Ubi quo Fas et Gloria Ducunt
The Royal Engineer motto, from the
Latin for “Everywhere the right and glory lead,” is emblematic of their role in
British Columbia history. Judge Howay published the first history of this
British corps in Canada in 1910, entitled The
Work of the Royal Engineers in 1858-1862. In his papers, he writes:
Taking stock of the work of the Engineers up to the end of 1863, we find that all the important explorations in the colony were performed by them; the whole peninsula between Burrard Inlet and Fraser River was surveyed by them; all the surveys and towns and country lands were made by them; the main roads were laid out by them…1
The list goes on: The Royal
Engineers drafted and printed maps, established a building society by 1862, and
were responsible for the first churches and schoolhouses in New Westminster – the
first city on the Canadian Pacific Coast. They uniquely provided both military
and civil service to the new colony, and most recruits were volunteers. The
Royal Engineers came in three waves: the first and second arrivals in 1845 and
1858-1862 were sent as supplementary forces during the Oregon Boundary Dispute.
The Oregon Treaty was signed in 1846, intended to resolve rising pressures
between Americans and their neighbours to the north; but the boundary wasn’t
drawn until four years of negotiation drew to a close in 1862.
In 1856, the
American Northwest Boundary Commission led by Archibald Campbell and astronomer
Major J. G. Parke set forth to delineate the official 49th Parallel.
Most of the Commission consisted of Royal Engineers; many of its members are
now known to us through the place names in the area. Bob Harris wrote an
article on this topic for the journal Canoma,
or the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names, in 1990.
The third arrival of Royal Engineers in
1858-1859 came “in four groups,” in response to rising
concerns over the safety of the colony, by Governor James Douglas. The Royal Navy and Hudson’s Bay Company
limited their surveillance to the seas; his request for more officers was met
immediately by Lieutenant Edward Bulwar Lytton, who writes:
It will devolve upon them to survey those parts of the country which may be considered most suitable for resettlement, to mark out allotments of land for public purposes, to suggest a site for the seat of government, to point out where roads should be made…2
This was not only
the largest group to have reached Canadian shores, but it would prove to be the
most famous: contending with “the difficult terrain, the high prices and the
disorganization,” 165 Royal Engineers, many with wives and children, set to
work as the Columbia Division of the British corps. Townships in Yale, Douglas,
and Hope were settled in 1859; during this period, trails were cut from New
Westminster to Burrard Inlet; Hope to Lytton; Douglas to Lillooet, and access
to Boston Bar. In 1863, the Cariboo Road was built from Yale to Barkerville,
spanning some 650 km along the Fraser River; this is the same route being used
today.
I proceeded with the party to Burrard Inlet, to commence opening a trail from that place to Lillooet. After exploring for some miles around, we commenced at the mouth of a creek one mile from Moodyville. We found the country very heavily timbered, with very thick underbrush, and boggy for the first mile, which caused considerable corduroying and bridging…
I tied the horses there one night on what was dry ground, and in the morning we found them standing in water up to their bellies in a lake. We had to wade up to the knees to get them out; we had to send them off the coast to save their lives. 3
The R.C. Harris fonds include many
of the initial surveys, documents and correspondence from the Royal Engineers
and Public Works reports in the BC Sessional Papers of the Colonial Government;
of particular interest were Lieutenant Howard Palmer, as well as the
exploration of the Rocky Mountains by John Palliser, and George Dawson’s Geological
Survey of Canada.
The Royal Engineers were
officially decommissioned in 1863, but many of them remained to form the New
Westminster Volunteer Rifles, Vancouver Island Rifle Volunteers and Victoria
Rifle Corps. In 1866, the Home Guards and Seymour Artillery Company were
established in New Westminster, also largely from former Royal Engineer
members. After a succession of debates concerning the way in which the
southwest of the BC interior would be policed, the Canadian Engineers Corps,
explicitly modelled after their British counterpart, was formed in 1903. Today
they are known as the CME, Canadian Military Engineers branch of the Canadian
Armed Forces.
1 Judge Howay papers, Royal Engineers file, Special Collections division at UBC Libary; in Frances M. Woodward, "The Influence of the Royal Engineers on the Development of British Columbia," BC Studies Vol. 12 (1974): 21. ↩
2 Lytton to Douglas, July 31 1858, Despatch no. 6 in B.C. Papers, in Woodward, "Royal Engineers," 15-16.↩
3 George Jenkinson, October 8 1875, Report of Public Works, in R.C. Harris Fonds, Box 11 Folder 2. ↩
