New Westminster
New Westminster is a city located on the north side of the
Fraser River, just east of
Vancouver. New Westminster was called Prince Albert and Albert City in the mid-1800s,
1 and it later became the first capital of
British Columbia.
2Governor Douglas had originally intended that Derby, now
Langley, be the capital of
British Columbia; however,
Colonel Moody inspected
Douglas's site and dismissed it as
not a militarily defensible city.
3 Moody decided that the new capital should be at present-day New Westminster, which
Moody called Queenborough.
4 However,
Douglas found this name distasteful and he wrote to the Colonial Secretary expressing a desire
that
Queen Victoria should name the capital, mentioning that in the meantime it would be called Queensborough.
5
In
this despatch,
Douglas announces
Queen Victoria's decision:
By Proclamation Her Majesty's decision and that the Town heretofore known as Queensborough
shall, in pursuance of Her Majesty's pleasure, be henceforth called the City of New
Westminster.
Douglas spent little time in New Westminster, as he preferred
Victoria, where settlers were mainly from England and a strong British presence had been established.
6 Douglas would later make
Victoria a free port and impose tariffs on imports into New Westminster, thereby stunting
New Westminster’s economy and moving more commerce to Victoria.
7
In 1866, the colonies of
British Columbia and
Vancouver Island were united as
British Columbia, with
Victoria declared as the new capital in 1868.
8 In 1895, New Westminster was all but destroyed by a fire.
9 The Halkomelem People gave the town the name of Skiwy-ee-mihth, meaning
where many people died.
10 The residents rebuilt the city, and today New Westminster has a population of over
58,000, and is a part of the Greater Vancouver Regional District.
11
- 1. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Place Names (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997), 188.
- 2. New Westminster, BC Geographical Names Information System.
- 3. Akrigg, British Columbia Place Names, 188.
- 4. Ibid.
- 5. Ibid.
- 6. Margaret Ormsby, British Columbia, A History (Toronto: Macmillan, 1976), 174.
- 7. Ibid.
- 8. Akrigg, British Columbia Place Names, 189.
- 9. John T. Walbran, British Columbia Coast Names (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1971), 355.
- 10. Ibid.
- 11. New Westminster Demographics, Statistics Canada.