Robert Dunsmuir
Robert Dunsmuir (August 31, 1825, Scotland – April 12 1889, Victoria, British Columbia) coal miner, industrialist and politician. Born in Hurlford, Scotland, he immigrated to Canada in 1850 where he developed coal mines on Vancouver Island near Nanaimo and Wellington. He is one of the founders of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway Company. The home he built for his wife Joan Olive (White) Dunsmuir in Victoria, British Columbia is called Craigdarroch Castle and is today a popular tourist destination. Thirty-eight years after arriving at the Colony of Vancouver Island as an indentured $5 a week miner for the Hudson's Bay Company, he died the richest man in British Columbia in sole control of an empire estimated to be worth $15 million.[1]
He was elected to the BC Legislature representing Nanaimo in the 1882 (while away on a European holiday) and re-elected in 1886. He died while still in office.
His son James Dunsmuir became Premier of British Columbia and later, Lieutenant-Governor of the province.
External links
References
- ↑ Reksten, p 104.
Sources
- Daniel Francis (Editor): [[Encyclopedia of British Columbia]]. Harbour Publishing, 1999, ISBN 1-55017-200-X.
- Reksten, Terry: The Dunsmuir Saga. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1991, ISBN 0-88894-742-9.
- Donald F. MacLachlan: The Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway - The Dunsmuir Years: 1884-1905. The B.C. Historical Railway Association, 1986, ISBN 0-9692511-0-6.