ABSTRACT
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the small colony of Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia stood out from the rest of Canada and the rest of the British colonies for reasons of race, class and gender. First, it was a late creation among the series of colonies launched by the Colonial Office in the nineteenth century as it was open for settlement in 1849 only. Thus it was a well-devised creation which had learnt from the success and failure of other British settlements overseas. It was designed for white British settlers, and preferably reserved to middle-class families as it was said that British middle-class wives and mothers had an important part to play in the building of colonies. They would preserve the British spirit and identity on this small British island in the Pacific North West, secluded beyond the Rocky Mountains. The British middle class counted among them many penniless and disillusioned families in these mid-Victorian years. Hence many young couples found their way to the ‘last jewel of the Crown’ – as Victoria (the capital city) was advertized then – in the 1850s and 1860s. They came with their bourgeois dream, that of social and financial success in a British colony under the British flag. Most of the middle-class fathers secured a position in the colonial administration in Victoria as civil servants.
