McCreight Lake, Kelsey Bay Higway, north of Campbell River
Victoria lawyer John Foster McCreight was selected by Lieutenant-Governor Trutch to be British Columbia’s first premier. Entering the Executive Council in July 1871, he laid the legislative base for the new province from November 1871 until defeated on a confidence vote in December 1872. Leaving politics in 1875, he was appointed to the Provincial Supreme Court in 1880, and retired in 1897.
A remote mountain lake is the only place named after John Foster McCreight, BC's first premier.
Born in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in 1827, McCreight first practised law in Australia where he lived for six years. He moved to Vancouver Island in 1860 and practised law there. He was also admitted to the BC bar in 1862, but practised in New Westminster only briefly because of a dispute with Chief Justice Matthew Baillie Begbie.
McCreight had taken little part in politics prior to BC becoming part of Canada in 1871 and he was not the first choice of Lieutenant Governor Joseph Trutch who had to appoint an administration until the first provincial elections could be held. The choice surprised some people who saw McCreight as austere, aloof and even unfriendly. However, his legal knowledge was useful during the first session of the Legislature which had to deal with many procedural issues. McCreight was not a reformer and was opposed by those who were. His government was defeated in a non-confidence motion in December 1872 and he immediately resigned, to be replaced by Amor de Cosmos, one of the most outspoken reformers. McCreight did not have a taste for politics, and did not run again after 1875. He returned to his law practice and in 1880 was appointed to the Supreme Court of BC. He served for the next three years at Richfield, near Barkerville. In 1883, he moved to New Westminster where he remained until retirement in 1897.
McCreight was recognized as a legal expert, and his law library is still preserved in New Westminster. Little was known of McCreight's private life. One New Westminster wag suggested that only McCreight's horse Tally knew him well. His marriage was an unhappy one and his wife left hiim in 1870. He was raised as a Protestant, but converted to the Roman Catholic faith in 1883. He spent his last years in Hastings, England. He died and was buried in England in 1913.
