Places

Victoria - the City

Then Queen Victoria was enthroned in 1837, what is now the city of Victoria was the home of the Lekwammen people. In 1843 the Hudson's Bay Company, a fur trading company based in London England, established a post here. Initially it was intended to call the post by a local name for the harbour and the long, finger-like inlet whose narrows were the site of a Lekwammen transform site, Camosack or Camosun. Soon it was decided that it should honour the young Queen's husband and consort, and for a short time became Fort Albert. When it became clear that post would be the headquarters for the Hudson's Bay Company west of the Rocky Mountains, and destined to be the seat of a new British colony, it was decided that no less a name could be attached than that of the Queen herself.

Government StreetFrom its establishment as a fur trading post in 1843, Victoria became the capital of the first British Colony on the west coast of North America, the Colony of Vancouver Island, established in 1849. When gold was discovered on the adjacent mainland, another colony, British Columbia, was established in 1858, but Victoria was the gateway to the goldfields and grew from a few hundred people in the spring of that year to over 6,000 people in the summer. After Vancouver Island merged with the neighbouring colony of British Columbia in 1866, Victoria became the capital of the united colony. When British Columbia joined Canada in 1871, it became the capital of the province.

From the gold rush on, Victoria quickly grew to become the largest settlement on the westcoast of the Pacific north of San Francisco, and it remained the political and economic capital of the British possessions through the 19th century. Victoria remains the political capital of British Columbia today, but after the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed in 1886, the city of Vancouver, which grew up at the railway terminus, began to displace Victoria as the economic capital of the province.

Victoria grew fastest as the empire grew fastest. Indeed, there was a link between the two. With the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway which connected Canada's east and west coast, Victoria became a vital link in the transportation corridors between Britain and its possessions and markets in the Pacific and Asia.

Queen Victoria's death in 1901 was mourned as sincerely in this city named after her as anywhere in the world. The end of the Victorian era also marked the end of Victoria's era as the dominant metropole on Canada's west coast. The census of that year confirmed that Vancouver had overtaken Victoria -- the city's "summer of promise" was over.

Municipal Bylaws:

City of Victoria Municipal Elections Regulations By-Law, 1873 (from viHistory)

This by-law divided the city into three municipal wards - Johnson Street Ward, Yates Street Ward and James Bay Ward. The wards served as enumeration sub-districts in the 1881 census. The boundaries of the wards (as defined in this by-law) were not altered until 1890 [see below].

City of Victoria Wards By-Law, 1890 (from viHistory)

Defining the boundaries of Yates Street, Johnson Street and James Bay wards, May 1890. The wards constituted enumeration sub-districts for the city in the 1891 census.

A By-Law for the Extension of Corporation Limits, 1890 (from viHistory)

This By-Law (no. 124) redefined and enlarged the boundaries of the City of Victoria, December 1890. The neighbourhood of Victoria West was included in the new boundaries of the city, and these boundaries were in force for the 1891 census.

Victoria City Act, 1892 (from viHistory)

This provincial statute confirmed the extended boundaries of Victoria (as set out in By-Law 124, above).

City of Victoria Wards By-Law, 1892 (from viHistory)

Repealed the Wards By-Law, 1890 [above]; divided the City of Victoria into 3 new wards (North, Central and South Wards) and defined the boundaries of the new wards.

City of Victoria Municipal Elections Regulations By-Law, 1873 (from viHistory)