The British government in the 1830s and '40s was increasingly worried about the spread of American settlers into the area west of the Rocky Mountains. The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), which held a licence for exclusive trading rights in the region, was also worried about the increasing costs of importing supplies to the Company trading posts and infrastructure in the isolated areas. In 1839, the HBC, in attempting to win favour with its shareholders and the British Colonial Office, created a subsidiary corporation in the form of the Puget’s Sound Agricultural Company to counter both these problems.

The PSAC was envisaged as a means of making the western settlements more self-sufficient, and as a means of driving colonization along the lines of the British Wakefield system, used in both New Zealand and Australia. Janis Ringuette, in her history of Victoria’s Beacon Hill Park, described the system:

“The goal was to promote an “ideal society” by establishing the English class structure and social conditions on Vancouver Island. In this model, gentlemen owned the land and labourers did the work. Land distribution policies were designed to exclude lower classes from owning land.”[more info]

When the British lost control of the Oregon Territories to the United States in 1846, greater impetus was placed on securing the more northern colonies in British Columbia and Vancouver Island. The HBC acquired rights to the Vancouver Island colony in 1849 under the condition that it direct settlement of the colony. The PSAC, the HBC organ now concerned with colonization, set up four farms around Fort Victoria, at Craigflower, Constance Cove, Viewfield, and Colwood. The bailiff—or manager—of each farm was to receive all capital and equipment needed for the running of the farm, and was placed in the social position of master over his labourers, as per the Wakefield system. [more info]