Pinchbeck Ranch

William Pinchbeck
Born in Yorkshire, England, Pinchbeck and two brothers had come to California in 1849 to mine, and ended up operating a hotel in San Francisco. After deciding that the Fraser River rush was more hype than reality, the brothers moved to Victoria and William joined the new police force in the city. In 1860, now settled at Williams Lake, Pinchbeck was named Chief Constable to the Gold Commissioner, Philip Nind, and given the responsibility of maintaining the peace in the region. He married an Aboriginal woman soon after arriving in the area, and started a family. His children were nearly grown when he went on a trip to England in 1884; on his return he was accompanied by a new bride, seventeen years his junior, and his sister and her family. When he died in 1893, he was in debt due to a loan he had taken, and his wife returned from one of her frequent trips to England to find that the property had been seized.