In 1855, Captain John Powell Mills of the barque Colinda wrote a letter from Victoria, British Columbia to colonial secretary Sir George Grey, describing the wretched reception he received when he landed in the British colony.
“… On my arrival at Victoria my ship was taken in a very illegal manner from me, I was cast into a den of a Prison not fit for a dog Kennel and kept there 4 months and 9 days at their mock Courts, I was interrogated privately no persons being admitted. I was kept in solitary confinement 2 months…”
Captain Mills’ letter is one of thousands in the University of Victoria’s digital archive of Colonial Despatches (the 19th-century spelling of dispatches) sent between the British Colonial Office and the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia.
When the first phase of the website was launched in 2008, the university described the correspondence as “the most authoritative documentary source available for the gold rush, Aboriginal relations and the colonial period in BC.” Before BC became part of Canada, the governors in the colony were ordered to report “everything of interest” to the Colonial Office. Some of these items included ships wrecked, murders committed and murderers hanged, towns created, and a near-war with the United States.
The University of Victoria’s online collection of ‘Colonial Despatches’ can be searched from the Home page.
The online collection contains digital copies and transcriptions of the handwritten correspondence between the British colonial authorities and the colony, from 1846 leading to the founding of Vancouver Island in 1849, the founding of British Columbia in 1858, the annexation of Vancouver Island by British Columbia in 1866, and up to the incorporation of BC into Canadian Federation in 1871.
The despatches for 1846 to 1863 have links to biographies, place names, First Nations, and vessels. The collection is large with more than 54,000 pages, and there is still much more to add. Correspondence written after 1863 are still being transcribed and uploaded to the website.
Based on 1980s transcription project
The collection is built from a large-scale transcription project undertaken by Dr. James E. Hendrickson and his team at the University of Victoria during the 1980s, which resulted in the publication of 28 print volumes of correspondence.
Navigating the website
The website’s About and Introduction sections provide useful descriptions about the importance of the collection and how to navigate through it.
Search and browse
The search feature works well. A simple word search for Kamloops produced 13 results. Browsing by date is also easy to do.
Additional info in tabs
Take particular note of the tabs across the top of the website to fully explore the correspondence and other elements of the collection.
Schedules: These are digitized versions of some of the original finding aids created by Colonial Office staff in the 19th century.
Biographies (in Indexes): This is a list of the biographies of individuals mentioned in the correspondence, with each biography linked to all the documents in which the individual is mentioned. Biographies and links are being added as the online project continues.
Places (in Indexes): A list of all the places mentioned in the documents, including all the various versions of each place name, linked to the documents where they are mentioned.
Vessels (in Indexes): A list of all the vessels mentioned in the correspondence, linked to their occurrences in the documents.
First Nations (in Indexes): A list of all the First Nations groups mentioned in the correspondence, linked to their occurrences in the documents.
Historical maps and plans
The collection also contains more than 200 historical maps and plans.
Among the plans is an 1871 plan of the New Westminster Gaol that shows cells, the prison, lumber yards, and other buildings. An 1862 plan of New Westminster shows government and municipal reserves, Royal Hospital grants, and grants to churches.
Note that permission to copy or reproduce the maps must be received from the National Archives in England.
Captain Mills
As for the plight of Captain Mills, who wrote the letter in 1855, other correspondence from him is linked in his biography on the university’s website.
The Colonial Despatches collection is available here.
