b. 1821
d. 1893
Joseph Despard Pemberton was born near Dublin, Ireland, the grandson of the Rt. Hon.
Joseph Pemberton, Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1806-07. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin,
Pemberton studied civil engineering and worked on several railways in Ireland and
England, including the Great Southern and Western, the East Lancashire, the Dublin
and Drogheda, and the Exeter and Crediton Railways.
He was also a professor of engineering at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester
before leaving for
Victoria in 1851 to work for the Hudson's Bay Company as a surveyor-general, a position he
held until 1864. Pemberton was elected to the first Legislative Assembly of
Vancouver Island and sat on the Executive Council from 1863 to 1866.
See Kerr, Biographical Dictionary of Well-Known British Columbians, and Harriet Susan Sampson, My Father: Joseph Despard Pemberton, British Columbia Historical Quarterly 8 (1944): 111-25. VI 25.1.