Thomas Elwyn ( c. 1837 – 11 September 1888) was a British

soldier A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...

police officer A police officer (also called a policeman and, less commonly, a policewoman) is a warranted law employee of a police force. In most countries, "police officer" is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. In some, the use of the ...

and gold commissioner in colonial

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. Elwyn was born in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

into a family with a long military tradition. He served as a lieutenant in the

30th Foot 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societie ...

during the

Crimean war The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

. He arrived in Victoria on Christmas Day, 1858 and was appointed, on the strength of his references from England, to the police force under Inspector

Chartres Brew Chartres Brew (31 December 1815 – 31 May 1870) was a Gold commissioner, Chief Constable and judge in the Colony of British Columbia, later a province of Canada. Brew's name was conferred on two mountain summits in British Columbia, bo ...

. After serving for five months as the Chief Constable of

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, Governor James Douglas made him Assistant Gold Commissioner of Lillooet. In 1861, he was put in charge of the

Gold Escort Gold Escorts were common across Australian goldfields, transporting mined and processed material from mines to banks and mints across the country. They were important in safely transporting gold, and were in most cases carried out by police ass ...

from the Cariboo and Fraser Canyon goldfields. That venture was discontinued for 1862 when miners protested the government inability to guarantee the safety of the gold being transported, and though revived again in 1863, again under Elwyn and despite his personal guarantee to the miners, its failure to generate revenue to offset costs resulted in its discontinuation.''British Columbia: From the earliest times to the present, Vol II'', E.O.S. Scholefield & F.W. Howay, p.. 134-138
/ref> Elwyn was appointed gold commissioner of the Cariboo on 21 April 1862. In October, he resigned, citing his interest in a valuable gold claim in the area. In 1864 he was part of the party sent by Brew to capture the Chilcotin Indians who killed a road crew on Bute Inlet in an incident known as the Chilcotin War. He spend the next year mining at Wild Horse Creek in the Kootenay, before setting off to represent the government on the expedition to extend the Western Union Telegraph line north from

Quesnel Quesnel or Quesnell means "little oak" in the Picard dialect of French. It is used as a proper name and may refer to: Places * Le Quesnel, a commune the Somme department in France * Quesnel, British Columbia, a city in British Columbia, Canada ...

. In 1868 he joined the Legislative Council, where he served for a single term. He took a short turn at driving cattle then signed aboard the

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steamship ''

Otter Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine, with diets based on fish and invertebrates. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which also includes wea ...

'' as purser. He was appointed deputy provincial secretary in 1877, a position he held until his death.

Sources

*Dorothy Blakey Smith
Elwyn, Thomas
at

Dictionary of Canadian Biography The ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography'' (''DCB''; french: Dictionnaire biographique du Canada) is a dictionary of biographical entries for individuals who have contributed to the history of Canada. The ''DCB'', which was initiated in 1959, is a ...

Online, 2000

References

External links

People of the Cariboo Gold Rush- Thomas Elwyn
at BC Archives {{DEFAULTSORT:Elwyn, Thomas Pre-Confederation British Columbia people 30th Regiment of Foot officers British Army personnel of the Crimean War 1888 deaths Canadian police chiefs Gold commissioners in British Columbia Year of birth unknown Year of birth uncertain Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866) people Members of the Legislative Council of British Columbia Irish emigrants to pre-Confederation British Columbia 1837 births