James Audain

Who is James Audain?

James Audain was a soldier, author, and racehorse breeder/owner. Educated at Wellington College, Berkshire and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, he became a cavalry officer. He was the eldest grandson of BC premier James Dunsmuir.

Audain eventually moved to Canada where he lived in Victoria, British Columbia on Vancouver Island for much of his life. A writer, he served as president of the Craigdarroch Castle Society and the Victoria and Islands branch of the Canadian Authors Association. He published a biography about his family called Coal Mine to Castle: The Story of the Dunsmuirs of Vancouver Island.

Audain continued in a somewhat revelatory mode with his book about 'problem drinkers' entitled Courage to Change The Things We Can, which focuses on a group of people recovering from alcoholism in the Alcoholics Anonymous program in London during the late 1950s. Audain's My Borrowed Life is an autobiography dealing with his own alcoholism, supplemented with material on both the author's parents' families. He also self-published Alex Dunsmuir's Dilemma, about his great-uncle Alexander.