Bob McLelland was born on November 2, 1933 in Calgary, Alberta. He began his career in BC politics in 1969 when he was elected to the Langley City Council. From 1972-1986 he served as a member of the Legislative Assembly for Langley. He was a member of Premier's Bill Bennett's cabinet serving as the Minister of Health (1975-1979), Minister of Energy and Mines (1979-1982), and Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (1985-1986). He died on September 29, 2015.
Born in Elmvale, Ontario in 1904, Dora Geneva Lent began studying watercolour painting at the age of six. Her family later moved to Calgary, where she became a prolific and respected artist of Canadiana. In the 1960s she moved to Victoria, BC. She is best known for her interpretations of Indigenous and Inuit belongings, peoples, and places. She exhibited across North American throughout her lifetime. In 1933, a series of Lent’s paintings depicting Indigenous dance masks were acquired for the permanent collection of what is now known as the Canadian Museum of History.
In addition to her watercolours, Lent was also recognized for her bold “needle-paintings,” she crafted from sheep wool and dyed with natural pigments. She wrote several books on needlecraft as well as B.C. history.
British Columbia Development Corporation
The British Columbia Development Corporation was established March 31, 1973. In March 1987, the British Columbia Development Corporation was merged into the newly created British Columbia Enterprise Corporation (BCEC) by the British Columbia Enterprise Corporation Financial Restructuring Act (S.B.C. 1987 c.39, section 2). This Act was effective March 31, 1987 with B.C. Reg. 289/87.
On September 30, 1989, BCEC ceased operations and pursuant to a tri-partite agreement between the Corporation, the Province and the B.C. Pavilion Corporation, transferred all its remaining assets, liabilities, rights, interests, obligations and related operational responsibilities to the Province and to the B.C. Pavilion Corporation. The BC Pavilion Corporation was also responsible for administering the wind up of the business of the Corporation.
Established as a crown corporation in May 1980.
In March 1987 the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 3) (S.B.C. 1987, c. 44) instituted a title change from the British Columbia Place Act to the British Columbia Enterprise Corporation Act; British Columbia Place Ltd. was renamed British Columbia Enterprise Corporation. BCEC ceased operations on September 30, 1989.
British Columbia Enterprise Corporation
The British Columbia Enterprise Corporation (BCEC) was created through the merger of British Columbia Place Ltd. and the British Columbia Development Corporation in March 1987 when the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 3) (S.B.C. 1987, c. 44) changed the title of the British Columbia Place Act to the British Columbia Enterprise Corporation Act. At this time, British Columbia Place Ltd. was renamed British Columbia Enterprise Corporation and the British Columbia Development Corporation was merged into the newly created British Columbia Enterprise Corporation by the British Columbia Enterprise Corporation Financial Restructuring Act (S.B.C. 1987 c.39, section 2). This Act, effective March 31, 1987 with B.C. Reg. 289/87, gave BCEC, a wholly owned provincial Crown corporation, special powers under the British Columbia Enterprise Corporation Act (RSBC 1996, c. 35). BCEC was responsible for stimulating economic growth in the province through financial and developmental assistance provided to industrial enterprises; it also developed and maintained industrial and commercial land and building projects, including public facilities.
Effective September 30, 1989, BCEC ceased operations and pursuant to a tri-partite agreement between the Corporation, the Province and the B.C. Pavilion Corporation, transferred all its remaining assets, liabilities, rights, interests, obligations and related operational responsibilities to the Province and to the B.C. Pavilion Corporation. The BC Pavilion Corporation was also responsible for administering the wind up of the business of the Corporation.
Annie Amelia Bushby, known from childhood as Rose, was born on July 19, 1863. Her mother was Agnes Douglas Bushby, daughter of Sir James Douglas, first Governor of British Columbia. Her father was Arthur T. Bushby, at various times assistant to Judge Matthew Begbie, Registrar General of the Supreme Court of BC, a County Court judge and stipendiary magistrate. Rose was part of Victoria’s pioneer family elite. Upon her marriage to William Fitzherbert Bullen, founder of BC Marine Railway Company, she moved to “Oakdene,” an impressive home in Esquimalt, where she lived for the rest of her life. The couple had two children. Rose undertook lifelong philanthropic work for groups like the IODE, Children’s Aid Society, BC Historical Society and the Red Cross.
Like many privileged women of her time, she had studied art in her youth and painted for pleasure, in watercolours and oils. Her travels around BC and internationally provided the subjects for her landscapes, painted in the Romantic English style. Between 1917 and 1936, mostly after she was widowed in 1921, her work was included in the Island Arts and Crafts Society annual exhibitions. She also occasionally exhibited at social gatherings. On one occasion in 1932, in conjunction with a meeting spearheaded by Emily Carr, Ina Uhthoff, and others about the creation of a People’s Art Gallery, works of Carr, Bullen, Robin Watt and Lee Nam were on display. Her name is included in a number of studies of BC’s early artists.
Feted by the newspapers on her 90th birthday as a “magnificent old lady,” Bullen died in 1956, bequeathing over seventy of her paintings to the BC government. They were then installed along the corridors of the Douglas Building on Government Street and, in a ceremony on May 1, 1957, Attorney-General Bonner formally accepted them.
Jemima “Ina” Duncan Dewar Campbell was born in Kirn, Scotland, on December 5, 1889. She obtained a diploma from Glasgow School of Art in 1912. She met Edward Uhthoff on a visit to the Kootenays in 1913. They married in 1919, but separated in 1925. Uhthoff moved to Victoria with their two children to earn a living.
For the rest of her life, she worked tirelessly in Victoria as an artist, teacher, mentor, art critic, and champion of the city’s art culture. She felt the art world she encountered on her arrival was staid, underdeveloped and undervalued. As an artist, she allied herself with those exploring a ‘Modern’ approach. In the Island Arts and Crafts Society’s 1932 annual exhibition she was one of seven artists included in a separate “Modern Room,” an attempt to promote a new way of making, thinking about and discussing art. She was a prolific and well-respected artist, frequently exhibiting her work throughout her career at the Vancouver Art Gallery and elsewhere, particularly after her children were older.
As a dedicated and ambitious art teacher, she sought to expand her students’ artistic horizons, influencing many during her long career. The Victoria Art School she began in 1926 continued until 1942. She taught art at the Provincial Summer School for Teachers from 1927-1934 and became the art director for the Department of Education correspondence school until 1968.
Uhthoff was one of the moving forces behind the creation of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, beginning in 1945 with the establishment of a small public gallery, the Little Centre, followed by the Arts Centre of Greater Victoria. The latter purchased Uhthoff’s oil painting Sunflowers, for $100, as the first work in the establishment of a permanent collection. In 1953, in part to promote the AGGV in its new home on Moss Street, Uhthoff agreed to write exhibition reviews for the Times Colonist, which she did until 1968.
Uhthoff died in 1971, leaving behind 400 works. She continued to be the subject of retrospectives and other exhibitions as late as 2011. In 2001 Robert Amos, who wrote the Times Colonist column, On Art, said of her, “Had Emily Carr not been born, we would know Uhthoff as the pre-eminent Victoria artist of her generation.”
Helen Kate Woods was born in Ireland in January 1854. Her parents and some siblings emigrated to Vancouver Island in 1861. Kate and her sister, Emily, remained behind in the care of two aunts until 1865. Once in Victoria, she attended Angela College, the Anglican girls’ school, where she and her sister won prizes for sketching and watercolours. Emily would go on to be a teacher and professional artist, particularly of wildflowers. Kate became an amateur watercolourist, her most prolific period between 1879 and 1881, before her marriage. Her work was also included in the Island Arts and Craft Exhibition of 1913.
Kate is best known for the detailed journal she wrote and the evocative pencil sketches she drew during a 26-day trip in 1880 with her brother, Edward, to the remote mission at Ankihtlast, on the Skeena River near Kispiox, where her sister Alice and her family lived. They travelled first by sea, then, in the company of Nisga’a guides, on foot in boots, snowshoes or moccasins, in canoes and sleighs up the River Nass, overland through deep snow, across traditional grease trails, frozen lakes and periodic thaws that constantly tested them. She meticulously described their daily treks, the scenery and the people, as well as her own increasing awareness of the Indigenous cultures she encountered.
While at the mission, Kate also contributed sketches to the short-lived handwritten newspaper, the Hazelton Queek. After 18 months, she returned to Victoria where, in 1882, she married John Alexander Andrew and bore five children between 1884 and 1891. The last was born after John’s death from cholera. Although he left a comfortable estate, his family experienced financial troubles and Kate sold their home, rented family accommodation and took a job teaching art. She later moved to Vancouver. She died in 1937.
Winifred Higgs was born into an upper middle-class family in Suffolk, England, on December 20, 1871, the youngest of three children of Amelia (Spalding) and Thomas Higgs, whose marriage did not last. Until her death at forty, in 1889, Amelia ensured that her children’s lives were filled with adventure, laughter, education and culture. She imbued all of them with the character to adapt to their changed circumstances after her death and to choose uncharted paths over well-trod ones. Leonard, Mabel, and Winifred Higgs were close throughout their lives.
To support themselves as adults, Winifred became a governess, Mabel took up nursing and Leonard emigrated to South Pender Island, BC with his family. During a summer 1896 visit to South Pender, Winifred and Mabel recognized the freedom and adventure of living there. They immigrated in 1897. Winifred embraced the social freedom of the still developing settler society of the Gulf Islands, adapting to both the relaxed social structures and the hard work.
In 1900, she married Ralph Grey and moved to tiny Samuel Island, which he owned. They had two daughters, Constance and Evelyn, and continued to farm for a decade. In 1910, the family moved to Esquimalt, where Mabel and her husband, Martin Allendale Grainger, were already living. For the rest of her life, Winifred lived there and in Vancouver.
As a young woman, Winifred had been financially unable to fulfill her dream of attending art school, but a number of her sketches and paintings have survived her. Her significant and lasting cultural contribution, however, is the detailed and engaging memoir she wrote, beginning in 1938, during one of her several periods of ill-health. It vividly depicts her life in the middle-class Victorian England of her childhood and youth and the pioneer life she led on the Gulf Islands from 1896-1910. It is humorous, philosophical, idiosyncratic and astute. Although Winifred did not intend it to be published, posterity is the richer for her family choosing to offer it to a broader audience.
Predeceased by her husband, Winifred died on June 15, 1951. She was 79.
Born in London, England, on 25 November 1908, Betty Newton emigrated to Victoria with her parents in 1910 and lived there the rest of her life. Her father, Reginald, managed the Windermere Hotel on McClure Avenue where Alice Ravenhill, who established the Society for the Furtherance of Indian Arts and Crafts, and her sister, resided.
Between 1931 and 1941 Newton exhibited her art with the Island Arts and Crafts Society. In 1932, 1933 and 1948 she was included in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s (VAG) annual B.C. Artists Exhibition and its Vancouver Island Exhibition. In 1945 her pastel, At the Loom, was singled out as “notable” in a review of the VAG’s British Columbia at Work Exhibition. In August, 1957 she exhibited 100 of her sketches in Victoria.
By at least 1939 she had met Alice Ravenhill and began assisting her efforts to promote the revival of Indigenous art, drama, dance, song and handicrafts. In 1941 the two prepared twenty charts depicting their interpretations of various BC Indigenous cultures. Ravenhill selected the designs and Newton drew them. For this work, they split a $100 commission, but thereafter Ravenhill became critical of Newton, downplaying or ignoring her contributions.
In November 1946 Newton began her career as an illustrator at the Provincial Museum. She showed particular interest in two areas – botanical art and Indigenous arts and crafts. In 1949, she illustrated Beryl M. Cryer’s The Flying Canoe: Legends of the Cowichans. Her botanical work was included in the Garden Centre Exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1965. When the Provincial Museum began collecting paintings of local flora and fauna in 1977, it included her work. She was also included in UBC’s 1979 Plantae Occidentalis: “200 Years of Botanical Art in B.C.”
By 1972 Newton had retired. In 1984 she was mentioned in a newspaper article on the history of the Victoria Sketch Club. In 1986, an article on the Museum’s 100th anniversary highlighted the giant lady-slipper and dogwood flowers Newton made in 1961, using Styrofoam as an art material.
Newton died on July 21, 1992.
Maude de Kirkby Lumb was born in Preneth, England on 19 May 1874 to Thomas and Margaret (Williams) Lumb. Her family had peerage roots in Wales. She studied at the Carlisle School of Art in Cumbria before her family emigrated to Canada in 1891. She studied commercial art and worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company in Winnipeg and for Spencer’s Department Store in Vancouver. During her time in Manitoba she became acquainted with suffragist Nellie McClung. She illustrated the cover for McClung’s autobiography, Clearing in the West, although she does not appear to be credited for her work in the publication.
In 1908, she married Arthur Evelyn Manners Paget, whose family was part of the English peerage, but he died in 1913. They had no children and she did not remarry. She was known professionally as Maude de K. Paget, Maude K. Paget or Maude Paget.
By at least 1920 she had moved to Victoria, where she lived for the rest of her life. She was a member of the Island Arts and Crafts Society (IACS), exhibiting every year at least until 1928. She showed her work in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s B.C. Artists Christmas Exhibitions in 1933 and 1934 and exhibited in at least two jury shows at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. In 1933 and 1939 her work was included in the VAG’s IACS Vancouver Island Exhibition. She specialized in miniatures, until eye strain forced her to move to other portraiture, particularly of society women in Victoria, and landscapes. Her studio on Byron Street in Oak Bay was a gathering place for artists and art enthusiasts. She died on September 28, 1967 and is buried in Royal Oak Burial Park cemetery.
Ker, Robert Henry Brackman, 1895-1976
Robert Henry Brackman Ker was born in Victoria in 1895, the son of David Russell and Laura Agnes (Heisterman) Ker. He was educated in Victoria and in England and in 1914 became a lieutenant in the 50th Gordon Highlanders. In 1915 he went overseas with the 48th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Forces (C.E.F.) and was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps (R.F.C.), serving in France with 24 Squadron, R.F.C. and then late in 1917 served at Camp Borden as a squadron commander. At the end of the World War I he entered local business in Victoria, involving himself in insurance and real estate. He was also active as a director and later president of Brackman and Ker Milling Company, and served in similar capacities with various flour milling, brewery, and oil companies, including Purity Flour Mills Limited, Home Oil Company Limited, and Molson Breweries, Limited. He also served on the board of directors of the B.C. Power Corporation and B.C. Electric Company, Montreal Trust Company, and University of British Columbia. From 1923 to 1924 Ker served on Victoria City Council as alderman and involved himself in other civic activities, as president of the Victoria Chamber of Commerce and as chairman of the Victoria Community Chest campaigns in 1937 and 1938. In later years he took an active interest in the affairs of the Greater Victoria Art Gallery and St. Michael’s University School.
Arthur Checkley was born on May 1 1874, in Hansworth, Staffordshire, England. He was a professional artist by trade, demonstrating a talent for art starting in elementary school. He moved to Canada in 1913, taking up residence in Saskatoon, where he made a valuable contribution to the local art scene. In 1928 he moved to Victoria B.C. where he continued to practice art, exhibiting his work in Victoria and Vancouver on multiple occasions. He was an active member of the Island Arts and Crafts Society and taught art locally. He was Married to Eva Louise Checkley with whom he had two daughters, Marjorie and Sylvia. He died in Victoria in 1964.
British Columbia. Cariboo Forest District
The Cariboo Forest District was created in 1920, with a headquarters in Williams Lake. In 1932 the district was divided between the Kamloops and Fort George (Prince George) Forest Districts. The Cariboo Forest District was reestablished in 1972, with almost identical boundaries.
In 1978, the Cariboo Forest District was renamed the Cariboo Forest Region, however its boundaries remained the same. Between 1978 and 1981, the region was reorganized to comprise of the following smaller Forest Districts: Quesnel, Williams Lake, Horsefly, 100 Mile House and Alexis Creek.
Patrick McGeer was born in Vancouver in 1927. He studied chemistry at UBC and played basketball for the UBC Thunderbirds, representing Canada on the 1948 Olympic team. He later studied at Princeton, earning a PhD in 1951. In the early 1950s he worked for DuPont Chemical where he helped develop Teflon. This is where he met fellow research chemist, Dr. Edith Graef. They married in April 1954 and moved to Vancouver, where Pat obtained his medical degree from the University of British Columbia and Edith volunteered as an assistant at UBC’s neurochemistry lab.
McGeer represented the Vancouver-Point Grey riding from 1962 to 1986, first as a Liberal and later as part of Bill Bennett's Social Credit government holding several cabinet positions, including Minister of Education. As Minister of Universities, Sciences and Technology, he started North America's first open university (Knowledge Network), sponsored engineering programs at Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria, encouraged BC's technology industry with the Discovery Foundation, collaborated with the Ministry of Health to build a teaching hospital at UBC, and proposed a fixed link to Vancouver Island. He was also the minister responsible for the Insurance Corporation of B.C.
After leaving politics in 1986, McGeer focused on science, spending decades researching Alzheimer's disease alongside his wife, Edith. The couple collaborated on 3 books and more than 1000 research papers documenting discoveries that led to new treatments for diseases ranging from Parkinson's to Alzheimer's. Both were awarded the Order of Canada for their research. They also received the Order of British Columbia. Pat McGeer died on August 29, 2022.
The Martley family were farmers, prospectors and guides in the Lillooet District.
Captain John Martley was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1828. In 1849, after graduating from Sandhurst, he joined the British Army. He served in the Crimea and sold his commission in February 1861. In May 1861 he arrived in Victoria with his family and one servant. One of three former British army officers to be given a military grant of land in British Columbia, Martley built a home, 'The Grange', and farmed at Pavilion Mountain in the Lillooet district. In the election of 1875, he ran unsuccessfully for the Provincial Legislature for the riding of Lillooet West. In January 1878, he was appointed a Justice of the Peace at Lillooet. Captain Martley was the author of a book of poems, Songs of the Cascades, published in 1894 under the pseudonym Erl Viking. He died in 1896. His only son, Arthur Hugh John (1855-1942) was a longtime resident and teamster-prospector in the Lillooet district. He had two daughters, Alice Maud (married William George Cox Manson, a big game guide in British Columbia) and Isabella (married Joseph Pelletier).
Margaret Maclure was born in Scotland, ca. 1868, to Charles Stewart Simpson and Jessie Fullerton Shannon. At six weeks old she moved to India where her father worked as a civil engineer. Her father died during the construction of a bridge over the Hooghly River in India, and Margaret returned to Scotland with her mother. Her mother married Rev. Patrick Macfarlane Macleod, who became a pastor at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Victoria.
On August 10, 1889, Margaret married architect Samuel Maclure (d. 1929). Margaret was involved in the art and music scene in Victoria and was one of the first presidents of the Ladies Musical Club, which later became absorbed in the Victoria Musical Art Society. Additionally, she was an artist and wrote newspaper articles. Margaret died at St. Joseph's Hospital in 1938.
Canada. Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
The position of Chief Electoral Officer, was created in 1920 by the Dominion Elections Act, largely to put an end to political partisanship in the administration of federal elections. Originally, the Chief Electoral Officer was responsible only for the administration of general elections and by-elections. Under the Canada Elections Act and other laws that now govern the federal electoral process, Elections Canada's mandate has broadened to include the administration of referendums and other important aspects of our democratic electoral system.
André & Associates Interpretation and Design Ltd.
André & Associates Interpretation and Design Ltd was the brainchild of Jean Jacques André who was born in 1932 and grew up in Marseilles, France. His career began early, and between 14 and 19 years old he was an assistant naturalist and trained in taxidermy and preparation of birds and animal skins for the Natural History Museum of Marseilles, as well as mapping caves in southern France for Max Escalon de Fonton. He came to Canada in 1951, working initially as a farm laborer in Saskatchewan, and a year later, in a sawmill in northern British Columbia (both elements he incorporated into the design of the exhibits). This provided the income to purchase camera equipment and he created documentaries on mountain climbing and caving. Within a few years he settled in Victoria, British Columbia and was hired by the BC Forest Service as a cameraman/photographer where he worked for nine years.
The family business was founded in Victoria in 1961 as Jean Jacques André Design and Graphic Arts. In 1968 he was hired on contract and developed a Master Exhibit Plan called 'Project 70'. In 1970 he took the permanent position as Chief of Exhibits at the Royal BC Museum and developed the plans for Modern History (Old Town), Natural History, the First Peoples galleries, and many others while there.
Upon leaving the museum in 1982 he re-opened the family business, Jean Jacques André Consultants Ltd. Though he was still very involved in project designs, in 1993 Jean Jacques' daughters and senior designer Rennie Knowlton, went into partnership and opened Jean Jacques André and Associates Ltd. This later became André & Knowlton Associates, as Rennie Knowlton and his daughter Bianca, now co-owned the company. Rennie Knowlton was bought out a few years later, thus changing the name of the business to André & Associates Interpretation and Design Ltd.
The company is known for a large number of different exhibits across the world, such as Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (Alberta), Lake Louise Visitor Centre (Alberta), Hebrew Union College Skirball Cultural Centre (California), Wanapum Heritage Center at Priest Rapids (Washington State), the National Atomic Testing Museum (Nevada), Makah Cultural and Research Center (Washington State), and the Hong Kong Museum of History (Hong Kong).
The company closed in 2020, and André died in 2021.
Vancouver Island (Colony). Inferior Court of Civil Justice
Vancouver Island (Colony). Magistrates Court
During the 1860s, magistrates held Special Sessions at the Police Court in Victoria.
Vancouver Island. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Civil Justice of the Colony of Vancouver Island was renamed the Supreme Court of Vancouver Island by the 1 March 1869 "Ordinance to regulate the Supreme Courts of Justice of British Columbia". The court remained separate from the Supreme Court of Civil Justice of British Columbia, even though the two colonies had merged in 1866. This ordinance also provided for the future merger of the two courts into the Supreme Court of British Columbia, which was completed 29 March 1870 under the Courts Merger Ordinance, 1870.
Vancouver Island. Supreme Court of Civil Justice
The Supreme Court of Civil Justice of the Colony of Vancouver Island was established by an Imperial Order in Council from the British Privy Council, dated 4 April 1856. The court remained separate from the Supreme Court of Civil Justice of British Columbia, even when the two colonies merged in 1866.
The court was renamed the Supreme Court of Vancouver Island by the 1 March 1869 Ordinance to regulate the Supreme Courts of Justice of British Columbia. This ordinance also provided for the future merger of the two courts into the Supreme Court of British Columbia, which was completed 29 March 1870 under the Courts Merger Ordinance, 1870.
Vancouver Island (Colony). Governor (1864-1866 : Kennedy)
The first governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, Richard Blanshard, was appointed in 1849 by royal commission (21 July 1849, Queen Victoria). Prior to that, the affairs of the colony were also the affairs of the Hudson’s Bay Company and were administered by the chief factor (James Douglas) and employees of the company.
In 1849, Vancouver Island was granted to the company as a colony. Blanshard arrived in Victoria in March 1850 to take up the position of Governor. The instructions issued to him included the authority to issue writs of summons and writs of elections, administer oaths, grant or withhold assent to bills, appoint and suspend public officials as instructed by the Crown, grant pardon or clemency to persons convicted in colonial courts, issue marriage licenses, and ensure that proper records were kept of all matters within the jurisdiction of the colony.
Blanshard resigned in 1851 and James Douglas was appointed as Governor of the colony. The Hudson’s Bay Company grant expired in 1859 and Britain assumed responsibility for the Colony of Vancouver Island. Douglas continued as Governor until 1863 when he retired and Arthur Edward Kennedy was appointed. Kennedy remained in that position until 1866 when the colony was united with the Colony of British Columbia.
Vancouver Island (Colony). Governor (1851-1864 : Douglas)
The first governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, Richard Blanshard, was appointed in 1849 by royal commission (21 July 1849, Queen Victoria). Prior to that, the affairs of the colony were also the affairs of the Hudson’s Bay Company and were administered by the chief factor (James Douglas) and employees of the company.
In 1849, Vancouver Island was granted to the company as a colony. Blanshard arrived in Victoria in March 1850 to take up the position of Governor. The instructions issued to him included the authority to issue writs of summons and writs of elections, administer oaths, grant or withhold assent to bills, appoint and suspend public officials as instructed by the Crown, grant pardon or clemency to persons convicted in colonial courts, issue marriage licenses, and ensure that proper records were kept of all matters within the jurisdiction of the colony.
Blanshard resigned in 1851 and James Douglas was appointed as Governor of the colony. The Hudson’s Bay Company grant expired in 1859 and Britain assumed responsibility for the Colony of Vancouver Island. Douglas continued as Governor until 1863 when he retired and Arthur Edward Kennedy was appointed. Kennedy remained in that position until 1866 when the colony was united with the Colony of British Columbia.
Vancouver Island (Colony). Governor
The first governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, Richard Blanshard, was appointed in 1849 by royal commission (21 July 1849, Queen Victoria). Prior to that, the affairs of the colony were also the affairs of the Hudson’s Bay Company and were administered by the chief factor (James Douglas) and employees of the company.
In 1849, Vancouver Island was granted to the company as a colony. Blanshard arrived in Victoria in March 1850 to take up the position of Governor. The instructions issued to him included the authority to issue writs of summons and writs of elections, administer oaths, grant or withhold assent to bills, appoint and suspend public officials as instructed by the Crown, grant pardon or clemency to persons convicted in colonial courts, issue marriage licenses, and ensure that proper records were kept of all matters within the jurisdiction of the colony.
Blanshard resigned in 1851 and James Douglas was appointed as Governor of the colony. The Hudson’s Bay Company grant expired in 1859 and Britain assumed responsibility for the Colony of Vancouver Island. Douglas continued as Governor until 1863 when he retired and Arthur Edward Kennedy was appointed. Kennedy remained in that position until 1866 when the colony was united with the Colony of British Columbia.
Vancouver Island (Colony). Governor (1849-1851 : Blanshard)
The first governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, Richard Blanshard, was appointed in 1849 by royal commission (21 July 1849, Queen Victoria). Prior to that, the affairs of the colony were also the affairs of the Hudson’s Bay Company and were administered by the chief factor (James Douglas) and employees of the company.
In 1849, Vancouver Island was granted to the company as a colony. Blanshard arrived in Victoria in March 1850 to take up the position of Governor. The instructions issued to him included the authority to issue writs of summons and writs of elections, administer oaths, grant or withhold assent to bills, appoint and suspend public officials as instructed by the Crown, grant pardon or clemency to persons convicted in colonial courts, issue marriage licenses, and ensure that proper records were kept of all matters within the jurisdiction of the colony.
Blanshard resigned in 1851 and James Douglas was appointed as Governor of the colony. The Hudson’s Bay Company grant expired in 1859 and Britain assumed responsibility for the Colony of Vancouver Island. Douglas continued as Governor until 1863 when he retired and Arthur Edward Kennedy was appointed. Kennedy remained in that position until 1866 when the colony was united with the Colony of British Columbia.
Vancouver Island (Colony). Sheriff
The office of Sheriff of the Colony of Vancouver Island was established in 1857 when Governor James Douglas appointed Andrew Muir to the position. Prior to that, the affairs of the colony were also the affairs of the Hudson’s Bay Company and were administered by employees of the company and the chief factor of Fort Victoria. The first law enforcement was initiated for the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1853 when Governor Douglas commissioned four citizens to serve as magistrates and justices of the peace. The Sheriff was appointed just prior to the gold rush on the Fraser River in 1858 that increased the population of the colony from a few hundred to many thousand, almost overnight. The Sheriff was responsible for suppressing unlawful assemblies and riots, for pursuing and arresting felons, and for summoning juries. The Sheriff was also the returning officer for parliamentary elections and reader of royal proclamations. The offices of coroner, local constable, and justice of the peace devolved from the duties of the Sheriff. The first election of a Legislative Assembly for the Colony of Vancouver Island took place in 1856, prior to Muir’s appointment, under the orders of Governor James Douglas. Before the second election of representatives in 1859, the Registration of Voters Act was passed, outlining detailed procedures to be followed by the Sheriff when compiling voters’ lists. At the same time, the Representation Act established electoral boundaries and representation for seats in the Legislative Assembly and the Franchise Act established qualifications for voters. Muir was followed as Sheriff by George W. Heaton (1859-1860) and William B. Naylor (1860-1866). The position was also known as High Sheriff. Peter O’Reilly was Sheriff of the Colony of British Columbia (1858-1866). Joseph A.R. Homer was appointed the first Sheriff of the united colony of British Columbia (1866-1871).