Governor Anthony Musgrave, Confederation and the challenge of responsible government
Date
1975
Authors
Haworth, Kent MacLean
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Abstract
A history of the administration of British Columbia under its lost governor, Anthony Mus grave, has been neglected by writers anxious to consider the dominant issue of the period: the colony's entry into confederation. Musgrave has been treated in a secondary, even "accidental" way in much the same manner as Donald Creighton, writing in the Canadian Historical Review, XXIX (1 ), March 1948, supposed scholars to have treated Sir John A. Macdonald: "They have, so to speak, walked all around Macdonald without troubling to look at him. They have taken him for granted, mainly because they were preoccupied with other matters, partly because they assumed they knew all about him anyway." Similarly, most writers have not recognized Musgrave's impact on the colony if on l y because they treated him as one of many different objects in the chronicling of their main subject, the confederation story. As a result, confederation as an issue has dominated the period's historiography, while the personalities affecting confederation and affected by it have been largely neglected.
This thesis focuses on the administration of Anthony Musgrave in British Columbia, not only in terms of political developments from 1869 to 1871, but in the broader context of his childhood environment, his prior administrative experience in the West Indies, and in Newfoundland. A careful, determined administrator, Musgrave sometimes viewed his role as a colonial governor in the latter half of the nineteenth century to be more powerful than it actually was. In Newfoundland, a colony with responsible government, he was limited in the degree of influence he held over the direction of the colony, while in British Columbia, where the governor was unrestrained by the politics of both representative and responsible government, he managed his subordinates and the affairs of the colony at his own discretion. Musgrave was also intent upon correct form and procedures in an administrative as well as social setting. His efforts to pump new life into a demoralized colonial administration in British Columbia, as well as his preoccupation with preserving the supremacy and dignity of the Queen's representative in the colonies reflected these characteristics. His success in preventing the inauguration of responsible government in British Columbia until its confederation with Canada was a measure of his political skill. Finally, an important ingredient in Musgrave's failure in Newfoundland and his success in British Columbia vis-à-vis confederation was the support he received from his superiors at the Colonial Office. Their reticence to stand solidly behind the course he sought to chart in Newfoundland was in distinct contrast to their positive responses to his initiatives in British Columbia. By the end of his tenure in British Columbia, his own ambitions had been realized, Sir John A. Macdonald's dreams fulfilled, and a young colony's destiny conceived.