The University of British Columbia

Introduction

In the beginning, the printing press came to British Columbia to spread the word of God. The press in question was manufactured by Lorilleaux of Paris at the beginning of the 19th century, and had a long way to travel before it arrived [2]. The Society for the Propagation of the Faith funded the transportation of the press from France to Fort Victoria, BC, over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and around the Cape Horn. Received by Bishop Demers in 1856, a French-Canadian missionary, and the first Catholic Bishop of Vancouver Island, the machine was intended to bring religion to the "pagan Indians" [3]. For two years, however, the press only collected dust while waiting for the arrival of a printer. The discovery of gold in the Fraser Canyon in the late 1850s attracted the first printer Frederick Marriott, publishers, and newspaper editors, mostly from San Francisco. As well, it forever changed the original purpose of Bishop Demers' printing press. Rather than spreading the word of God, the printing press was used to publish newspapers with reports on gold trails, services for sale, and bankruptcies. The Gold Rush of 1858 led to a boom in Victoria, and this resulted in a proliferation of newspapers. The Victoria Gazette was the first newspaper in British Columbia, and it survived competition from three rival publications printed on Bishop Demers' press.

A parallel theme in the history of early British Columbian newspapers is the often political nature of the stories. For example, the Gold Rush of 1858 attracted pressmen, miners, and ambitious men seeking glory. Some of these men would become future politicians, one of them being Amor De Cosmos. The newspaper that stirred up the most controversy was the British Colonist, which survives to this day as the Times Colonist, Victoria, BC. Part of its success may be attributed to its constant incorporation of new print technology, allowing it to print more papers than any of its competitors. To demonstrate such a claim, a comparison of the various printing technologies used by early BC newspapers will be provided. Finally, this essay ends in 1908 when Bishop Demers' printing press returned to Victoria.