Joseph Trutch

Joseph Trutch

Sir Joseph William Trutch KCMG (born January 18, 1826 in Ashcott , † March 4, 1904 in Taunton ) was a British engineer, politician and holder of the highest political offices in British Columbia .

Joseph William Trutch was the son of William Trutch and Charlotte Hannah Barnes. Early on, he viewed the expanding British Empire as a vast space for opportunities. He made considerable fortunes in British Columbia and belonged to the ranks of the capital Victoria . He campaigned for the province to join Canada, which was founded in 1867, and became its first lieutenant governor . In doing so, he broke with the Indian policy of his predecessor, gave them tiny reservations and had them expropriated if necessary, especially when it came to his political friends. Despite his success, he returned to Great Britain in 1899 , where he spent the last years of his life.

Life

Early years

Trutch spent his first years in Jamaica , where his father owned land from around 1820 and took on judicial duties as the Clerk of the Peace . In 1822 he married Charlotte Hannah Barnes, with whom he had five children.

In 1834 the family returned to England . Trutch went to Mount Radford College in Devon . He learned his engineering trade from the engineer Sir John Rennie and worked on the Great Northern Railway and the Great Western Railway . Although he was interested in North America earlier, because in his opinion there were greater opportunities there, it was only the gold rush in California that prompted him to go there in 1850.

Stay in the USA (1850–1858)

He spent the next nine years in the USA , initially in San Francisco . But he despised the society there as raw. He wrote to his parents: "If I could get known among the best people, I mean the capitalists, I should be sure to do well." (If I became known among the best people, I mean the capitalists, I should be sure that I'm fine.) A little later he went to the Oregon Territory , where he found a job in the town planning of St Helens in Oregon , then in Milton , Washington . In 1852 he was promoted to assistant surveyor in the surveyor general's office , so he was entrusted with land surveying and allocation.

Trutch came into contact with the local Indians during his ventures on the Columbia River and Puget Sound . In a letter to his parents, he mistook them for “the ugliest & Laziest creatures I ever saw, & we shod. as soon think of being afraid of our dogs as of them. ”This clearly showed the arrogance that permeated Trutch's actions in this field, at the same time the unwillingness to deal with the circumstances and his open contempt.

At the same time, good contacts paved the way for Trutch. His boss, John Bower Preston, who belonged to an influential family in Illinois , put him in contact with his sister-in-law Julia Hyde from New York . The two married on January 8, 1855 and settled in Illinois, where Trutch continued to work for Preston. He participated in land speculation in the Chicago area . Still, he was bored with this way of life and the cold was affecting his health.

British Columbia engineer

When the Fraser Canyon gold rush began in the spring of 1858, Trutch was drawn to British Columbia , where, as he wrote to his brother John, the English could live under their own flag and laws. John had been in the British colony since 1857. In London , Joseph Trutch asked the Colonial Office if there was a job there. Although no position was available, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton , Secretary in charge of the Colonies, gave him a letter of recommendation to Governor James Douglas . He also met Richard Clement Moody , who went there with the Royal Engineers .

The Alexandra suspension bridge at Spuzzum, 1868

Trutch came to British Columbia in June 1859. He first worked on the lower Fraser River and built paths such as the Harrison-Lillooet trail in the Cariboo region. In 1862 he and his brother John built the section of Cariboo Road up the Fraser Canyon from Chapmans Bar to Boston Bar, where the Alexandra suspension bridge was also built. Trutch was allowed to collect tolls on this bridge for seven years , which brought him between $ 10 and $ 20,000 a year.

Political career and Indian politics

In November 1861 Trutch won a seat in the Vancouver Island Parliament in Victoria, but this was dissolved in early 1863. In April 1864, Trutch was appointed chief commissioner of lands and works by Governor Douglas . The press saw this as a conflict of interest, as Trutch herself owned extensive land. His office automatically made him a member of the Executive Council of British Columbia .

His home, Fairfield House , overlooking Juan de Fuca Street , became a center of life for the provincial elite. Trutch was an Anglican reading at Christ Church Cathedral . Peter O'Reilly , the gold commissioner , married Trutch's youngest sister, Caroline Agnes, in 1863. In 1870 his brother married John Zoe Musgrave, sister of Anthony Musgrave , the last colonial governor of British Columbia.

Shortly after Trutch became chief commissioner of lands and works , Douglas resigned. He had made sure that Indian reserves were actually protected. Trutch, however, believed the Indians should give way to white colonization. He did not recognize their land claims and he made sure that the reservations were as small as possible. He started with the Shuswap reserves in the area around Kamloops and continued this policy on the Fraser. With his approach he created problems that have not yet been resolved.

Connection to Canada

Since 1866 a member of the Legislative Council , he fought, like the political elite as a whole, against annexation to Canada and a loosening of relations with Great Britain. In 1869 Musgrave became governor. He and Trutch became friends, and Musgrave agreed to keep the colonial officials' pension rights. Together with John Sebastian Helmcken and Robert William Weir Carrall , Trutch led the follow-up negotiations in Ottawa .

Helmcken admitted that Trutch was "head and shoulders above us in intellect - and pertinacity" and that Trutch was "everything and everybody" in Ottawa. He demanded a railroad connection - but secretly signaled that this should not be taken too seriously - for the province and the adoption of the Indian policy "a policy as liberal as that hitherto pursued by the British Columbia Government" (such a liberal policy, as previously persecuted by the British Columbian government). In Ottawa little was known of the province's actual Indian policy.

On July 20, 1871, British Columbia became a province of Canada, and Joseph Trutch its first lieutenant governor . He made sure that John Foster McCreight became the first premier. After the election defeat of 1872, however, he relied on Amor De Cosmos , who wanted to reduce the influence of men who were not elected.

Railway business

Trutch played an important role in the dispute with the United States over the San Juan Islands and Alaska's borders, but he was more interested in financial affairs than a public task. He wanted to play a leading role in the Canada Pacific Railway Company , but with the Pacific Scandal of 1873 these plans failed. When Alexander Mackenzie came to power , Trutch lost his political contacts in Ottawa.

Trutch remained in office until July 28, 1876. It was only when the Conservatives returned to power in 1878 that new opportunities opened up. Trutch became dominion agent in British Columbia in 1880, with special authority in railroad construction and Indian affairs. Together with his brother-in-law Peter O'Reilly , the Indian reserve commissioner , he arranged for land expropriations. His brother worked as a land commissioner for the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway . He lived in Victoria from 1885 to 1892, then returned to England.

Trutch remained in office until 1889, for which he was inducted into the Order of St. Michael and St. George . He went to Great Britain, returned once more to Victoria when his wife died there in 1894. He continued to be involved in commercial ventures such as the Silver King Mines in West Kootenay. Joseph Trutch died on March 4, 1904 in Somerset, the county where he was born.

literature

• JT Saywell: Sir Joseph Trutch: British Columbia's first lieutenant-governor. British Columbia Historical Quarterly , Volume 19, pp. 71-92 (1955).

Web links

• Joseph Trutch . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).