1886 British Columbia general election

The 1886 British Columbia general election was held in 1886. The number of members was increased for this election from 25 to 27, and the number of ridings increased to 13.

Each voter was allowed to cast as many votes as there were seats to fill in the district.

The first Labour MLA in BC's history was elected in this election.

Political context

Non-party system

There were to be no political parties in the new province. The designations "Government" and "Opposition" and "Independent" (and variations on these) functioned in place of parties, but they were very loose and do not represent formal coalitions, more alignments of support during the campaign. "Government" meant in support of the current Premier; "Opposition" meant campaigning against him, and often enough the Opposition would win and immediately become the Government.

The Smithe, A.E.B. Davie, Robson and T. Davie governments

The election mandated the government of William Smithe who had assumed power from the failure of Robert Beaven's government in January 1883. In May 1887 Smithe died in office and Alexander Edmund Batson Davie assumed power, although due to his own illness he was unable to attend the opening of the Legislature. When Davie died in 1889 a further change of government saw newspaperman John Robson become Premier that year, receiving a mandate in the 1890 election only to die himself in 1892 of blood poisoning from a cut suffered from the door of a carriage. He was succeeded by Theodore Davie, who was Premier going into the 1894 election

Byelections not shown

Any changes due to byelections are shown below the main table showing the theoretical composition of the House after the election. A final table showing the composition of the House at the dissolution of the Legislature at the end of this Parliament can be found below the byelections. The main table represents the immediate results of the election only, not changes in governing coalitions or eventual changes due to byelections.

List of ridings

The original ridings were thirteen in number, and Cowichan was restored to a two-member seat while New Westminster was increased to three, with the new total being 27 members. There were no political parties were not acceptable in the House by convention, though some members were openly partisan at the federal level (usually Conservative, although both Liberal and Labour allegiance were on display by some candidates).

These ridings were:

• Cariboo (three members)
• Cassiar (one member)
• Comox (one member)
• Cowichan (two members)
• Esquimalt (two members)
• Kootenay (two members)
• Lillooet (two members)
• Nanaimo (one member)
• New Westminster (three members)
• New Westminster City (one member)
• Victoria (two members)
• Victoria City (four members)
• Yale (three members)

Polling conditions

Natives (First Nations) and Chinese were disallowed from voting, although naturalized Kanakas (Hawaiian colonists) and American and West Indian blacks and certain others participated. The requirement that knowledge of English be spoken for balloting was discussed but not applied.

Results by riding

Results of British Columbia general election, 1886
Government				Opposition
	Member	Riding & party		Riding & party		Member
	Robert McLeese	Cariboo Government			Cariboo Opposition	George Cowan
	Joseph Mason				Cassiar Opposition	John Grant
	Henry Croft	Cowichan Government			Comox Opposition	Anthony Maitland Stenhouse
	William Smithe 1				New Westminster Opposition	William Henry Ladner
	David Williams Higgins	Esquimalt Government				James Orr
	Charles Edward Pooley				New Westminster City Opposition	William Norman Bole
	James Baker	Kootenay Government			Victoria City Opposition	Robert Beaven
	Edward Allen	Lillooet Government			Yale Opposition	Charles Augustus Semlin
	Alexander Edmund Batson Davie
	Robert Dunsmuir	Nanaimo Government
	William Raybould
	John Robson	New Westminster Government
	George William Anderson	Victoria Government
	Robert Franklin John
	Theodore Davie	Victoria City Government
	Edward Gawler Prior
	John Herbert Turner
	George Bohun Martin	Yale Government
	Forbes George Vernon
	1 Premier-Elect and Incumbent Premier
Source: Elections BC

See also

• List of British Columbia political parties

Further reading & references

• In the Sea of Sterile Mountains: The Chinese in British Columbia, Joseph Morton, J.J. Douglas, Vancouver (1974). Despite its title, a fairly thorough account of the politicians and electoral politics in early BC.