From The Islander

Alfred Waddington

In the past, this blog has described the efforts of men like C.B. Young, who were desperately opposed to the notion of Vancouver Island becoming a part of an amalgamated British Columbia. Understandably, emotions ran high on both sides of the issue, and one of the men who opposed people like Young, was Alfred Waddington. James K. Nesbitt describes Waddington’s role in the amalgamation of British Columbia in his article “Alfred Waddington Wanted Victoria As B.C.’s Capital”.

A Victoria businessman and entrepreneur, Waddington was a perfect champion for annexation, given his stature within Victorian colonial society, and his irrepressibly argumentative personality.

On many occasions, at public meetings and in letters to the editor of the Daily Colonist, Waddington voiced his strident opinions with forceful candour.  According to D.W. Higgins an editor of the Colonist:

“There were some lively scenes in the old hall[the legislature], especially between Mr. Cary, the attorney-general, and Mr. Waddington.

The attorney-general was ill and irritable. Mr. Waddington was old and irritable. The manner in which those two would hammer away at each other was most refreshing to the outsiders who gathered at the hall.”

As was the case with many Victorians of the time, Waddington was concerned with the stuffy bureaucratic atmosphere of Victoria, and critical of the cliquey upper crust politicians who ran the colony. In one letter he stated:

“On the American side they have lighthouses where wanted; buoys where wanted; roads and communications, but they have no admirals, no brilliant officers, no high society balls.

On the English side we have all the latter, and moreover we have had a famine, and in all probability are going to have another. We have a port requiring improvements, but yet not a single step has been made to make them.”

Waddington was interested in promoting Victoria as the future capital of a united British Columbia. Sometimes this placed him in awkward, even dangerous situations. On one occasion while dining at Madame Beniot’s, a fine all-night French restaurant, Waddington was involved in a violent altercation with several other men, which likely arose as a result of a highly charged political discussion.

A few days after the incident, Waddington was inclined to present his version of the events of the fight to Magistrate Pemberton in Police Court.

One summer evening in 1859 Mr. Waddington was at Madame’s when there came a great uproar.

“I dined at Madame Benoit’s in company with 10 or 12 persons, one of whom was a lady. At the end of dinner a slight discussion took place near me, between Mr. St. Ours and Mr. Trouette, when the latter rose up and smacked Mr. St. Ours in the face, to which Mr. St Ours answered by striking him on the head with a bottle; then they closed, Mrs. Trouette shrieking and trying to separate them.

“Mr. Benoit, attracted by the noise, now came into the room, seized Mr. Trouette, drew him back against the wall. Mr. Trouette exasperated, his whole face covered with blood, suddenly drew out a bowie knife, and stabbed Mr. Benoit, who exclaimed he was wounded, and left hold of Trouette, who darted forward onto Mr. St. Ours, while Mr. Navarre attempted in vain to stop him, and got his hand cut.

Mr. St. Ours who was standing unarmed near me, dodged the blow and ran by me, followed by Mr. Trouette, who then turned at me whith his knife, and – seeing the danger to me I lifted up a chair to stop him, begging him not to kill me. The bar of the chair parried the blow, so that I only received a small cut down the forehead.

I then closed with him, and seized his right arm when Mr. Thornton, seeing danger, knocked him down with two violent blows with a chair on the head.”

In the end, the magistrate cast Trouette into jail for two days, and warned him to never do anything of a similar violent nature again.

Waddington Alley in downtown Victoria.

Waddington died in February of 1872 of smallpox at Ottawa, where he was lobbying the Federal Government to build a trans continental railway. He was 76. upon his passing the Colonist stated

“Mr. Waddington’s career was one of untiring industry, enterprise, and zeal in all that would contribute to teh material progress of the country. He never faltered in his belief that this new Canadian province is destined to become one of the most important appendages of the British Crown…”