Landowners 1858

In an effort to establish British colonies throughout the world, the ‘Wakefield system’ was implemented. The system was designed to keep the price of land high enabling the growth of the country to be financed by land sales and create a fund for promoting immigration. It resulted in a land-based political culture evidenced in 1856 when only males owning 300 acres or more were eligible to run for office. To vote for these offices one must be a male and own a minimum of twenty acres. As a result, elite landowners, mostly Hudson's Bay Company officers became members of the Colonial government and Founding Fathers of the City of Victoria. A new class of landownership was born.

Each section of land was assigned a roman numeral in the order of its purchase:
Douglas took Section I, and it became Fairfield Farm.
Section II, the nucleus of Willows Farm, was bought by John Tod.
Section III went to Roderick Finlayson, Chief Factor in Fort Victoria
Section IV was John Work’s Hillside Farm.
Section V was bought by Robert Clouston, an HBC employee, and so on...