Chartres Brew, An Interesting Irish-Canadian Pioneer

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The following information has been researched, written and submitted by John Brew of Seattle, WA, USA, and regards Chartres Brew, an Irishman who became one of the great pioneers of British Columbia, Canada.

Chartres Brew – An Interesting Irish-Canadian Pioneer

 In my search for Brew’s over the Internet, I came across this piece of information:

The Barkerville Cemetery is located in a historic gold rush town in the Cariboo Region of B.C. The town was formed in 1862 when gold was discovered by William "Billy" Barker on Williams Creek. Between 1862 and 1870 over 100,000 people traveled the Cariboo Waggon Road converging on the goldfields and the boomtown called Barkerville. In its heyday this was the largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco!

• In memory of Chartres BREW. Born at Corofin, County Clare, Ireland, 31 Dec, 1815. Died Richfield, 31 May 1870. Gold Commissioner and County Court Judge.

"A man imperturbable in courage and temper endowed with a great and varied administrative capacity. A most ready wit a most pure integrity."

It was an item that got me interested in the history of the Brew’s. Who was this guy? I did some further tracking. It turns out that Chartres played a significant role in early Canadian history. Here’s his biography, as excerpted from the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume 9 (1860-1870)"

BREW, CHARTRES, gold commissioner and judge; b, 31 Dec. 1815 at Corofin, County Clare (Republic of Ireland), eldest son of the Honourable Tomkins Brew, stipendiary magistrate of Tuam, County Galway; d. 31 May 1870 at Richfield, B.C.

At age 20, Chartres Brew joined the volunteer British Legion which left England under George de Lacy Evans in 1835 to fight in the Carlist wars. After recovering from severe wounds, he entered the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1840. On the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854 he volunteered for the commissariat, and on 1 Feb. 1856 became assistant commissary-general. Awarded the Crimean Medal with three clasps, he returned to Ireland to serve in the constabulary and in 1857 held the position of inspector in the city of Cork.

In August 1858 Brew was recommended to the colonial secretary, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, for the office of chief inspector of police for the new gold colony of British Columbia at a salary of 500 pounds. Bulwer-Lytton had chosen to rely on stipendiary magistrates and a constabulary to maintain law and order among the thousands of miners arriving at the Fraser River goldfields. As inspector of police, Brew was to assist Governor James Douglas in forming a force similar to the Irish Constabulary. Military protection (and duties such as surveying and road building) were to be provided for the colony by the Corps of Royal Engineers under Colonel Richard Clement Moody. Brew left Southampton on 4 September and after a journey full of vicissitudes, including shipwreck, arrived at Victoria on 8 November. He immediately visited Langley and the diggings at Yale and on his return to Victoria requested permission to commence his duties.

Brew's initial plan was to have a police force of 150 men, trained and equipped locally, organized along military lines, and centrally controlled. Douglas doubted the wisdom of recruiting police from a mining population which included so many Americans and requested that 60 members of the Irish constabulary be sent to form a nucleus. In January 1859 Douglas learned that a bitter dispute had broken out between the justice of the peace at Hills Bar and the gold commissioner at Yale and that the notorious Ned McGowan, a refugee from California vigilante justice, was organizing his followers at Yale against constituted authority. On 10 January Douglas appointed Brew chief gold commissioner and ordered him to sail for Yale the same day with three constables. Though the trouble subsidized, Brew recommended the establishment there of a force of 20 constables. The constables recruited from among the miners by the former gold commissioner, he reported, were "nearly all a worthless set of loungers." He had already succeeded in having two young Irishmen, Thomas Elwyn and John Carmichael Haynes, appointed constables and he added William George Cox to their number. Brew now thought 150 Irish constabulary should be obtained for the colony and Douglas concurred, but when the cost was made clear and the British government refused to bear the expense, the plan was dropped.

Brew was far from happy about his unfulfilled expectations: his office had not materialized and his request for an allowance for expenses had been ignored. Douglas, in fact, had quietly absorbed him into the magistracy, though the appointment as chief gold commissioner was supposed to be temporary. During the 1859 mining season Brew found himself performing regular duties of a gold commissioner: collecting miners' licenses, recording claims, and settling claims disputes. On 23 April 1859 Brew asked to be relieved of his duties. Instead Douglas kept him at Yale until May when he finally formally recognized his title as chief inspector of police. Although Brew kept up the struggle until October to have a police corps for the whole colony organized, no step was taken, and the magistrates in the gold districts continued to select their own constables, employing only those who were "absolutely and indispensably necessary." This situation remained until the fear of general Indian insurrection in spring 1864 led Governor Frederick SEYMOUR to centralize the police force, put it under his own control, and fix the size of the constable establishment. It never became a paramilitary force, and although Brew kept the title and salary of inspector of police he had authority only over the constables in his own district.

Brew's abilities were such, however, that he came to be relied on for multifarious functions by Douglas and later by Seymour. In October 1859 he became chief magistrate at New Westminster. On 1 Sept. 1862 he was appointed acting treasurer of British Columbia to replace Captain William Driscoll Gosset and held the position for two years. For six months after Colonel Moody's departure from the colony, Brew served as acting chief commissioner of lands and works. Concurrently he was justice of the peace and judge of the small debts court. He was a natural choice for membership in the colony's first Legislative Council, and from 1864 until 1868 he served as an appointed member.

In addition, Brew's judicial and police experience continued to be appealed to. It was to Brew and the New Westminster Volunteer Rifle Corps that Seymour turned in 1864 when he feared the Indian uprising after the Bute Inlet attack [see KLATSASSIN; Alfred Penderell Waddington]. Brew (accompanied by Seymour) led one expedition and W. G. Cox another to apprehend the murderers after they had scattered into the interior plains. Brew's party had to cross the Cascade Mountains and make a 250-mile march to Puntzi Lake to join Cox. In mid August, when the Indians' capture seemed imminent, Seymour departed, leaving Brew, "an experienced Magistrate, a man of admirable temper and discretion, full powers for holding a Court of Justice in the Chilcotin country.''

In 1867 when a violent dispute over a claim on Grouse Creek led to the defiance of the gold commissioner's order by 500 miners, Seymour called upon Brew "to undertake another most disagreeable, dangerous and unhealthy duty." On 4 September Brew was ordered to replace Henry Maynard Ball as gold commissioner and take temporary charge of Cariboo. He accompanied Chief Justice Joseph Needham to Richfield for the investigation of the dispute, and remained at hand after Needham had resolved the ''Grouse Creek War'' by finding in favour of the company whose claim had been jumped. In October Brew was appointed county court judge, and his remaining days were spent as magistrate and gold commissioner at Richfield. There he developed a scientific interest in mining and secured the esteem and respect of the mining community by his impartiality. He supervised the rebuilding of Barkerville after its destruction by fire in 1868, seeing to improvements in its layout and safety requirements.

By June 1869 Brew was "suffering from acute rheumatism, a complaint which then prevailed in Cariboo," In March 1870 his accounts as gold commissioner were in arrears owing to his increasing debility: "For some weeks I have not had sufficient strength even to sign my name.'' he reported to Victoria. After several months' confinement with a painful illness, he died at Richfield on 31 May 1870. The inscription on the tablet over his grave bears the tribute of his friend Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie: "A man imperturbable in courage and temper, endowed with a great and varied administrative capacity, a most ready wit, a most pure integrity and a most humane heart." In 1859, after "Ned McGowan's War," 80 miners at Yale had paid Brew an equally notable tribute when they praised his ability to give justice while keeping "the kind feelings and respect of all." Brew never created the police force he had planned, but Douglas and Seymour regarded him as without equal in the role of gold commissioner and stipendiary magistrate. He established a standard of conduct that enabled the Irishmen whom he attracted to serve the gold commissioner to maintain peace in the goldfields at the height of production with no more than 18 constables in regular employment.

MARGARET A. ORMSBY

Chartres Brew's correspondence for the period 1858-59 is printed in The early history of the Fraser River mines, ed. F. W. Howay (PABC Memoir, VI, Victoria, 1926).

PABC, B.C., Colonial Secretary, correspondence outward, January 1867- December 1870 (letterbook); Gold Commissioner, Cariboo, correspondence outward, 11 Dec. 1866- 15 Aug. 1870(letterbook): Governor, dispatches to London, 1858-63, 186347, 186~67, 186~M9 (letterbooks): Lands and Works Dept., correspondence outward, August 1861- May 1865; Colonial correspondence, Chartres Brew correspondence; G.B., Colonial Office, dispatches to B.C., no.ll, 2 Sept. 1859, enclosure, Chartres Brew, testimonials; Miscellaneous papers relating to Chartres Brew: O'Reilly coll., Chartres Brew, Diary excerpt, 26 Aug. 1 Sept. 1858; letter to Capt. Travaillot, 19 Jan. 1859. PRO, CO 60. B.C., Legislative Council, Journals, 186~69. G.B., Parl., Command paper, 1859(2nd session), XXII, [2578], pp.297-403. British Columbia. papers relative to the affairs of British Columbia. part II.... British Colonist (Victoria), 10June 1865. Cariboo Sentinel (Barkerville. B.C.). 4 June 1870, 21 Sept. 1872 F. J. Hatch. ''The British Columbia police. 1858-1871" (unpublished MA thesis. University of British Columbia. Vancouver. 1955). E. S. Hewlett. "The Chilcotjn uprising: a study of Indian-white relations in nineteenth century British Columbia" (unpublished MA thesis. University of British Columbia. 1972). M. A. Ormsby. "Some Irish figures in colonial days." BCHQ. XIV (1950). 61-82.

Chartres is mentioned in another Canadian source, " A History of Victoria" by Harry Gregson. He was one of the leaders in Victoria, British Columbia. His sister is also mentioned as follows:

"He [Augustus Pemberton] married a sister of Chartres Brew, Inspector of Police, and it is not unreasonable to assume that the marriage played a role in his selection for the post of police commissioner. Quite naturally, interrelated families in Victoria helped each other, the posts given to his kin by Sir James Douglas being an outstanding example. Augustus Pemberton met his future bride when at her brother's request he waited on her when she arrived by ship from England. It was a case of love at first sight and the couple walked hand in hand from Esquimalt to the city. They were married in 1861 and had three children-- Chartres, Cecil and Evaline Mary; Evaline being the first registered nurse in Canada; she died in 1965·"

Using this info, I was able to track down Chartres sister, who is:

I got this info from the British Columbia Cemetery Finding Aid at http://www.islandnet.com/bccfa/homepage.html.

It also gives info on Chartres:

Note; This reference is Metchosin Central P.O. Box 48058, 3575 Douglas Street Victoria, British Columbia V8Z 7H5

Jane’s husband is also listed:

As well as their daughter Evaline:

And possibly their son:

Using this info, I was able to go to the BC Archives http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/index.htm and get some more info on when these people died.

• JANE AUGUSTA PEMBERTON

Event Date: 1889 6 12 (Yr/Mo/Day) Age: 62 Gender: Female Event Place: VICTORIA Reg. Number: 1889-09-006137 B.C. Archives Microfilm Number: B13077 GSU Microfilm Number: 1927287

• AUGUSTUS F PEMBERTON

Event Date: 1891 10 18 (Yr/Mo/Day) Age: 83 Gender: Male Event Place: VICTORIA Reg. Number: 1891-09-007718B.C. Archives Microfilm Number: B13077 GSU Microfilm Number: 1927287

• AUGUSTA JANE PEMBERTON

Event Date: 1878 2 6 (Yr/Mo/Day) Age: 15 Gender: Female Event Place: VICTORIA DISTRICT Reg. Number: 1878-09-001263B.C. Archives Microfilm Number: B13077 GSU Microfilm Number: 1927287

• CHARTRES CECIL PEMBERTON

Event Date: 1943 1 26 (Yr/Mo/Day) Age: 79 Gender: Male Event Place: VICTORIA Reg. Number: 1943-09-617216B.C. Archives Microfilm Number: B13178 GSU Microfilm Number: 1953638

• EVALINE MARY PEMBERTON

Event Date: 1965 7 6 (Yr/Mo/Day) Age: 98 Gender: Female Event Place: VICTORIA Reg. Number: 1965-09-008527B.C. Archives Microfilm Number: B13272 GSU Microfilm Number: 2033725

Now, here are some questions I have about Chartres:

1. What was his family history? There are many Brew’s in County Clare, Ireland, so how does Chartres link up? Also, Chartres and Tomkins are (to me at least) fairly unusual names. Are they related to the Isle of Man?

2. Did he have any descendents? Another tough question. As mentioned above, Chartres had a sister. One other name that popped up while searching the BC records is:

This is interesting because he has the same first name as Chartres’ father and lived in the New Westminster area. I would estimate that it’s likely that there are other Brew’s from County Clare that came over to British Columbia and that they are related to Chartres Brew. Does anybody else have info to contribute to this?

Other references

From the British Columbia Archives Research Library Catalogue Email: library@www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca

Call Number: CM_B1591Author: Spittle, John Derry Author: Brew, Chartres, 1815-1870. Title: Royal Engineer camp, New Westminster, 1864 Imprint: 1976Descr: 1 map : photo-copy ; 71 x 54 cm + Return of buildings (2 leaves ; 28 cm)Dates: Scale: [ca. 1:480] Notes: "From a 'Return of buildings at the camp' made by C. Brew, Acting Surveyor General, 29th April 1864 "Notes: Buildings on the plan are keyed to the Return of buildings, which is filed in the Accompanying Materials File Subject: Great Britain. Army. Royal Engineers. Columbia Detachment. Subject: Camps (Military) - Maps - 1864 Subject: Military bases - British Columbia - New Westminster - Maps - 1864 Subject: New Westminster - Maps - 1864 Subject: 1864Subject: 1976 Subject: 92G/2

From BRITISH COLUMBIA ARCHIVES GOVERNMENT RECORDS FINDING AID

GR-1372 British Columbia Colonial correspondence Originals ca. 1858-1871 18.9 m Microfilm ca. 1858-1871 76 reels Reels B01300-B01375

B01310 185 Brew, Chartres, 1858 Nov-DecB01310 186a Brew, Chartres, 1859 Jan-MarB01310 186b Brew, Chartres, 1859 Jan-MarB01310 187 Brew, Chartres, 1859 Mar-AprB01310 188 Brew, Chartres, 1859 May-DecB01310 189a Brew, Chartres, 1860 B01310 189b Brew, Chartres, 1860B01310 190a Brew, Chartres, 1861B01310 190b Brew, Chartres, 1861B01310 191a Brew, Chartres, 1862B01310 191b Brew, Chartres, 1862B01310 192 Brew, Chartres, 1863B01310 193 Brew, Chartres, 1864 B01310 194 Brew, Chartres, 1865 B01311 194 Brew, Chartres, 1865B01311 195 Brew, Chartres, 1866 B01311 196 Brew, Chartres, 1867B01311 197 Brew, Chartres, 1868B01311 198 Brew, Chartres, 1869 Jan-JunB01311 199 Brew, Chartres, 1869 Jul-DecB01311 200 Brew, Chartres, 1870B01311 201 Brew, Tomkins

British Columbia Canadian Confederation Centennial Committee1966-1967 Originals 1966-1967 30 m

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