Colonial Despatches Online

The University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media Centre has put its archive of Colonial Despatches (The colonial despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1846-1871) online:

This project aims to digitize and publish online a complete archive of the correspondence covering the period from 1846 leading to the founding of Vancouver Island in 1849, the founding of British Columbia in 1858, the annexation of Vancouver Island by British Columbia in 1866, and up to the incorporation of B.C. into the Canadian Federation in 1871.

The online archive consists of three parts, a collection of photographed original documents, a collection of transcriptions of some of those documents, and historical and explanatory material. Largely the result of research by the original editor, Dr. James Hendrickson, the archive is still a work in progress.

But what a work! I cannot speak too highly of the way in which these crucial documents are presented, footnoted and cross-referenced. The layout and site design is beautiful and clear; and the use of (JavaScript) side notes on the transcribed pages is very helpful indeed. All in all, this is a model of what an online archive ought to strive for.

There are many ways to get into the archive, but just to get you started I’ve linked the above image to the photographed document from which it came, and there you will find a link to the transcription of that document. By the way, the addressee of the despatch, as you see here, is the Edward Bulwer Lytton who penned the infamous “it was a dark and stormy night” — along with 24 novels and 3 plays.