James Dunsmuir

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).

In the 42 years that the Dunsmuirs owned the collieries, they never recognized their employees' attempts to unionize or create better working conditions. Threats, spies, blacklists and scab labour were among the tactics used by Dunsmuir 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.[1] Dunsmuir stated during 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."[2]

Dunsmuir provoked further rage when he ordered workers to relocate their homes at a new pit.[1] Workers also resented low wages and the dangerous conditions that Dunsmuir imposed upon them.[2] Mine owners at the time regularly ignored safety and sanitary conditions, and provincial inspectors were slow to bring them to justice.[3]

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.[2] In 1901, while serving as Premier, many men perished in his collieries.[4]

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,[5] 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.

Dunsmuir founded the town of Ladysmith, British Columbia. He is interred in the Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, British Columbia.

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.[6]

• 
  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

• Reksten, Terry (1991). The Dunsmuir Saga. Vancouver:Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 0-88894-742-9.

• Works by or about James Dunsmuir at Internet Archive
• "James Dunsmuir". Dictionary of Canadian Biography (online ed.). University of Toronto Press. 1979–2016.