Adopted 12 December 1939 on 92 F/11, as labelled on BC map 2A, 1913, and as listed in the 1930 BC Gazetteer; subsequently confirmed on 92 F/6 and 92 F/7.

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

Note that the upstream portion of this watercourse was labelled "Fisher's River" , the downstream portion was labelled "Meads River", and the mid-section was not compiled on Plan of the Route of the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition, 1864.

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

After Dr. John Ash (1821-1886), Victoria physician and one of the sponsors of Robert Brown's Vancouver Island Exploration Expedition of 1864. Born at Ormskirk, England, arrived in Victoria in 1862 and the following year pre-empted Sections 43 and 47, Metchosin Land District; Crown Granted to him 25 May 1871. Member of the House of Assembly for Vancouver Island 1865-66; Member of the Provincial Legislature 1872-82. Served as Provincial Secretary and Minister of Mines to British Columbia's first Legislature after Confederation (1872-1874). In 1883 he purchased approximately 40 acres in what is now the Gordon Head area of Saanich, and encouraged public access by building trails through the woods and to the beachfront. Dr. Ash died 1886 at Victoria.
See also Mount Ash.

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

In 1865, Ash was elected to the House of Assembly of Vancouver Island as junior member for Esquimalt and Metchosin, and took his seat in the House on November 28, 1865, (Colonist, November 29, 1865, p. 3). He retained this seat until the union of the colonies in 1866. After Confederation he represented Comox in the Provincial Legislature, from 17 December 1872 to 12 June 1882. He served as Provincial Secretary in the Walkem government, from 23 December 1872 to 27 January 1876 when Walkem resigned, and it was in conjunction with this office that he became the first Minister of Mines for British Columbia. Appointed under the "Minister of Mines Act, 1874, his duties to be "in addition to his other duties" and "no salary to be attached."
He was twice married. His first wife, Dorothy Agar Ash, died in Victoria 6 November 1874 at the age of 51. By this marriage he had one daughter, Anne Freer Ash, who was born at Rosebank, Esquimalt (the property of Dr. Helmcken) 31 July 1873, and died in Victoria 4 August 1868. He married, secondly, Adelaide Anne Amelia, daughter of the late Sir John de Veulle, Knight, High Bailiff of the Island of Jersey.
Dr. Ash died of apoplexy 17 April 1886, in Victoria, where after two visits to England and since leaving politics in 1882, he had "settled down to the renewed practice of his profession in which, as on oculist, he enjoyed some celebrity." (obituary, Victoria Colonist, 18 April 1886, p 3).

Source: Provincial Archives of BC "Place Names File" compiled 1945-1950 by A.G. Harvey from various sources, with subsequent additions

Headwaters at 49 31 - 125 28 on 92F/11.

Source: Canadian Geographical Names Database, Ottawa