Born in Norwich,
Norfolk (England), 27 July 1789, he was the second son of
Jacob Mountain (1749–1825), a bishop and politician, by his wife Elizabeth Mildred Wale co-heiress of Little Bardfield Hall, near Thaxted,
Essex. Mountain was claimed to be directly descended from
Michel de Montaigne. In 1793 he moved with his family to
Quebec City when his father was appointed the first Anglican Bishop of
Quebec by his friend
William Pitt the Younger. He lived with his family at Marchmont House, near Quebec, where he received his early education before returning to England at the age of sixteen to study under private
tutors until he matriculated from
Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating
Bachelor of Arts (BA) in 1810, and
Doctor of Divinity (DD) in 1819. He removed again to Canada in 1811, and, becoming secretary to his father, was ordained
deacon in 1812 and priest in 1816, at the same time being appointed evening lecturer in Quebec Cathedral. He was rector of
Fredericton, New Brunswick, from 1814 to 1817, when he returned to Quebec as
rector of that parish and bishop's official. In 1821 he became
Archdeacon of Lower Canada. On 14 February 1836 he was consecrated, at
Lambeth, Bishop suffragan of Montreal, as
coadjutor to
Charles Stewart, Bishop of Quebec. Stewart shortly afterwards proceeded to Britain (dying in 1837), and the care of the entire diocese was under Mountain's administration (remaining Bishop of Montreal) until 1839, when
Upper Canada was made a
separate see in Toronto . It was through his earnest exertions that
Rupert's Land was also, in 1849, erected into an
episcopal see. He continued to administer all Lower Canada as Bishop coadjutor of Montreal until 1850, when he secured the constitution of the
Diocese of Montreal, he himself retaining the
Diocese of Quebec (but now as diocesan Bishop of Quebec), by far the poorer and more laborious of the two. During the greater part of his ministerial career he had to perform long, tedious, and often dangerous journeys into the interior of a wild and unsettled country, paying frequent visits to the north-west territory, the eastern townships, the
Magdalen Islands, and the shores of
Labrador; also to Rupert's Land, some 3,600 miles, in an Indigenous canoe. He came to Britain in 1853 to confer with
William Broughton, the metropolitan of
Australasia, on the subject of synodical action in colonial churches, and he received the degree of
Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) at the
University of Oxford. The greatest of his works was the establishment in 1845 of the Lower Canadian Church University, Bishop's College, Lennoxville, for the education of clergymen. His missionary journey to the
Red River Colony is recorded in ''The Journal of the Bishop of Montreal, during a Visit to the Church Missionary Society's North-West America Mission''; it remains a lasting church historical and ethnographic resource. Mountain was a learned theologian, an elegant scholar, and powerful preacher. He died at Bardfield in
Sillery, on 6 January 1863.
Career in Education From 1824 to 1835, he was the first principal of
McGill University and professor of divinity. Many first-year students today live in the Bishop Mountain Residences ("Upper Rez") which bears his name. In 1843, he was instrumental in the founding of
Bishop's University in
Lennoxville, Quebec. He is also responsible for creating the Link of Bishop's University with
Bishop's College School who founded in 1836 which was then called Lennoxville Classical School, and helped the new Bishop's College Grammar School (BCS) to survive financially and executively through many leadership roles. ==Works==