Researching William Mcdonald

The bequest was unexpected, and his will was contested, but after prolonged legal disputes the university received the money. At the time, the university had no faculty of astronomy, so in 1932 it formed a collaboration with Otto Struve at the University of Chicago, who supplied astronomers.

The McDonald Observatory is named after him, with Otto Struve becoming the first director.

McDonald was the eldest of the three sons of Sarah Johnson and Henry Graham McDonald of Paris, Texas. As a young man, he was a private in the Confederate Army. He became wealthy through his businesses as a lawyer and a banker, but remained frugal his entire life. He never married and had no children.

Born at the Settlement of River Deny's Road, Inverness, Nova Scotia, the son of Mary McDonald and Allan McDonald, who emigrated from South Uist, Scotland, McDonald was educated at St. Francois Xavier College, Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

A merchant, he was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada for Cape Breton in the 1872 federal election. A Conservative, he was re-elected in 1874, 1878, and 1882. In 1884, he was called to the Senate on the advice of John Alexander Macdonald representing the senatorial division of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He served for almost 44 years as a member of parliament and senator until his death in 1916.

The intersection of Main, Union and Commercial streets in downtown Glace Bay is named "Senator's Corner" in his honour.

During this period, McDonald was also elected as top leader of two black fraternal organizations, serving as Grand Secretary of the state's black Masons for 50 years. In 1906 he founded Fort Worth's first African-American-owned bank as an enterprise of the state Masons; under his management, the bank survived the Great Depression. The black chapters of Masons banked with him, McDonald made loans to black businessmen, and he became probably the first black millionaire in Texas.

He was born at Binnum in South Australia to grazier John Nicholson McDonald and Sarah McInnes, and attended the local state school and then Scotch College in Adelaide. He was a grazier in South Australia from 1930, moving to a sheep station near Neuarpurr in Victoria in 1935. On 15 August 1935 he married Evelyn Margaret Koch, with whom he had two daughters. He served with the AIF in World War II, and after his return served on Kowree Shire Council from 1946 to 1961 (president 1948–49). A member of the Liberal and Country Party, he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1947 for Dundas. Defeated in 1952, he was re-elected in 1955 and elected Speaker. Knighted in 1958, he resigned the speakership in 1967 to become Minister of Lands, Soldier Settlement and Conservation. McDonald lost his seat in 1970. He sold his station in 1980 and retired to Melbourne. He died in 1995.