Portrait of Robert Dunsmuir

People/magnate, miner

Robert Dunsmuir

Robert Dunsmuir (1825–1889), magnate, miner, politician, from United Kingdom. Linked to coal.

The lucky break

Staked the rich Wellington coal seam north of Nanaimo and created Dunsmuir, Diggle Limited in 1873 with naval officers' money.1,2

Story cards

Where next

People

FamilyJames DunsmuirA father's coal seam made his son a lieutenant governor.3

Sources

  1. DUNSMUIR, ROBERT Dictionary of Canadian Biography
  2. File pages and licence metadata for portraits (via the Commons imageinfo/extmetadata API) Wikimedia Commons
  3. DUNSMUIR, JAMES Dictionary of Canadian Biography

Pictures on this page: Robert Dunsmuir.jpg, William Downie (Public domain); James Dunsmuir.jpg, not recorded on the file page (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0; Haul trucks by Lechhabmed, CC BY-SA 4.0.