James Dunsmuir
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Early life and business career
Son of Robert Dunsmuir, he was heir to his family's coal fortune. The Dunsmuir family dominated the province's economy in the late nineteenth century and was a leading force in opposing organized labour. Dunsmuir managed his family's coal business from 1876 until 1910, increasing profits and violently putting down efforts to unionize.
In 1905, he sold his Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway to the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1910, he sold his coal mining companies, Union Colliery of British Columbia and R. Dunsmuir & Sons, to Canadian Collieries (Dunsmuir) Ltd (CCD).
Opposition to organized labour
In the 42 years that the Dunsmuirs owned the collieries, they never recognized their employees' attempts to unionize or create better working conditions. Dunsmuir used threats, spies, blacklists and scab labour to break strikes. When he could not break a strike with scab labour, he used his influence to have the provincial government call in the militia.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> Dunsmuir stated to a royal commission, "I object to all unions...They simply take the management of the mine...I want the management of my own works, and if I recognize the union, I cannot have that."<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>
Dunsmuir provoked further rage when he ordered workers to relocate their homes at a new pit.<ref name=":1" /> Workers also resented low wages and the dangerous conditions that Dunsmuir imposed upon them.<ref name=":0" /> Mine owners at the time regularly ignored safety and sanitary conditions, and provincial inspectors were slow to bring them to justice.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Dunsmuir contributed to the mines of British Columbia being among the most dangerous in the world. Between 1889 and 1908, twenty-three men were killed in the production of every million tons of BC coal; the average for North America as a whole was six deaths per million tons.<ref name=":0" /> In 1901, while serving as Premier, many men perished in his collieries.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Political career
Dunsmuir entered provincial politics in 1898, winning a seat in the provincial legislature, and he became the 14th Premier in 1900. His government attempted to resist popular pressure to curtail Asian labour and immigration, not for humanitarian reasons, but to ensure a cheap labour pool for business. It also promoted railway construction and accomplished a redistribution of seats to better represent population distribution in the province.
Dunsmuir visited England and the United States in 1902,<ref>Template:Cite newspaper The Times</ref> but disliked politics after his return and resigned as Premier in November 1902. In 1906, he became the province's eighth Lieutenant Governor. He retired in 1909 and lived out his remaining years at the baronial mansion that he had constructed at Hatley Park.<ref name="HatleyCastle">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Legacy
Dunsmuir founded the town of Ladysmith, British Columbia. Hatley Castle, the Edwardian mansion and gardens where he spent his last years is now a Classified Federal Heritage Building<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> on the Canadian Register of Historic Places.<ref name="HatleyCastle"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
One of his daughters, Jessie Muriel, married, as her first husband, the couturier Edward Molyneux. His second-born son, James A. Dunsmuir Jr., died in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915. His last child, Dola Dunsmuir, married Lieutenant-Commander Henry Cavendish and was rumored to be Tallulah Bankhead's lover.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
He is interred in the Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, British Columbia.
Gallery
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Hatley Castle, c. 2006
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Gravestone of James Dunsmuir at Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria
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Dunsmuir family monument at Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria
References
External links
- Pages with broken file links
- Biography template using pronunciation
- Pages using infobox officeholder with office0
- Pages using infobox officeholder with speaker
- 1851 births
- 1920 deaths
- Premiers of British Columbia
- American emigrants to pre-Confederation British Columbia
- Canadian Presbyterians
- Lieutenant governors of British Columbia
- Canadian people of Scottish descent
- Canadian city founders
- People from the Cowichan Valley Regional District