Sir William Des Voeux


Sir William Des Voeux arrived in Newfoundland a difficult time. The 1885 election had been fought on sectarian lines and had roused passions and resentments that had not yet subsided. Thorburn led an exclusively Protestant government, while the opposition was exclusively Catholic. An avowed atheist, Des Vœux set about repairing the divisions in the community. He made a point of attending a different church each Sunday – historian Daniel Woodley Prowse* later remarked that the new governor’s “large unprepossessing appearance” was not welcome and that many were insulted – and used his influence and good offices to help smooth the amalgamation of the government and opposition parties in the summer of 1886. He also promoted a guarded reconciliation between Shea and Thorburn and, if his own account is to be believed, became friendly with both the Anglican and the Roman Catholic hierarchies.

Des Vœux had less success when he attempted to persuade the government to accept an Anglo-French draft convention on the French Shore, which would have allowed the French banking fleet to obtain bait on Newfoundland’s south coast. The government largely represented mercantile opinion, which was virulently anti-French and insistent that the export of bait to the French fleet should be prohibited to retaliate for France’s invasion of Newfoundland’s traditional salt-fish markets in southern Europe. In debating this matter with the ministry, Des Vœux became convinced of the strength of the colony’s case for permission to enforce an act that would control the sale of bait. He forcefully represented the ministry’s position to the Colonial Office, and it is likely that his dispatches had some impact on the imperial government, which in 1887 decided to allow the bait bill in spite of a justified fear that the French would react angrily.

His advocacy of the Newfoundland position on the bait question made Des Vœux quite popular in St John’s, and though he found the colony somewhat primitive, he enjoyed better health and good fishing. He therefore hesitated when offered the governorship of Hong Kong in the spring of 1887, but since the post represented promotion and a substantially better salary, he accepted it.

Never afraid to speak his mind or to take an independent line, Des Vœux proved, in difficult circumstances, to be one of Newfoundland’s better governors. As Sir Robert Herbert of the Colonial Office wrote when Des Vœux left the colony, it was to his credit that “he has succeeded in a remarkable degree in obtaining the confidence and goodwill of ministers and people.”

His autobiography gives a full account of his colonial service: My Colonial Service in British Guiana, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Fiji, Australia, Newfoundland, and Hong Kong, with interludes


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by Stephen Luscombe