b. 1821
James Cooper, was born at Bilston, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, and entered
the service of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1844, commanding the company's supply ships
throughout the Pacific. He decided to emigrate to
Vancouver Island, where he arrived with his wife and children on 9 May 1851. He purchased a 385-acre
farm at
Metchosin, part interest in a tavern in
Victoria, and built an iron schooner, the
Alice, which he used for commercial purposes. On 27 August 1851, retiring Governor
Richard Blanshard appointed him to be one of three members to
Vancouver Island's first Council.
Cooper's relationship with
James Douglas, who replaced
Blanshard as governor, quickly deteriorated.
Douglas refused, for example, to allow him to export cranberries to
San Francisco, on the grounds that the cranberries had been illegally obtained from the Aboriginals
in violation of the company's exclusive rights to this trade. When
Douglas introduced measures in the Council to control the sale of spirits by licensing liquor
dealers, Cooper saw this as unfairly aimed at him. Such incidents not only adversely
effected Cooper's business opportunities but galvanized him into an outspoken and
partisan critic of
Douglas in particular and the company in general.
In 1856 he was forced to auction his possessions and return to England, where he became
a merchant at Bilston. In 1857, Cooper testified before the Select Committee of Parliament
inquiring into the affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company of the company's repressive
actions in
Vancouver Island, and the next year was able to use this evidence and experience to win an appointment
by
Sir Edward Lytton that paid £500 a year as harbour master at
Esquimalt for the colony of
British Columbia, despite objections to the appointment registered by the company.
Cooper returned to
Victoria on 25 December 1858 and assumed the duties of his office, which
Douglas later would pronounce
a complete sinecure.
On 12 January 1860, Cooper won a seat in the House of Assembly for
Esquimalt and
Metchosin district on a reform ticket but was obliged to resign when the Colonial Office ordered
him to take up residence in
New Westminster.Following the extension of
British Columbia's jurisdiction over
Vancouver Island in 1866, Cooper returned to
Victoria in 1867 as harbour master of
Victoria and
Esquimalt, but he resigned this position on 27 January 1869 to become a hotel keeper and wine
merchant in
Victoria.
Following
British Columbia's entry into Confederation, the dominion government appointed Cooper on 17 October
1872 their agent for
British Columbia, as well as inspector of lighthouses, and inspector of steamboats.In the course of
these duties, he was repeatedly investigated for irregularities and charged with fraud,
but nothing was proven. His appointment was nevertheless cancelled 25 June 1879. Then
in October of that year, he was charged again and failed to appear in court. He was
never heard from again. The speculation was that he had fled to California, but his
place and date of death remain unknown.
Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966-) 10, pp. 196-97; see also Norman Hacking,
The First Vessel Registered in Vancouver Island and the Stormy Career of Captain James
Cooper, Sea Chest, Vol. 20, No. 2, (December 1986): 56-60. BCDES 31.3.