Series GR-1343 - Accounts records

The Government Agency system of British Columbia had its origin in the office of gold commissioner, which was created by a Proclamation of Governor Douglas, dated 7 September 1859. Although the legal precedents for this office lay in the mining laws of the colonies of Victoria (Australia) and New Zealand, conditions in British Columbia, especially the impecunious state of the colonial government, resulted in the creation of a unique colonial office. Governor Musgrave described gold commissioners as "not only Justices of the Peace, but County Court Judges, Indian Agents, Assistant Commissioners of Lands and Works, Collectors of Revenue in the different Departments of the Public Services at the several stations hundreds of miles apart and in very extensive Districts". After Confederation the title "gold commissioner" became restricted to those officials performing the administrative and judicial duties laid out in mining legislation, and the more general title "government agent" has been used for those officials who would have been called "gold commissioners" in the colonial period. Although the government agency system has proved sufficiently flexible and useful to survive until the present time, it does so without direct legal authority, as the several functions of a government agent are legally separate powers and appointments, which may or may not be held concurrently by the same individual.