Talk:Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871)

message: I've been putting off creating an article for each of the colonies - which IMO should be the way this is configured; the United Colonies were never called that during their own period, and IMO that term surfaced only in recent times.  I'd put off creating the articles before because I didn't have it clear which was the Crown Colony and which was the Colony; I think it was VI that was the Crown Colony and I meant to look up the legal distinction between the two as far as the name-difference goes.  The Crown Colony of Vancouver Island should have its own article, and the Colony of British Columbia should have a split article and (i.e. one article two sections).
As the "United Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia" was never an official name it's highly dubious it should be used as the title for a page.  More later; haven't had my coffee yet....Skookum1 18:40, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Skookum1, for your input.  Upon reflection, I agree that the Colony of British Columbia should have its own separate entry.  If you create the article, I will amend this one accordingly.  I do think that this article should remain, since the two colonies functioned as one administrative unit from.  Hence, while it may not have been an official title, it was a functional one and the affairs of the colonies were handelled as one. Fishhead64 22:01, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But was ONE colony, not two.  The affairs of the mainland colony were handled from Victoria but according to different procedural and constitutional parameters; and those were different than post-1866.  Vancouver Island should definitely be its own colony page; maybe the BC page could be both and because the names were at least the same.Skookum1 23:25, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I must disagree with you on this point. Please note that the colonies were legally united by an Act of the British Parliament on August 6, 1866, hence creating an entirely new entity.  I don't know what this legal entity was popularly called during its lifetime, but I suppose some research would uncover the wording of the specific Act (see the entry for Frederick Seymour in the Canadian Dictionary of Biography Online).  Hence the need for a separate article.  The affairs of the two colonies certainly overlapped between, but they had separate administrations, and were legally two separate entities, hence my suggestion that an article on the Colony of British Columbia be created that will cover the years.  However, again, after 1866, British Columbia and Vancouver Island ceased to exist as distinct colonial units.  To conflate the united colonies post-1866 with the Colony of British Columbia pre-1866 would be, imho, misleading from a legal and functional standpoint.  Fishhead64 23:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is why I thought there should be three articles......and AFAIK the legal name was simply British Columbia.  The problem, then, is how to distinguish from; it could be that the latter was a "Crown Colony" vs the plain old "Colony" of the former.   Currently all these are boiled down with the various BC lists such that the L-Gs page has Seymour and Douglas listed there, which of course they shouldn't be.  There was an L-G in colonial BC, I think, but only from 1866 onwards; that aside it's also worth commenting that the list of "Governors" in fr.wikipedia.org lists those for the Columbia District (the fur district based on Ft Vancouver) as if they were Governors of a political entity rather than a corporate one.  Nomenclature's a sticky business and I know there are Wiki parameters of some kind to use here; which I'll have to study before commenting further I guess.Skookum1 23:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct, I looked up the 1871 Act of Union and that was the name of the colony.  As I said upthread, perhaps you or I could create an article on the Colony of British Columbia, and I will amend this one accordingly.  Deal? :) Fishhead64 00:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK; kind of requires I get my ass in gear with finishing the McGowan's War article and getting about the Fraser Canyon War and Douglas Trail articles, too, which are all tied together and which I've been putting off for a LONG time; also the REs in their BC manifestation (there's already an RE page but much wider in context than their relatively obscure service in BC).  Maybe the title of THIS page could be "United Colony of ...." ??  Depends on what you find in the way of names used; I have Morton's book on early politics so maybe there's a useful term in there; I'll re-read those chapters later tonight.00:10, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: United Colonies name

message: In fixing up William Culham Woodward with references, I found a timeline page on the L-G's homepage, and it (i.e. Government House's clerical/administrative staff's page) uses "United Colonies" now.  I suspect that may be a reflection of the former Wikipedia title, which I note is still here in section headings.  This is maybe an example of where a concocted wiki-ism has entered the mainstream, and is an example of why such usages should be avoided.  On the other hand, the L-G's site or some other source that they know of uses "United Colonies"...but I'd never seen that name until it was come up with in Wikipedia.  The issue bears writing them and asking, I suppose......but not today.Skookum1 (talk) 22:26, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: LG's site uses "United Colonies"

message: Looking for something else, I found this in nosracines.ca, which has all kinds of useful BC history stuff available on line; the title of this one is British Columbia : return to an address of the Honourable the House of Commons, dated 2 July 1868, for "Copy or extracts of correspondence between Governor Kennedy of Vancouver Island, Governor Seymour of British Columbia, and the Colonial Office, on the subject of a site for the capital of British Columbia, and is a publication of the Colonial Office.Skookum1 (talk) 14:19, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Historical resource

message: :was the name informally given to the de facto amalgamation
That's gonna have to be cited; so far as I am aware that terminology was invented for wikipedia and is not in fact in use, nor has been ever (other than in Wikipedia).  "is a name used in Wikipedia for the de facto amalgamation" is more accurate, but not per MOS.  Some better wording has to be come up with....Skookum1 (talk) 03:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd forgotten I'd left this comment, but just now amended the lede to match the very same argument.  This article title is a pure wiki-fiction and does not exist in sources.  The problem is many articles linking to this have adopted this name, because of the article title and redirect-bypasses, and with successive edits it's become increasingly unclear as to the origin of this term.  The only solution I can think of is to re-style the Colony of British Columbia article as Colony of British Columbia (1858) and this one as Colony of British Columbia (1866), though those date-dabs could be 1858-1866 and 1866-71 for clarity; single-year dabs are used on ships of the same name, but this is not a ship.Skookum1 (talk) 07:41, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I came across this article, and it was absurd on the face of the lead paragraph that the article title was a title of Wikipedia convenience, and not as far as we can tell, a common name or the official name.  I moved the articles in accordance with the suggestions above, and did a bit of clean-up, although more may need to be done.--Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: wording problem