Notes

Born William Alexander Smith in Windsor, Nova Scotia to Loyalist parents, William Smith was educated in Nova Scotia and secured his first job as a clerk in a grocery firm in Halifax. Like many others of his time, he was attracted by the stories of the California gold rush, and so made his way down to New York and then on to California. There, he legally changed his name to Amor de Cosmos, which loosely translates to ‘Lover of the Universe’.

In 1858, he traveled north to Victoria, then the capital of the Colony of Vancouver Island. In December, he established a newspaper, The British Colonist, which survives to this day as the Times Colonist. He entered political life and has a reputation as British Columbia’s Father of Confederation.

The Colony of Vancouver Island and the mainland colony merged in 1866 to become British Columbia, which joined confederation in 1871. In 1872, Amor de Cosmos became the second Premier of British Columbia.

De Cosmos was considered eccentric even in his day.  He was a loner with few intimate friends and never married. He had a fierce temper that often ended in fist-fights and as he grew older, he became increasingly incoherent. By 1895 he was declared insane and died in 1897 in Victoria at the age of 71.