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- MR. FAWCETT RETIRES 213
Kiddermaster, was a cousin of Sir Rowland Hill, the British Postmaster-General, whose work for the penny post is known. The family emigrated to Australia in 1838, and remained there until 1849, when they were among the ` forty-niners' to become pioneers of California. Mr. Fawcett, Sr., invested at San Francisco in a vessel which he engaged in freighting lumber between British Columbia and San Francisco, and this craft was lost in the Straits of Juan de Fuca in 1857, causing him some financial embarrassment. In 1858 the father came to Victoria to recoup his fortunes, the family following a year later. Mr. Fawcett, Sr., was an honored citizen of Victoria for thirty years, and for three years filled the post of Government agent at Nanaimo. In 1889 he returned to England and died at the age of seventy-six years. Of his sons, Edgar Fawcett and Rowland W. Fawcett remained in British Columbia.
"Mr. Fawcett came to Victoria as a boy of twelve years of age, and in the early period of the city's history, when there was little more than a village on the site of the old fort, he used his facilities of observation to good advantage, and carries in his memory exact impressions and scenes as he then saw them. He received his early education in Victoria at the Collegiate School and the Colonial School, and began his business career with his brother as an upholsterer until 1882, when he entered the Dominion Civil Service, first as a clerk in the custom house, and he has been promoted from time to time.
"Mr. Fawcett served as a sergeant in the old Victoria Rifle Volunteers, afterward merged into the Canadian militia under Colonel Wolfenden. He was among the first to join the volunteer fire department of Victoria He is the only remaining charter member of the
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