John Robson (politician)

John Robson
John Robson
	Hon. John Robson
9th Premier of British Columbia
	In office; 2 August 1889 – 29 June 1892
Monarch	Victoria
Lieutenant Governor	Hugh Nelson
Preceded by	Alexander Edmund Batson Davie
Succeeded by	Theodore Davie
Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
	In office; 13 June 1890 – 29 June 1892 Serving with Joseph Mason, Samuel Augustus Rogers, Ithiel Nason
Preceded by	Robert McLeese
Succeeded by	Hugh Watt
Constituency	Cariboo
	In office; 13 June 1890 – 20 November 1890 Serving with Thomas Edwin Kitchen, James Punch
Preceded by	first member
Succeeded by	Colin Buchanan Sword
Constituency	Westminster
	In office; 24 July 1882 – 13 June 1890 Serving with James Orr, William Henry Ladner
Preceded by	Wellington John Harris; Donald McGillivray
Succeeded by	district abolished
Constituency	New Westminster
	In office; 15 October 1871 – 11 September 1875
Preceded by	first member
Succeeded by	John Bryden
Constituency	Nanaimo
7th President of New Westminster
	In office; 1866–1867
Preceded by	William J. Armstrong
Succeeded by	Henry Holbrook
Personal details
Born	14 March 1824; Perth, Ontario, Upper Canada
Died	29 June 1892 (aged 68); London, England
Political party	None

John Robson (14 March 1824 – 29 June 1892) was a Canadian journalist and politician, who served as the ninth premier of British Columbia.

Journalist and activist

Robson spent his early life as a merchant in Canada West and Montreal in Canada East. In 1859, upon news of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, Robson moved west to the then Colony of British Columbia from Upper Canada. Unsuccessful at prospecting, Robson helped his brother, a Methodist minister, complete construction of a church in New Westminster, the capital of the new colony. He settled there and evidently became known in reformist circles as an articulate advocate of responsible government, for he was shortly hired as editor of a new newspaper, The British Columbian. His advocacy of devolution of power from the colonial governor, Sir James Douglas, to a democratically elected assembly brought him into conflict with the august and autocratic Douglas. Douglas governed both British Columbia and the Colony of Vancouver Island from Victoria, and this absence incurred further complaint from Robson and his paper.

Robson joined forces with other colonial-era editors such as Amor De Cosmos in railing against the Governor and his officials, including Chief Justice Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie. In 1862, Begbie cited contempt of court charges against Robson during the Cottonwood Scandal for publishing an unproven allegation that the Chief Justice had accepted a bribe from land speculators. Robson served on the New Westminster town council in the 1860s before being appointed to the British Columbia legislative council.

By 1864, Douglas had retired and the colony finally had its own resident governor, Frederick Seymour. By now, Robson had toned down his rhetoric about responsible government as the colonial assembly began to accrue more power. He was a reluctant supporter of the colony's union with Vancouver Island in 1866, but by 1869, Robson had moved his newspaper's operations across the Strait to Victoria. It was soon bought out by the rival Daily British Colonist (today the Victoria Times-Colonist), which had been founded by De Cosmos. There Robson served as political editor for six years, and became a passionate advocate for the colony's union with Canada, formed as a confederation of four colonies of British North America on 1 July 1867. Together with De Cosmos and Robert Beaven (also future premiers), Robson founded the Confederation League which lobbied Seymour, as well as London and Ottawa, for British Columbia's entry into Confederation.

Robson's advocacy eventually paid off when British Columbia was admitted as the sixth province on 20 July 1871.

Provincial political career

During British Columbia's colonial days, Robson had briefly served in the colonial assembly, but otherwise his political activity was limited to editorializing and lobbying. Once the colony joined confederation in 1871, however, he ran and was elected to the new province's first legislative assembly as a representative for Nanaimo. There he became an opponent of his former ally De Cosmos as well as Premier George Anthony Walkem, and advocated reforms, including female suffrage. His support for Alexander Mackenzie's Liberals in the 1874 federal election, won him a patronage appointment with the Canadian Pacific Railway, a position he held for five years. Following this, Robson purchased a newspaper in New Westminster, which he published and edited for two years.

In 1882, after a seven-year absence, Robson returned to the provincial legislature as one of the members for New Westminster. He served in various high-profile cabinet portfolios under Premiers William Smithe and A.E.B. Davie, where he earned a reputation as an advocate for public education, accelerated settlement, improved exploration and surveys, and subsidies to transportation providers, such as railways. He was also a vigorous opponent of land speculation, seeing it as a hindrance to settlement and transforming land into economically viable resources. Perhaps his greatest success came as the leading advocate for constructing the Canadian Pacific Railway terminus at Granville, and his encouragement of the citizens there to incorporate their locality. It was Robson who was responsible for having the legislature name the new municipality Vancouver upon its incorporation in 1886. During Davie's illness, Robson served as acting premier.^[1]

Upon Davie's death 1889, Robson was appointed premier. In 1890, to ease his workload, he moved from representing the busy, growing riding of New Westminster to becoming one of the members for the vast, frontier electoral district of Cariboo in the province's Central Interior. His brief tenure is chiefly remembered for his continued actions to enable Dominion Lands Act homesteading, as well as his lobbying of the federal government to construct a dry dock at Esquimalt, just west of Victoria. Robson remained premier until his death in 1892, which occurred after he hurt his finger in the door of a carriage during a visit to London, and got blood poisoning.

John Robson is interred in the Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, British Columbia.

Places named for Robson

Robson Cove is located near the entrance to Burrard Inlet.
Robson Street, a major east-west thoroughfare in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia.
Robson Square, along the street of the same name.
Robson town near Castlegar.
John Robson Building on Robson Street.
John Robson Elementary School in New Westminster.

Not named for Robson

Robson Bight, on Vancouver Island, off Johnstone Strait is not named for him, but for Royal Navy officer Charles Rufus Robson.
Mount Robson, on the border between British Columbia and Alberta, is not named for him, but likely for North West Company guide Colin Robertson.

Electoral record

1871 British Columbia general election: Nanaimo
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Elected
	Independent	John Robson	57	63.33	Y
	Independent	Joseph Westrop Carey	33	36.67
Total valid votes			90	100.00
Source: Elections BC^[2]

1882 British Columbia general election: New Westminster
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Elected
	Opposition	John Robson	262	37.01	Y
	Opposition	James Orr	168	23.73	Y
	Opposition	Herbert John Kirkland	127	17.94
	Government	William Henry Ladner	76	10.73
	Opposition	Henry Dawson	60	8.47
	Government	William Isaac	15	2.12
Total valid votes			708	100.00
Source: Elections BC^[2]

British Columbia provincial by-election, February 1883: New Westminster Resignation of John Robson upon appointment to Executive Council
Party	Candidate	Votes	%
	Government	John Robson	acclaimed	n/a
Source: Elections BC^[2]

1886 British Columbia general election: New Westminster
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Elected
	Government	John Robson	420	18.67	Y
	Opposition	James Orr	358	15.92	Y
	Opposition	William Henry Ladner	365	16.23	Y
	Government	Herbert John Kirkland	348	15.47
	Opposition	Donald McGillivray	331	14.72
	Independent	Lewis Arthur Agassiz	142	6.31
	Independent	William Isaac	17	0.76
	Independent	Henry Dawson	11	0.49
	Independent	James Kennedy	7	0.31
	Government	Allen Casey Wells	250	11.12
Total valid votes			2,249	100.00
Source: Elections BC^[2]

1890 British Columbia general election: Cariboo
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Elected
	Government	Joseph Mason	187	29.13	Y
	Government	John Robson	158	24.61	Y
	Government	Samuel Augustus Rogers	163	25.39	Y
	Government	William Pinchbeck	134	20.87
Total valid votes			642	100.00
Source: Elections BC^[2]

1890 British Columbia general election: Westminster
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Elected
	Government	John Robson^[a]	506	17.66	Y
	Opposition	Thomas Edwin Kitchen	503	17.55	Y
	Independent	James Punch	484	16.89	Y
	Independent	Colin Buchanan Sword	461	16.08
	Government	John A. Kirkland	420	14.65
	Government	John Calvin Henderson	349	12.18
	Independent	Arthur Herring	81	2.83
	Opposition	Marshall Sinclair	62	2.16
Total valid votes			2,866	100.00
Source: Elections BC^[2]

^ Robson also won the seat of Cariboo in the 1890 general election, and resigned his Westminster seat prior to the first session of the new legislature.

References

^ Roy, Patricia E. (1990). "ROBSON, JOHN". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved 1 September 2020.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f "Electoral History of British Columbia 1871-1986" (PDF). Elections BC. 1988. Retrieved 9 January 2025.

External links

[3] Robson also won the seat of Cariboo in the 1890 general election, and resigned his Westminster seat prior to the first session of the new legislature.

[1] Roy, Patricia E. (1990). "ROBSON, JOHN". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved 1 September 2020.

[BCElectionHistory-2] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f "Electoral History of British Columbia 1871-1986" (PDF). Elections BC. 1988. Retrieved 9 January 2025.

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