Ladysmith (British Columbia)

Ladysmith, originally Oyster Harbour, is a town located on the 49th parallel on the east coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The local economy is based on forestry, tourism, and agriculture. A hillside location adjacent to a sheltered harbour form the natural characteristics of the community., the population was 8,537. The area of the town was 11.99 square kilometres. Total private dwellings were 3,754. Population density was 711.9 people per square kilometre.HistoryJames Dunsmuir founded Ladysmith about 1898, a year after he built shipping wharves for loading coal at Oyster Harbour (now Ladysmith Harbour) from the mine at Extension, nearer Nanaimo. Dunsmuir, owner of coal mines in the Nanaimo area, needed a location to house the families of his miners. He chose to build the community at what was then known as Oyster Harbour, some twenty miles (32 km) south of his Extension, British Columbia mines. Many buildings were moved from Extension and Wellington by rail and by oxen. The Town of Ladysmith was incorporated June 3, 1904.Prior to incorporation, in 1900, Dunsmuir renamed the town in honour of the British lifting the siege of Ladysmith in South Africa (28 February 1900) during the Second Boer War. (The original town of Ladysmith in turn took its name from Juana María de los Dolores de León Smith, known as Lady Smith, the Spanish wife of Sir Harry Smith, the British Governor of the Cape Colony and high commissioner in South Africa from 1847 to 1852.)