Home   BC Index

Convict List

                 CONVICT DEATHS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA, 1875-1916

                            by Hugh Armstrong

         The Sessional Papers of the Parliament of Canada provide a wide
     range of unusual genealogical records that are hidden among all the
     government reports that every department is required to produce
     yearly. While modern reports do not often contain personal names,
     older ones, particularly pre World War One, may be a genealogical
     goldmine.

         Military records may include promotions, routine postings or
     medal lists. Civil service lists were published regularly giving
     postings, usually including a date of birth, and results from civil
     service exams. Petitions for a multitude of reasons may have from
     one to hundreds of names.

         The Penitentiary or Justice Departments produce a yearly report
     that up to the 1916 Sessional Papers contained many names of the
     convicts in penitentiaries and asylums run by the Government of
     Canada. Lists of convicts received, pardoned, paroled or died were
     among the lists included. The amount of information available on
     each convict varied considerably.

         In an effort to add a few more names to the BCCFA and OCFA I
     went through the Penitentiary reports and extracted names of
     convicts that died in the B.C and Kingston Penitentiaries to 1915.
     There are 38 names for B.C. and 536 for Kingston. Additionally there
     were 3 'no names given' for B.C. and several years in the 1850s and
     1860s that the Kingston report only issued statistics (another 200
     dead). To supplement the data death registrations, coroner reports,
     censuses and newspapers were consulted.

         It is sad to see that such a poor job was done documenting the
     Indian and Chinese convicts. A minimum effort was made to record
     their names and until 1904 none of their deaths were registered.