Alfred Waddington

Infobox Person
name = Alfred Waddington


image_size = 200px
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birth_date = October 2, 1801
birth_place = Brompton, London, England
death_date = February 26, 1872
death_place = Ottawa, Ontario
education =
occupation = politician, author, businessman
spouse =
parents =
children =

Alfred Penderell Waddington was born in 1801 in the Brompton, Kensington district of London, England. During his later years, Waddington was actively involved in the colony of Vancouver Island in what would later become the province of British Columbia, Canada.

From 1860-1861 he was a representative of the Victoria District in the House of Assembly of Vancouver Island. He was also the first colonial Superintendent of Education from 1865-1867 and was an advocate of free public education.

Alfred Waddington is also remembered for planning the ill-fated Waddington's Road at Bute Inlet. The road was intended to be a shorter route to the Cariboo Gold Rush goldfields and was intended to run from the Pacific Coast via Bute Inlet to Fort Alexandria, but instead resulted in the tragedy of the Chilcotin War.

Early years

Alfred Waddington completed his early education in England, attended a school in Paris and then attended the University of Gottingen in Germany.

In 1850 he moved to California and joined a partnership of wholesale grocers.

In 1858, Waddington moved north to Victoria, British Columbia. Although the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush was in full swing, Waddington was not interested in gold seeking. Instead, he wanted to encourage settlement in the colony and wrote "Fraser Mines Vindicated", the first book ever published in the colony of Vancouver Island that wasn't from a government source. [ [http://www.mala.bc.ca/homeroom/content/topics/people/alf.htm The Homeroom: Alfred Waddington ] ]

In 1860, he was elected to the House of Assembly on a platform of religious equality, women's rights and small government.

In 1861 he resigned from the House and in 1862, he helped draft the charter of the City of Victoria, but declined a nomination to be its first mayor.

Waddington's Road

In 1862, Alfred Waddington began lobbying the press and his political allies for support to a wagon road from Bute Inlet to Fort Alexandria where it would connect to the Cariboo Road and continue on to the goldfields at Barkerville. He received approval for the construction early in 1863. [ [http://members.shaw.ca/beyondnootka/biographies/waddington.html Alfred Penderell Waddington ] ]

In the spring of 1864, when members of the Tsilhqot'in (Chilcotin) First Nations learned of the plans to build the road through the Homathko River Valley to the gold fields at Barkerville, they feared both infringement on their territory and the increased threat of smallpox, (an epidemic that had already killed many of their people) and eight Tsilhqot'in men, led by Klatsassin, attacked one of Waddington's work camps, killing fourteen road construction workers. [ [http://greatcanadianrivers.com/rivers/klinaklini/history-home.html The KLINAKLINI RIVER "Great Canadian Rivers" ] ]

Waddington's Road was never completed because of the war, but was examined in later years as one of the main possible routings for the mainline of the Canadian Pacific Railway. However the railway chose Burrard Inlet, which as a result became today's Vancouver.

uperintendent of Education

In 1865, Alfred Waddington was appointed Superintendent of Education for the colony Vancouver Island, but when the Island was annexed into British Columbia in 1866, the Board of Education no longer had any authority.

Waddington resigned in 1867 and the rest of the Board decided to close all of the schools on Vancouver Island. By 1868, "all" of the Board member had resigned to protest the new government's attitudes towards free public schools.

Meanwhile Waddington had never forgotten his Bute Inlet route and began campaigning for a transcontinental railway to be built along that route. He was in Ottawa lobbying for this very purpose when he died of smallpox on February 26, 1872.

Places named after Alfred Waddington

* Mount Waddington
* Waddington Range
* Mount Waddington Regional District
* Waddington Alley in Victoria
* Waddington Crescent in Nanaimo
* Waddington Channel, divides East and West Redonda Islands

Further reading

* "High Slack: Waddington's Gold Road and the Bute Inlet Massacre of 1864" Judith Williams ISBN 0-92158-645-0 [ [http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=2322 ABCBookWorld ] ]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.mala.bc.ca/homeroom/content/topics/people/alf.htm Alfred Waddington biography]
* [http://members.shaw.ca/beyondnootka/biographies/waddington.html Alfred Waddington biography 2]
* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=5312 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]