Britannia Beach

History

The first settler/European person to sail the South Western inlet of what is now British Columbia was George Vancouver in 1792. When surveying the waters, George Vancouver gave name to the area, Howe Sound, in honour of Admiral Richard Howe. Britannia Beach took its name from the nearby Britannia Range of mountains, which form the east wall of the mountainous shore of Howe Sound south of Britannia Beach. About 1859 Royal Navy hydrographer Captain Richards of HMS Plumper named the range of mountains for HMS Britannia, the third of a series of vessels to bear that name. The Britannia was never in these waters. A copper discovery on Britannia Mountain by Dr. A. A. Forbes in 1888 led to the development of the Britannia Mine. 10 years after Dr. A. A. Forbes discovered copper, Oliver Furry made 5 claims in the surrounding area. In 1899, a mining engineer named George Robinson was able to convince financial backers that the property had great potential. For several years, companies were formed, merged and dissolved in efforts to raise capital. Large scale mining began in 1903 with the completion of a concentrator that had a 200 ton capacity which was funded by Grant B. Schley. The Britannia Mining and Smelting Company, a branch of the Howe Sound Company, finally commenced mining in the early 1900s, and owned the site for the next sixty years. The first ore was shipped to the Crofton Smelter on Vancouver Island in 1904, and the mine achieved full production in 1905. A town had grown up around the mine and a post office opened on January 1, 1907 where it was named after the nearby mine. In 1912 John Wedderburn Dunbar Moodie was authorized to upgrade the operation and increase production from the mine. Improvements in the mineral separation processes stimulated plans for a…