railway and the Prince Edward Island Railway, and in the construction of many of our largest public bridges. He was associated with the engineers Lafontaine and Lemoine in the construction of the Brock Street tunnel. It was largely due to his efforts that hydraulic lift locks were first used in American or Canadian canals.

It was in recognition of the ability he had shown in developing commercial relations between Belgium and Canada that Mr. de Sola was appointed, in 1904, vice consul for Belgium at Montreal, and his work in helping to negotiate the arrangement between the Belgian and Canadian governments, whereby the benefits of the intermediate Canadian customs tariff was secured for Belgian manufacturers, was rewarded by his advancement, in 1911 to the full rank of consul.

Extensive as have been Mr. de Sola’s efforts in connection with Belgian trade, he has also employed his energies in other fields, for he is the managing director of the Canadian office of Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Ltd., the great shipbuilders of Wallsend-on-Tyne, and he has undertaken and executed many contracts for the building of a large number of ships for traffic on the Canadian Great Lakes, the River St. Lawrence and the Atlantic oceans, amounting in all to quite a large fleet. The Canadian government has also had several ships built for its service by contracts awarded to Mr. de Sola, including some very fine vessels for hydrographic survey work, that have made their way through the ice-bound waters of Hudson’s Bay in dangerous seasons. The first ship ever seen in American waters, or that ever crossed the Atlantic ocean propelled by oil combustion engines, was built by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson for Mr. de Sola as consignee. It was the ship Toiler, and it was run by Mr. de Sola on the St. Lawrence and lake route until sold by him to James Playfair. An improvement on the Toiler, the ship Calgary, was built during the following year and these were the first Diesel oil combustion engined vessels to run in Canadian waters.

Clarence de Sola is a director of the Reid-Donald Steamship Company, of which he is the Canadian manager, and he is also a director of the Farrar Transportation Company.

Mr. de Sola has become widely known as a leading factor in the world-embracing Zionist Movement, for the settlement in Palestine of the persecuted Jews emigrating from Russia and other eastern European countries and for the restoration of the Holy Land as the national home of the Hebrew race. He was for a long period on the Actions Committee, which is the supreme governing council of the Zionist Movement, and for many years has been president of the Federation of Zionist Societies of Canada. This federation is a huge organization having branch societies in about sixty different cities and towns throughout the Dominion, and is the most representative Jewish body in Canada. It was through his initiative and foresight that the Zionists of Canada, at their eleventh convention, established a special fund for purchasing land in Palestine on which to settle Jewish colonists and two Jewish colonies in the Holy Land owe their existence entirely to this measure. The Canadian Century has aptly styled him “the head and shoulders of the Zionist Movement in Canada.” He has also figured prominently in the Zionist International Congresses.

Mr. de Sola is a recognized authority on Jewish history, more especially the early records of the Jews of this country, to which he has given years of research. A number of his articles on this subject have appeared in print. He is an honorary corresponding member of the American-Jewish Historical Society and member of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Society. When Funk & Wagnalls published the Jewish Encyclopedia Mr. de Sola was selected to be one of the writers of the articles on Jewish history and his contributions are to be found in most of the twelve volumes. One of his most salient characteristics is his loyalty to any cause which he espouses. Men have learned to know that what he promises he will do, that what he undertakes he will execute, and to all his work he brings the correct principles of business; accomplishing with dispatch, with accuracy and decision that which he sets out to do. He does not confine his efforts to institutions for the benefit of those of his own race. In fact his work has always been broad and nonsectarian in character and any call for humanity’s sake has met with ready response from him. He is a governor of the Montreal General Hospital and an officer of numerous philanthropic societies. He is the presiding warden (Parnas) of the Corporation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Montreal, the handsome design of whose synagogue building is due to the architectural taste of Mr. de Sola, a taste which also made itself felt in the striking beauty and individuality of his own home.

In 1901 Mr. de Sola was married to Miss Belle Maud Goldsmith, daughter of Leopold Goldsmith, a prominent citizen of Cleveland, Ohio. She completed a collegiate course with the Bachelor of Arts degree, and is an active officer of various organizations, including among nonsectarian ones the Victorian Order of Nurses, the Royal Edward Institute, the Needlework Guild and many others. Among Jewish societies she is founder of the Daughters of Zion in Canada and of the Women’s League for Cultural Work in Palestine. She also was one of those who organized the Friendly League of Jewish Women, of which she was the first president. She has written several absorbingly interesting literary articles, among them being “The Higher Education of Women,” “The Origin of the French Salon,” and “The Jew—Imaginary and Real.”

Mr. and Mrs. Clarence de Sola’s home, on Pine Avenue, is one of the most beautiful in Montreal. It is a splendid example of Saracenic architecture, such as is seen in southern Spain. In both its general outlines and in its rich ornamental details it is an exquisite specimen of the highest form of Andalusian art. It is a home that is additionally attractive by reason of a gracious and cordial hospitality.