Canadian business man and vice-president of the Mechanics Institute
Louis Gugy was the first president of the Montreal Mechanics Institute in 1828.
The initiator of the Montreal Mechanics’ Institution in 1828 was Rev. Henry Esson, one of Montreal’s intellectual leaders.
For several years beginning in the late 1850s, Alexander Cowper Hutchison taught architectural drawing at the Institute. The son of a Scottish-born stonemason, A.C. Hutchison had himself taken mechanical drawing at the Institute, and went on to become one of Montreal’s leading architects. He was involved in the design and construction of major buildings in Montreal, including the Redpath Museum, Erskine and American United Church and the old La Presse building. His firm, Hutchison, Wood and Miller, would later design the current Atwater Library building.