Samuel J. Heseltine was an engineer who briefly held a position in the colonial administration
of Vancouver Island.
Born in Enfield, England, he was chief engineer on the
Hudson's Bay Company (
HBC) ship
Labouchere, which arrived at
Esquimalt for the first time
on
31 January 1859 following a long journey from
London.
The voyage did not go smoothly for Heseltine, and, shortly after landing, he was found
guilty of
insubordination and a refusal to obey orders,
and sentenced to
ten days imprisonment in the common jail.
Following this humiliation, he left the
HBC but, as the result of being
the only thoroughly qualified individual in the community,
soon found himself appointed to the newly created position of
Inspector of Steamboats
in the colonial
government.
In late summer
1859, Heseltine spent a
Thursday evening playing billiards with his friend and roommate
Henry Wootton, who had also quit the
HBC following the arduous trip on board
Labouchere. The pair returned home around midnight, but Heseltine went out again on his own.
When
Wootton woke in the morning, he found Heseltine in bed with his leg badly broken below the
knee.
Taken to
Victoria's Royal Hospital, Heseltine's health slowly deteriorated over the next nine days,
and he died
on
5 September 1859, at forty-three years of
age.
Unable, or unwilling, to explain how he had gotten injured, he carried that secret
with him to his grave.
Following his demise, Heseltine's father,
Samuel R. Heseltine, made several attempts to collect the proceeds of his estate
but it is not clear whether he was able to do so.
Vancouver Island governor
James Douglas was opposed to paying the salary
owing Heseltine, arguing that
he never completed any one single Act of the important duty it was intended he should
perform,
and describing him as
a person of dissolute and erratic habits…much given to
inebriety.
Douglas's accusations might be supported by
Victoria's
British Colonist
newspaper, which hinted that
poor Heseltine
struggled with both the law, and the bottle.