Joseph Despard Pemberton, Vancouver Island’s first surveyor general, wrote in 1860 in his Facts and Figures Relating to Vancouver Island that “persons emigrating frequently form too high anticipations of becoming suddenly wealthy; . . . and become too soon disappointed.” His book was Vancouver Island’s first real promotional work and was intended to attract more people from the British Isles.
Pemberton was a wise man. He knew the pitfalls of emigration and he understood, perhaps better than most, the dreams and aspirations held by those who ventured into the unknown. His excellent survey work, followed by his new town plan for Victoria, would undoubtedly attract a new breed of colonist. He believed that many of this new breed would reason that “because they [had] failed in everything they undertook at home, the time had come to repair their fortunes abroad. Never was there a greater fallacy.” Instead, he wanted every colonist to face reality, for he knew they would find strong competition and it would be necessary to work even harder to succeed in the new world.
Harriet Sampson, one of Pemberton’s daughters, later wrote an article about her famous father, “My Father, Joseph Despard Pemberton: 1821–93.” In it, she tells a little of his background and her words paint a clear picture not only of the man himself but also of his Irish roots. They enable the reader to understand how important Pemberton’s contribution actually was to colonization.
The name Joseph was a favourite in the Pemberton family. It had been passed down through many generations, beginning with the Right Honourable Joseph Pemberton, Dublin’s lord mayor in 1806. That Pemberton produced eighteen sons and three daughters, and one of those sons, also named Joseph, was the father of Vancouver Island’s first surveyor. Another of the lord mayor’s sons, Augustus Frederick, also achieved a notable career in British Columbia as a Victoria magistrate and county court judge.
Joseph Despard Pemberton was born in Dublin on July 23, 1821, educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and then studied engineering under Sir John McNeill. He was also a student of Sir George Hemans, the principal engineer of the Midland Railway of Ireland. Pemberton progressed steadily, and his talents were soon widely recognized. In subsequent years, he became assistant engineer of the Great Southern and Western Railway and later was chief engineer of the Dublin & Drogheda Railway, as well as the Exeter & Crediton and the East Lancashire railways in England.
In 1850, he entered a prestigious competition to design the building that was to house the International Exhibition of 1851 in London. Although he did not win—the prize went to architect Joseph Paxton for his design, known later as the Crystal Palace—Pemberton was awarded the Prince Albert Bronze Medal for his submission.
Earlier he had accepted a post as professor of surveying, civil engineering, and mathematics at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. It would seem, however, that instructing others did not appeal to Pemberton for very long, and he longed to return to more practical work in the field. He therefore began planning the construction of a railway to cross the Isthmus of Suez, and in November 1850 he sent his proposal to the drector general of the Egyptian transit. Although it was not accepted, eight years later an identical plan was adopted.
Instead of pursuing his idea for fieldwork in Egypt, Pemberton decided to leave England and head for undeveloped land on the Pacific. Hearing of the HBC’s plans to colonize Vancouver Island and the company’s need for a qualified surveyor, one who would be able to prepare maps, make surveys, and supervise the general construction of public works, Pemberton applied for the position and was immediately accepted.
In February 1851, he signed a contract with the HBC, undertaking to serve as colonial surveyor and engineer for three years. As an added incentive, he was given money for his passage out and back, plus a promised bonus of five hundred pounds if his work proved to be satisfactory by the time the agreement expired.
He sailed from Southampton in a regular ship of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. His ocean journey was uneventful, but crossing the Isthmus of Panama in the days before the railway was a perilous ordeal and one he did not soon forget. He later wrote of the experience: “Who that crossed it then can forget the heat and filth of Chagres, the packs of curs and flocks of buzzards, the struggle in bungos and with boatmen up the river, the scenes of riot and debauchery at the villages, jungle fever, and the bones that marked the mule tracks through the plains of Panama, and stamped the short but fatal route of fifty miles, as the Golgotha of the West?”21
He contracted malaria and was forced to interrupt his journey until he recovered. He reached San Francisco in April 1851 and Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River, one month later. By the end of June, he was installed at Fort Victoria. Joseph Pemberton’s early surveying of Vancouver Island is clearly documented in correspondence between James Douglas and the Colonial Office in London. His first assignment was a preliminary survey of the island’s coastline. Next, he surveyed and mapped the fur trade reserve, the land around the fort retained by the HBC for its own purposes. All this work was completed by November of Pemberton’s first year in the colony. Soon afterward, the HBC decided that to further the cause of colonization, a suitable townsite should be laid out.
Before year’s end, Douglas approached his surveyor with a request for plans for townsites beside the fort and also on Esquimalt Harbour. In January 1852, Douglas was able to report that he was forwarding by the Norman Morison “a Tin Canister . . . containing a plan of the Town of Victoria.”22
Pemberton’s next two surveys involved trips out to Saanich plus a journey into the wilderness of Cowichan. He was, in fact, the first white man to venture that far at that time. By March, a second tin canister, full of maps showing his discoveries, had been received in London.
Between 1853 and 1855, Pemberton surveyed the island from Sooke to Nanaimo, and his findings and subsequent maps were both accurate and interesting. His contract with the company should have expired in June 1854, but early that year Douglas recommended to London that Pemberton’s services be retained. The company agreed and, in July, a letter from company secretary Archibald Barclay was sent to Pemberton:
I am directed by the Governor and Committee . . . with reference to your engagement with the Company . . . to inform you they are so much satisfied with the zeal and talent which you have shewn during the time you have been connected with the Company, that they will be happy to retain your services.23
Before the new contract was drawn up, Pemberton was given his promised bonus plus the offer of a substantial salary increase over the next three years and travelling expenses for a trip back to England. A living allowance was also granted to him, in place of board and lodging at the fort.
In October 1855, Pemberton signed his new agreement, after having made a visit to London for “consultation purposes.” While there, he also had his first book, The South Eastern Districts of Vancouver Island, from a Trigonometrical Survey, published by John Arrowsmith.
Not only were his talents as a surveyor considerable, he was also a brave and venturesome explorer. In October 1856, he was instructed to explore the land between Qualicum and the Alberni Valley. Crossing the island was a perilous adventure, as was his encounter with the chief of the Nitinat people, who was far from friendly.
Pemberton continued to carry out his duties through wild land and, when he was back in Victoria, he designed and built bridges and a variety of buildings. Douglas also sought his expertise for laying out mainland towns such as Derby, on the site of Fort Langley.
In December 1858, Pemberton’s contract expired and he decided to sever his connection with the HBC. The company was handing over the colony of Vancouver Island to the British government, so it would have had no further need of his services. Douglas, however, wanted to retain Pemberton as colonial surveyor and surveyor general, a position he held until 1864.
Thereafter, Pemberton was involved in many projects, from the laying out of roads in Sooke and Saanich to the design and erection of the Race Rocks and Fisgard lighthouses.
His interests in the colony extended to things political. From 1856 to 1859, he was a member of the first legislative assembly of Vancouver Island. In September 1863, he became a member of the executive council of Vancouver Island and the following year of the legislative council. In October that year, he resigned all his appointments, save for that of surveyor general. He returned to the political arena briefly in 1867 to represent the Victoria District on the legislative council and served in that capacity for two years.
Somewhere along the way, Pemberton decided to remain permanently on Vancouver Island. His time here had become more than merely a career experience, and he had gradually grown to love the island and adopt it as his own.
He had first seen the Gonzales area of Victoria in 1855 and had immediately decided to purchase land there. He was enamoured of the gentle slopes, the glorious view of the Olympic Mountains, and the plentiful deer and other wildlife. He obviously felt it was an area where a man could easily settle, but in the beginning, there was only “a log dwelling house 30 x 20 feet, a barn and some small outhouses” on the acreage he purchased.24
On the strength of his own feelings about Gonzales, he sent for his sister, Susan, to join him the following year. Susan Pemberton was at first provided with accommodation at the fort, and then she moved with her brother out to his Gonzales property. Soon they began to entertain on a large scale at the small “log house,” and their social activities became another central point for their elite group of friends, thus extending once again the boundaries of social life in early Victoria.
The Pembertons’ Irish hospitality welcomed friends and acquaintances at numerous dances. The rooms were always ablaze with candles. These candles were placed in potato jackets that served as holders in lieu of wall sconces. When picnics were arranged, old farm horses were commandeered to pull cartloads of guests and baskets full of food. Most picnics took place in the surrounding glades or coastal spots, while the sport of archery was indulged in by ladies and gentlemen alike.
Other activities enjoyed by the Pembertons and their friends were theatricals, concerts, and musical evenings. Well-produced plays, including The Rivals, performed at the fort and starring Joseph Pemberton as Sir Lucius O’Trigger, helped to pass the time on long winter evenings.
Susan Pemberton was the principal of Angela College for twelve years. In 1868, she was forced to resign her position and return to England due to ill health. At that time, a letter was written to her by the Standing Committee of the Diocese of British Columbia and the board of management of the college, in which they wished her a speedy recovery. The letter was a staunch testimonial to her contribution to college life, and shows the high esteem in which she was held. It states:
Accept our grateful thanks for the able and conscientious manner in which you have fulfilled your many and serious responsibilities, our repeated expressions of sincere regret for the cause which has led to your resignation, and our earnest prayer that Almighty God who has hitherto strengthened you in the past may still have you in His holy keeping.25
Good wishes were, unfortunately, not enough. Susan Pemberton died at St. Germain in France on April 13, 1870.
Through the years, her brother had made frequent trips to England. In 1860 he had gone to London to complete arrangements for the publishing of his second book, Facts and Figures Relating to Vancouver Island and British Columbia, in August of that year.
In 1864 he was again in London, to recuperate following a riding accident he had sustained on the Esquimalt Road. While there, he met and married Teresa Jane Despard Grautoff. Although the name Despard was common to both families, Joseph Pemberton and his bride were not related. Soon after their marriage, the couple left for Vancouver Island, sailing there with Arthur Kennedy, the man who was to become the new governor of BC. The party arrived in Victoria in March 1864, and their arrival was reported in the newspapers of the day:
Yesterday, at precisely 3 o’clock, the booming of a cannon shot, immediately followed by a second, conveyed to the inhabitants of Victoria the news of the arrival of our new Governor. Every vehicle in the city that could be run, or any kind of locomotive was put into operation and hurried down to Esquimalt with all haste. There was a naval salute of thirteen guns from the vessels anchored in Esquimalt Harbour.26
Although the welcoming committee was not specifically for her, it was an auspicious beginning for Teresa Pemberton as a young bride in the new colony. Joseph, now a happily married man, decided to devote more time to developing his estate at Gonzales while Teresa continued the social traditions her husband and his sister had begun there. With his strong interest in horses, Joseph began importing a well-known Clydesdale breed, the Glengarry, to Vancouver Island, in addition to Percherons and Shorthorn cattle.
His love of horses was later inherited by his son, Joseph, who trained and rode his own horses at the spring and fall meets in Colwood. Much later, these meets would be another excuse for large social gatherings. Anyone interested in such sports would drive out to Colwood carrying the “colours of their favourite riders floating in the breeze.”27 Often, the lieutenant-governor and his party would join the group of socialites and military and naval officers. Following the meet, there would inevitably be a prize-giving ceremony and a large picnic tea.
In 1885, Joseph and Teresa Pemberton built a much larger and more elaborate home on their property. The new Gonzales, which cost ten thousand dollars to complete and stood on the southeast corner of St. Charles and Rockland streets, had twenty elegant rooms, five bathrooms, a billiard room, a conservatory, and a library. It too became a centre where the socially elite gathered for elegant balls, and garden or dinner parties.
Teresa Pemberton, the young bride of 1864, who had experienced the quaint, old-fashioned gatherings of early colonial life when young naval officers had organized riding parties or picnics in Pemberton Woods and Langford, and the ladies had dressed in crinolines and bonnets, had now become the social chatelaine at the new Gonzales. The big house was occupied by members of the Pemberton family until her death in 1916.
Joseph Pemberton himself died suddenly in November 1893, following a heart attack when riding home with his wife from a Hunt Club paper chase. It was a fitting end for a man who had always loved being in the saddle.
During his lifetime, Pemberton achieved a great deal for the colony. As well as his important early survey work, he had founded, in company with his son, Frederick Bernard Pemberton, the firm of Pemberton & Son in 1887. This firm of surveyors, civil engineers, and real estate and financial agents was first located on the site of the Yarrow Building, at the corner of Fort and Broad streets. In 1948 the offices moved to the Holmes block at the corner of Government and Broughton. It was an appropriate move, for it was on that precise spot that Joseph Pemberton had first had an office as colonial surveyor in 1851. Today, the prestigious real estate firm of Pemberton Holmes Ltd. continues to operate from many locations in Victoria.
Joseph and Teresa Pemberton had six children: three sons, Frederick, William, and Joseph, and three daughters, Sophia, Harriet, and Ada.
Frederick Bernard Pemberton, born in 1865, was educated in England and graduated from University College, London, in 1885. He was the son who became co-founder of the real estate firm with his father. He was also a well-known horticulturalist in Victoria and is credited with introducing the first holly to Vancouver Island. Frederick married Mary Ann Dupont Bell in 1893 and the couple had six children. Two of their sons were killed in the First World War, and one of their daughters, by her marriage into the Holmes family, linked those two families in the business enterprise of Pemberton Holmes Ltd. Frederick Pemberton later named his house on Foul Bay Road Mountjoy, in memory of where his great-grandfather, the lord mayor of Dublin, had once lived—Mountjoy Square in that Irish city.
William Parnell Despard Pemberton was born in 1877, also educated in England and graduated in 1899 from Cambridge University. Upon his return to Canada, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1903 from McGill University and was later involved in mining engineering in BC. Joseph’s namesake son, Joe, trained and raced his own hunters in steeplechases at Colwood for many years.
Sophia studied art in Paris and London, and her work was exhibited at the Royal Academy. She later became the wife of Canon Beanlands of Christ Church Cathedral. Following the canon’s death, Sophia married Horace Deane-Drummond. She died in 1959 at the age of ninety. Harriet, who wrote the article about her famous father, was one of the founders of the Alexandra Club for Women and was also one of The Group of Seven women who helped design and carve the oak reredos behind the altar of St. Mary’s Church in Oak Bay. Her earlier travels through Europe had taught her much about wood carvings in European churches. Her husband was W. Curtis Sampson. Ada married Hugo Robert Beavan, a realtor and insurance agent, who was the son of Robert Beavan, an early mayor of Victoria and later premier of BC.
When Joseph Despard Pemberton returned to England in 1855 to bring back his sister Susan to the colony, he also brought with him his favourite uncle, Augustus Frederick Pemberton, and this eventually created a second family of Pembertons. Augustus, also born in Dublin, was only a few years older than his nephew and the two men became close friends. Augustus had agreed to manage a farm in the new colony to be financed by his nephew. Thanks to James Douglas’s decision to open up much of the fur trade reserve land previously held by the HBC, many pioneering families, including the Pembertons, were able to buy up enormous acreages at reasonable prices. With land values soaring in later years, most of these people became very wealthy landowners.
For his first two years on Vancouver Island, Augustus Pemberton worked at his nephew’s Gonzales estate, clearing land and adding on to the existing buildings. Then, in 1858, he accepted an appointment from James Douglas as commissioner of police and served as magistrate of the police court, which was then held in the barracks courtroom. In 1861, he married Jane Brew of Galway, Ireland, who had come out to Vancouver Island to act as housekeeper for her brother, Chartres. He had been an officer in the Irish constabulary and had been hired to organize a similar police force in BC.
The marriage of Jane Brew and Augustus Pemberton, performed by Bishop Cridge at Christ Church Cathedral, was a grand affair with a large wedding party that included Martha Douglas, daughter of James and Amelia, as one of the flower girls. This was a sign of the closeness between the Pemberton and Douglas families.
Jane and Augustus had three children: a son, Chartres Cecil (known as C.C.), and two daughters, Augusta and Evaline. Evaline became the first registered nurse in Canada and died in 1965.
Augustus Pemberton died in 1881 at the age of seventy-three, by which time his importance in the colony meant that such people as Judge Matthew Begbie and Roderick Finlayson were pallbearers at his funeral.
The name Pemberton was highly thought of in the colony for many years. At the time of the Confederation dispute, Joseph Pemberton’s opinion was listened to and respected. Despite his Irish background, he was a strong supporter and loyal subject of the queen. He was initially horrified to think of Vancouver Island joining the United States and considered such thoughts almost “treasonable.” On the other hand, he did not want it to become part of Canada either. Canada was far away in the east, and it was just as foreign, to his way of thinking, as the United States. He would have preferred the colony to remain a British outpost on the Pacific. If, however, BC had to join hands with a greater power, he decided to come down in favour of annexation with the United States. In 1871, when the province’s fate was sealed with Canada, Pemberton’s views were overruled.
He was, however, first and foremost a gentleman farmer whose life largely revolved not around politics, but around his Gonzales acreage. There, his charming wife with her regal German background played the graceful hostess and set the scene for future chatelaines such as Caroline O’Reilly and Julia Trutch. The ladies of that early period led leisurely lives, enjoying “. . . their splendid furniture, rugs, pictures, and bijoux,” which arrived from England to give their homes comfort and beauty.28 Their “gowns and shawls, exquisite laces and other finery, finely tailored riding clothes, all very chic and complete from the hat to the varnished boots,” merely added to their somewhat charmed lives.29
The name of Pemberton is today perpetuated in many ways throughout the province. In Victoria, Pemberton Road and Mountjoy and Despard avenues run through property that was once part of the Gonzales estate. In addition, Oak Bay Avenue owes its existence to Joseph Pemberton, for he came out of semi-retirement from Gonzales to design it, having earlier surveyed the land where it was eventually built. The placement of the road, the entire length of which passed through his own property, was a clever move, as eventually it opened up and developed an entirely new and very profitable area of Victoria, all to his benefit.
In 1864, the names Pemberton Point and Despard Cove on Broughton Island were bestowed by Captain Pender of the Royal Navy in honour of Joseph Pemberton, and the towns of Pemberton, Pemberton Meadows, and Pemberton Portage in the interior of BC commemorate his early surveys throughout the province.
In addition, as philanthropists, the Pembertons’ contributions to Victoria were enormous. Joseph’s many generous financial donations through the years included a two thousand dollar bequest in his will for an operating room at the Royal Jubilee Hospital.
It is somewhat ironic that a member of the next subject family in this work once wrote an interesting comment on Joseph Despard Pemberton’s book, Facts and Figures Relating to Vancouver Island and British Columbia. Lindley Crease referred to the work as “a literary gem,”and went on to say:
In this book we find how his mind grasps the vision of the future. He sees the position which this part of the Continent will take in an Empire which was then in course of formation, and for the preservation and building up of which we are in our day like-wise responsible.30
Not only was Joseph Pemberton a man of considerable talent and vision, he was a man well loved and respected by his peers. His friend and assistant, Benjamin W. Pearse, described him as “always cheery, bright and sanguine. He was affectionate without ostentation, [and] of a most amiable nature.”31
He headed up a family lineage whose name, well over a century later, still commands respect. The Pembertons were the beginning of a different kind of gentry, an upper-class group of colonists that extended beyond the confines of fort and company rule, and even beyond the rural aspect of that early privileged life. This new breed of Victoria’s aristocracy was destined to continue in the capable hands of families such as the Creases, O’Reillys, and Trutches.