Amor De Cosmos
| Amor De Cosmos | |
|---|---|
Hon. Amor De Cosmos
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| 2nd Premier of British Columbia | |
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In office December 23, 1872 – February 9, 1874 |
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| Monarch | Victoria |
| Lieutenant Governor | Joseph Trutch |
| Preceded by | John Foster McCreight |
| Succeeded by | George Anthony Walkem |
| MLA for Victoria District | |
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In office October 16, 1871 – February 9, 1874 Serving with Arthur Bunster |
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| Preceded by | first member |
| Succeeded by | William Archibald Robertson |
| Member of the Canadian Parliament for Victoria District |
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In office September 20, 1871 – October 12, 1872 |
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| Preceded by | new member |
| Succeeded by | riding abolished |
| Member of the Canadian Parliament for Victoria |
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In office October 12, 1872 – June 20, 1882 Serving with Henry Nathan, Jr., Francis James Roscoe, John A. Macdonald |
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| Preceded by | new member |
| Succeeded by | Edgar Crow Baker |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
August 20, 1825 Windsor, Nova Scotia |
| Died | July 4, 1897 (aged 71) Victoria, British Columbia |
| Political party | Liberal Party of Canada until 1882 |
| Children | 1 daughter (disputed) |
Amor De Cosmos (August 20, 1825 – July 4, 1897) was a Canadian journalist, publisher and politician. He served as the second Premier of British Columbia.
Amor De Cosmos was born William Alexander Smith in Windsor, Nova Scotia to United Empire Loyalist parents. His education included a stint at King's College in Windsor, following which, around 1840, he became a mercantile clerk in Halifax, Nova Scotia. There he joined the Dalhousie University debating club, and came under the influence of the Nova Scotia politician and reformer, Joseph Howe. In 1845, at the age of 20, he converted to Mormonism and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1852, he left for New York on a steam ship stopping first in Boston. He settled in Kanesville, known as Council Bluffs, Iowa, for two months where he established a daguerreotype gallery. But the following year the lure of the California Gold Rush beckoned, and Smith continued west, heading overland to Placerville, California. Here he set up a new studio and prospered taking pictures of the miners and their operations. Joined by his brother, the pair moved northwest to Oroville, California, where they engaged in various unspecified entrepreneurial ventures. In 1854, Smith successfully petitioned the California State Assembly to have his name changed to "Amor De Cosmos", a fancifully loose translation (using Latin roots) of "Lover of the Universe", although in Portuguese and Spanish, it literally means Love of Cosmos. The name paid tribute, De Cosmos said, "to what I love most ... Love of order, beauty, the world, the universal."
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