William Driscoll Gosset

Major-General
William Driscoll Gosset
FRSE
6th Surveyor General of Ceylon
In office
1855–1858
Preceded byW. H. Simms
Succeeded byCharles Sims
Personal details
Born13 April 1822
Charleville, Ireland[1]
Died19 May 1899 (aged 77)[2]
Kensington, London, England
ProfessionRoyal Engineer
Military service
Allegiance United Kingdom
Branch/serviceRoyal Engineers
RankMajor-General

Major-General William Driscoll Gosset FRSE (also Gossett; 13 April 1822 – 19 May 1899) was a British Royal Engineers officer[3][4] who was one of seven officers of the elite Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, that founded British Columbia as the Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866); and who served as 6th Surveyor General of Ceylon.

Early life

He was born in Charleville, County Cork, into a prominent Anglo-Irish family of Huguenot descent, the second son of Major John Noah Gossett (1793–1870) of the Rifle Brigade[5] and his wife, Maria Margaret Driscoll (1796-1883).

He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in 1840[6] and was involved in survey work in Britain 1840 to 1850. He was promoted to captain in November 1850.[6][7]

He was for his mapping work elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1850, subsequent to his proposal by Charles Piazzi Smyth.[8]

Ceylon

In September 1855 Gossett was appointed 6th Surveyor General of Ceylon,[6] succeeding W. H. Simms, as which he served until 1858. He was succeeded by Charles Sims.[9] He was active in recruiting and interviewing assistants in London, but failed to spot embezzlement by the survey's head clerk.[10]

British Columbia

Gosset was appointed to the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, as Colonial Treasurer, in November 1858,[6][11] and arrived in Esquimalt on Christmas Day 1858.[6]

He altercated with Colonel Richard Clement Moody's rival James Douglas, Governor of Vancouver Island, from 1860,[12] and uncovered bookkeeping issues, and recommended the dismissal of Alexander Caulfield Anderson.[13]

He served as Colonial Treasurer and Postmaster of British Columbia until 1860, when he became treasurer of Vancouver Island.[6]

In 1861, during a shortage of coin in the colony, Douglas sent Gosset, and the assayer Francis George Claudet, to San Francisco, to obtain equipment to start a mint in New Westminster, which Gosset subsequently operated during 1862.[14][15] Gosset was replaced as Treasurer in 1862.[11]

After British Columbia

Gosset returned to England on sick leave in 1862 and resigned from the Royal Engineers in 1863.[6] He was appointed to a Science and Art Department in London during 1873. He retired in 1894.

He died on 19 May 1899 at 70 Edith Road in West Kensington in London.[16]

Family

In 1852, Gosset at Eton, Berkshire, married his cousin, Helena Dorothea Gosset (b. 1830), who was the daughter of Isaac Gosset (1782 – 1855) and the granddaughter of James Lind of Windsor.[17][18] They had one son Ernest A. Gossett.

References

  1. ↑ UK, Regimental Registers of Service, 1756-1900
  2. ↑ "Deaths". Army and Navy Gazette. 27 May 1899. p. 10. Retrieved 10 February 2024.
  3. ↑ J. F. Bosher (April 2010). Imperial Vancouver Island: Who Was Who, 1850-1950. Xlibris Corporation. p. 304. ISBN 978-1-4500-5963-3.
  4. ↑ Ross, Victor; Trigge, Arthur St. L. (1920). A History of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, with an account of the other banks which now form part of its organization. Vol. I. Toronto: Oxford University Press. p. 463. Retrieved 9 April 2016 – via Internet Archive.
  5. ↑ Thom, Adam (1875). The Upper Ten Thousand: A Biographical Handbook of All the Titled and ... George Routledge & Sons. p. 188. Retrieved 9 April 2016 – via Internet Archive.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Gosset, Captain William Driscoll". The Colonial Despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1846–1871. University of Victoria. Retrieved 4 January 2026.
  7. ↑ Bulletins and Other State Intelligence. Compiled and arranged from the official documents published in the London Gazette. 1851. p. 526.
  8. ↑ Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-01-24. Retrieved 2016-07-19.
  9. ↑ "History". Survey Department of Sri Lanka. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  10. ↑ Barrow, Ian Jeffrey (2003). "Surveying in Ceylon during the Nineteenth Century". Imago Mundi. 55: 81–96. ISSN 0308-5694.
  11. 1 2 Allan Pritchard (1 November 2011). The Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney: 1862-65. UBC Press. pp. 54–5 note 20. ISBN 978-0-7748-4257-0.
  12. ↑ John Adams (2011). Old Square-Toes and His Lady: The Life of James and Amelia Douglas. TouchWood Editions. p. 133. ISBN 978-1-926971-71-1.
  13. ↑ Nancy Marguerite Anderson (2011). The Pathfinder: A.C. Anderson's Journeys in the West. Heritage House Publishing Co. p. 179. ISBN 978-1-926936-82-6.
  14. ↑ T. M. Scotty Gardiner (2010). In the Mind of a Mountie. Agio Publishing House. p. 261. ISBN 978-1-897435-37-3.
  15. ↑ "www.royalengineers.ca, The Gosset Gold Coin Affair". Retrieved 9 April 2016.
  16. ↑ Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-01-24. Retrieved 2016-07-19.
  17. ↑ Sir Bernard Burke (1871). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland. Harrison. p. 525.
  18. ↑ Gordon Willoughby J. Gyll (1862). History of the parish of Wraysbury, Ankerwycke priory, and Magna charta island [&c.]. p. 230.
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