Staines Point adopted 6 November 1934 on National Defense sheet 415a, Victoria, as recommended by Hydrographic Service, not "Ripple Point" as labelled on British Admiralty Chart 577, 1870 et seq.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

Re-named by H.D. Parizeau, Hydrographic Service, after the Reverend Robert John Staines, who arrived in this country in 1849 in the bark Columbia, as Chaplain for the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Victoria. Staines and his wife [namesake of Staines Island] established and taught the first school in the Fort, but Mr. Staines' natural disposition soon got him into trouble with the Company. At an early date he joined the settlers faction, and as their delegate, embarked to England to report the settlers' grievances. He left Sooke in a lumber-laden craft, but scarely had the ship left the strait when off Cape Flattery a storm struck her, throwing the vessel on her beam ends. Mr. Staines, below in his cabin, was drowned. According to A.C. Anderson, Staines left in 1853, but the register in Victoria's Christ Church Cathedral identifies his departure as February 1854 [these dates may refer to cessation of his duties with the HBC, rather than his departure for England.] A.C. Anderson further says that Mrs. Staines was probably the first English lady who landed on Vancouver Island.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

RE: the wreck of the British bark Lord Raglan: "...This vessel had taken on a full cargo of piling and lumber at Sooke, BC and was outbound for England in June of 1854. Aboard the vessel were the Reverend Robert John Staines and his wife Emma. Staines had been the first minister of the Gospel at Victoria, having arrived there in March 1949 aboard the bark Columbia. He was also a leader of the Independents on Vancouver Island, demanding free land grants as in Oregon. He was on his way to England to place a petition before the Crown for such a measure, having retired from this preaching and teaching post on June 1 of that year. The Raglan moved down the strait and rounded Cape Flattery and Tatoosh Island into the slanting rain of a high-velocity southerly gale. Buffeted by tremendous seas, [waves] were breaking over the Raglan's heavy deckload when it was last sighted. By the following day the Lord Raglan had literally vanished from the sea... with all hands including her six passengers... The only clues were some pieces of wreckage that later came ashore on the West Coast of Vancouver Island." (James Gibbs, Shipwrecks off Juan de Fuca, Binfords & Mort Publishers, Portland, 1968, p.24) [note that on his flyleaf index, Gibbs identifies the Lord Raglan shipwreck as occurring in 1852.] [note that Emma Staines was not aboard the fated vessel, and returned to England the year after the tragedy according to other histories.]

Source: included with note

"...without asking for a leave of absence from the company, Staines boarded the Duchess of San Lorenzo, bound for San Francisco, at Sooke on or about 1 March [1854]. The vessel, which was carrying a heavy deck load of timber, foundered in Juan de Fuca Strait and all aboard were lost. Some years later the HBC doctor John Sebastian Helmcken remarked that when news of the disaster reached Victoria ' there was a general pity - he was praised or blamed - a martyr or a fool as the case may be, but all nevertheless regretted his end.' Emma Frances Staines sold off the farm stock and returned to England with her nephew in January 1855... Recognized in the colony as an intelligent, well-informed, and gifted teacher, Robert John Staines - priest, pedagogue, and political agitator - was none the less poorly adapted as a pioneer settler and he left his mark primarily as a fomenter of ill will." (Robert John Staines entry in DCB Online, Nov 2008)

Source: Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, published by Library and Archives Canada www.biographi.ca