page_title: John Sebastian Helmcken
section_title: Later years
hierarchical_section_title: John Sebastian Helmcken / Later years
caption_attribution_description: English: Original caption: “Photograph of Hon. John Sebastian Helmcken.”
context_page_description: John Sebastian Helmcken was a British Columbia physician who played a prominent role in bringing the province into Canadian Confederation. He was also the founding president of the British Columbia Medical Association.
context_section_description: After Confederation, Helmcken retired from politics, and refused offers of positions as a senator, premier, and lieutenant governor. He did accept an appointment to the board of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
  Even as a private citizen, Helmcken remained a respected and influential figure. He had a hand in having the capital of the province moved to Victoria from New Westminster and in securing lucrative public work contracts for Victoria companies. In addition to his role as surgeon for the HBC, Helmcken was founding president of the British Columbia Medical Society in 1885, and helped found the Medical Council of British Columbia, which licences BC doctors, the next year. He was also the physician of the provincial jail and sat on the board of the Royal Jubilee Hospital.
  John Helmcken died in Victoria at the age of 96. The house Helmcken built in 1852 and lived in until his death is now a museum located at Thunderbird Park in Victoria. A street in Victoria and one in Vancouver's Yaletown neighbourhood bear his name.
  His son Henry Dallas "Harry" served in the British Columbia assembly.
caption: John Sebastian Helmcken in 1917
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