Series GR-0153 - Bureau of Statistics records

The Bureau of Statistics was constituted 11 April 1894 by an act of the provincial legislature (SBC 1894, chap. 27). The purpose of the Bureau, as stated in the legislation, was to collect, compile, tabulate and publish information for public purposes. Under the provisions of the legislation, the Legislative Librarian was to serve as Secretary of the Bureau.

Before 1893 the only statistical bureau in the province was the Bureau of Labour Statistics established by statute but this office remained functional for only a year. Also, the Department of Agriculture employed a statistical clerk whose duties included the preparation of an annual statistical report for the Department.

In 1893 R. Edward Gosnell was appointed the first full-time librarian of the Legislative Assembly and thus he assumed his additional duties as Secretary of the Bureau in 1894. The results of Gosnell's work appeared in 1897 in the form of The Year Book of British Columbia and Manual of Provincial Information, undertaken first as a private enterprise by Gosnell himself but later assumed by the Government who purchased the unsold copies, added an appendix in 1901, and redistributed the volume. A change of government in 1898 brought about Gosnell's dismissal but two years later he returned to Victoria as secretary to Premier James Dunsmuir and later at the end of March 1901, he became secretary to the new Bureau of Provincial Information and Immigration, which brought together, under one administrative wing, the operations of several related governmental services. Gosnell produced a second edition of the Year Book in 1903; to mark the coronation of King George V in 1911 a third edition was published, followed by a fourth in 1914.

In 1937, the Bureau of Provincial Information was transferred to the Bureau of Industrial and Tourist Development (later renamed the Government Travel Bureau) in the Department of Trade and Industry.