The Honourable Edgar Dewdney served as Lieutenant Governor of
the Northwest Territories during the Northwest Rebellion of 1885
and his even-handed response to this crisis is often credited
with preventing a general Native uprising. As well, he presided
over the removal of the territorial capital from Battleford to
Regina. During his term of office, Edgar Dewdney always felt
that his principal responsibility was Native affairs. Edgar
Dewdney was born in Devonshire, England, in 1835. Following his
education in England as a civil engineer, he emigrated to
British Columbia in 1859 when that province was still a British
colony. In 1864, he married Jane Shaw Moir, the eldest daughter
of Stratton Moir, a tea plantation owner from Colombo, Ceylon.
They had no children. Following the death of his first wife,
Edgar Dewdney married Blanche Kemeys-Tynte, daughter of Colonel
Charles John Kemeys-Tynte of Halswell, Somersetshire, England,
in 1909. Edgar Dewdney worked in British Columbia as a railway
surveyor for many years