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road to merger, see the gracious Nos Disparus written
by the Honourable Mary Ellen Boyd CCJ/J for
David Hector Campbell, the first and last Chief Judge
of the County Courts, and first Associate Chief Justice
of the British Columbia Supreme Court: (2016) 74
Advocate 431.
8. Governor Douglas, in his British Columbia Small
Debts Proclamation, allowed himself the discretion to
appoint County Court judges empowered to determine
all suits within the jurisdiction of the County
Courts of England, up to £50: Douglas to Newcastle,
December 22, 1859.
9. The County Court Ordinance, 1866; County Court
Jurisdiction Ordinance, 1866; County Court Ordinance,
1867. See generally Farr, supra note 7 at 21-
22. The first official Country Court judges were
Henry Maynard Ball (Cariboo), Peter O’Reilly (Yale),
Edward Howard Sanders (Lillooet), Warner Reeve
Spalding (Nanaimo), Augustus Frederick Pemberton
(Victoria) and Arthur Thomas Bushby (Westminster).
10. In early colonial British Columbia, this should come
as no surprise. David Cameron, the first appointed
judge in what is now British Columbia, and the first
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Civil Justice of
the Colony of Vancouver Island, was a clerk in the
Hudson’s Bay Company at the coal mines at
Nanaimo at the time of his appointment. Among the
qualities that suggested him for the role was that he
was Governor James Douglas’s brother-in-law.
11. 46 Vict, c 5.
12. Now eight (with the addition of Prince Rupert and
Vancouver). Note that there is no “County of New
Westminster”. The County of Vancouver and the
County of Westminster are together a judicial district
under the name “Vancouver Westminster Judicial
District”: Supreme Court Act, RSBC 1996, c 443, s 8.
13. County Court Act, RSBC 1924, c 53.
14. County Court Act, RSBC 1979, c 397.
15. George Wallace Bruce Fraser CCJ, of the County
Court of Westminster, presided over the first County
Court jury trial, in 1964. After William Wallace
Burns McInnes CCJ, Fraser CCJ has the second-most
Scottish name, on a historically particularly Scottish
provincial judiciary.
16. SBC 1964, c 14. See His Honour Judge WA Schultz,
“Changes in County Court Jurisdiction” (1964) 22
Advocate 181. The constitutionally legitimate delegation
of divorce jurisdiction was confirmed in Attorney
General of British Columbia v McKenzie, 1965
SCR 490, after being rejected by the Court of
Appeal: (1965), 48 DLR (2d) 447.
17. James A Macdonald, “Reminiscences of the Honourable
James Macdonald” (1992) 50 Advocate
839.
18. Father of the present Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of British Columbia, Christopher Hinkson.
19. Walter Kirke Smith, almost always referred to as
“Kirke Smith” (including, usually, in judgments),
although his family name was a bare “Smith”.
20. (2011) 69 Advocate 105.
21. His Honour Judge WA Schultz, “The County Court of
Vancouver” (1975) 33 Advocate 103 at 103.
22. Proudfoot JA started her judicial career on the
Provincial Court (1971 to 1974).
23. Although Justice Wong started on the Provincial
Court, serving from 1974 to 1981.
24. Contrary to some current beliefs about gender and
racial discrimination in judicial appointments, five of
the eight, and 14 of the 25 youngest federal judicial
appointments in British Columbia history, were
women or people of colour, and those appointments
were not a recent phenomenon, but occurred 20 to
40 years ago.
25. Watts, supra note 7 at 245. Unlike O’Reilly, William
George Cox (Rock Creek, Cariboo and Boundary
Districts) was not appointed as a County Court judge
after the 1867 reforms.
26. Castlebar, County Mayo. Augustus Frederick Pemberton
was born in Contarf near Dublin. Peter
O’Reilly (owner of Ellice House in Victoria) was Irish,
although born in Ince, England. Pre-Confederation
stipendiary magistrates Thomas Elwyn, Andrew
Charles Elliott (later Premier of British Columbia, in
1876) and William George Cox were also Irish
natives.
27. Bole CCJ gave the village of Belcarra its Celtic name,
meaning “the fair land on which the sun shines”.
One would think that His Honour had never in fact
visited the Indian Arm area.
28. Roy Brown, “First Senior Judge Only 47 Years Ago”,
Vancouver Sun (25 January 1954) 4.
29. See his profile in (1974) 32 Advocate 161, by the
great historian of the British Columbia legal community,
Alfred Watts, QC.
30. Bell & Flett v Mitchell, VII BCR 100.
31. Alexander Henderson (with Alexander G Henderson
J (1995)) is one of two sets of judges of identically
named jurists to serve on the federally appointed
British Columbia courts, the other set being Wendy G
Baker J (1993) and the present Wendy A Baker J
(2018).
32. Conceptually, analogous to the lieutenant governor,
as the representative of the federal government governing
a territory. But in contrast to a lieutenant governor
or a governor general, the Commissioner was
not a viceroy of the Crown.
33. Alexander Henderson, QC, served as Crown attorney,
opposite, for the defence, Stuart Henderson (no
relation). See David Ricardo Williams, Trapline Outlaw:
Simon Peter Gunanoot (Sono Nis Press, 2005)
(critical of the Crown’s prosecution).
34. The Province (14 December 1940) 4.
35. The Province (1 February 1907) 14.
36. The brother of future Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court William Burpee Farris, and the father of future
Chief Justice of British Columbia John Lauchlan Farris.
He was also the co-founder of the present Farris
law firm.
37. Cane CCJ was the fourth-youngest British Columbia
superior court judge to die in office, just short of age