Few stories in Vernon’s early history had the emotional impact of the lives of Walter and Clara Dewdney. Walter Dewdney (the brother of Edgar Dewdney, renowned British Columbia politician and Lieutenant-Governor) was Priest Valley’s first Government Agent.
Born in Exeter, Devon in 1837, he joined the 17th Lancers at the age of 17, participated in the Crimean War and served in India during the Mutiny when he was wounded and illness forced him to retire. He tried mining in the Cariboo and though he discovered a rich claim, could not afford the heavy cost of development. Selling the claim, he took on the position of constable at Richfield. He later assisted C.P.R. surveying crews, and then held the responsible position of Government Agent at Yale. He was transferred to Enderby in 1884 and then was moved to Priest's Valley in 1885. As stipendiary magistrate, he had a a reputation for justice and impartiality in his decisions.
Dewdney had six children by his first wife, the daughter of Victoria's then city clerk. Following her death and about the time of his move to Enderby, Dewdney married Clara Chipp, the daughter of pioneer Cariboo doctor, John Chipp. She had been governess for Edgar Dewdney's children at Government House in Victoria. When the Dewdneys moved to Priest's Valley, Clara was one of only a dozen women in the little cattle town and became known throughout the Interior as a fine hostess. The family lived in the Government cottage, which stood on Coldstream Avenue where McCulloch Court is now.
The continual stress of his onerous duties, on top of a painful kidney disorder, brought Dewdney to the point of despair. One evening in January of 1892, he shot himself, leaving a note that read: “No one credits me my illness. God help my family. I am getting softening of the brain. May as well die now as in the asylum.”
The list of Walter Dewdney's pallbearers read like a roll call of Vernon pioneers: Langille, O'Keefe, Cameron, Girouard, Coryell, Tronson, Postill, Burnyeat, Ellison, Fuller, Simms, and Wood. His brother, the Lieutenant Governor, was present. Walter Dewdney was buried in the Pioneer Cemetery off Alexis Park Drive.
A few years after Dewdney's death, Clara married William F. Cameron, a merchant and Vernon's first mayor. She was instrumental in the establishment of Vernon Jubilee Hospital in 1897. In December of 1900, suffering from an unknown and agonizing ailment, she, too, took her own life.
