"The few who formed the cortege was a sad commentary on the evanescence of public gratitude…"
Pioneer journalist, politician and self-proclaimed "man of truth," William Alexander Smith was called many names during his stormy career – many of which can’t be repeated here.
But these unflattering sobriquets were the work of his political enemies and have mostly been forgotten. History has come to accept that "Bill Smith," eccentric that he was, was one of our most remarkable pioneers to make his mark on our province.
Photographer, speculator, journalist, reformer, premier and member of parliament, he’s been remembered for his "blazing magnetic eyes," as being "strange, wrathful, ambitious… eccentric," and as "Victoria’s most active pest". Nevertheless, historians credit him with having been a champion of the oppressed and a "leader in the struggle for confederation and responsible government".
Think of him as a Don Quixote tilting at establishment windmills with sharpened pen and tongue for a lance and with a zeal that at times, as it was often charged, "greatly outran his discretion".
Born plain William Smith in Windsor, N.S., in 1825, of English Loyalist stock, he arrived in Victoria in 1858, drawn, like thousands of others, by delirious tales of gold. But instead of seeking his fortune in the gravels of the Fraser River, as he had in Utah and California, he turned to journalism and founded what was to become B.C.’s oldest newspaper, the British Colonist, today’s Times Colonist.
From his little harbourside shack of an office, he vowed that the Colonist would be "an independent paper, the organ of no clique or party – a true index of public opinion". He declared himself to be pro-British, pro-Vancouver Island (there was no British Columbia then), and pro-law and order.
By this time he’d discarded his true Christian name for one much more in keeping, he thought, with his philosophy. It’s by his pen name Amor de Cosmos – "lover of order, beauty, the world, the universe" (his definition) – that you’ll find him in our history books and on our maps: Mount de Cosmos, north of Nanaimo, Amor de Cosmos Creek in the Sayward region and two points and a lagoon bearing variations of his name, on the mainland. Writer Barry Broadfoot has criticized mapmakers for their Sayward "tribute" to such an outstanding pioneer: "…Amor de Cosmos Creek, a hinky-dink of a creek…about 10 feet wide on one of its better days".
As a journalist de Cosmos waged battle against any and all, no matter how high the office nor how vulnerable his own position. Not even the formidable Gov. James Douglas could muzzle the noisy editor, although he certainly tried. A leading proponent of Vancouver Island’s union with the mainland colony of B.C., he was elected to the legislative assembly; in 1872, while sitting as a member of parliament after Confederation, he became the second premier of B.C.
But, upon his death in 1897 at the age of 72, his enormous contribution to what had become a dominion from sea unto sea seems to have been overlooked. Few attended his brief funeral service in Victoria and a newspaper bitterly editorialized: "The few who formed the cortege was a sad commentary on the evanescence of public gratitude and led one honourable pioneer to remark, ‘And this [is] fame!’" Although long a political opponent of de Cosmos, Dr. John S. Helmcken was angrier: "A few [carriages], a score of men at the residence, the footfall of a dozen men sounding from the wooden sidewalk, three-score men and a few women at the church, no sepulchral tones from the organ, no singing of sacred, hopeful hymns, a short reading of the burial service – all dead, dead, as cold and lifeless as the corpse in the dismal coffin.
"At the graveyard some 20 or 30 saw the casket lowered to its last resting place – ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
"This is the mockery paid to Amor de Cosmos who, 40 years ago, a large section of the people of Victoria considered a hero, a patriot, who fought for the emancipation, improvement, progress and welfare of the country."
Such was the sad end of fiery Amor de Cosmos, "inveterate boat rocker" and B.C.’s "first Canadian". Ironically, some believe that forsaking Bill Smith for Amor de Cosmos cost him dearly by enabling his opponents to ridicule him. But, you do have to admit that Mount de Cosmos does have a much better ring to it than Mount Bill Smith!
For those who’d like to learn more about de Cosmos, the latest biography of this remarkable pioneer by Gordon Hawkins has just been published by Ronsdale Press.
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