Lytton Shatford

Who was Lytton Shatford?

Lytton Wilmot Shatford was a British Columbia politician and businessman.

Born in Hubbards, Nova Scotia, he moved west during one of the British Columbia gold rushes where he and his brother, Walter Tyrrel Shatford, ran a general store in the gold mining town of Fairview near what is now Oliver. They also owned the Shatford Mercantile Store in Hedley which was one of the town's first permanent structures.

In 1905, the brothers established the Southern Okanagan Land Company. They proceeded to purchase and subdivide land north of the Canada/US border and installed in irrigation system in the area of Vaseux Lake. In 1918, they sold 22,000 acres to the government of British Columbia for $300,000 in order to settle demobilized Canadian soldiers following World War I.

Shatford was elected to the British Columbia Legislative Assembly in the 1903 provincial election as a Conservative representing the riding of Similkameen. He remained in the legislature until 1917 when he was appointed to the Canadian Senate by Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden. He died in office in 1920.

He was the second president of the BC and Yukon Chamber of Mines, founded in 1912. The first president was Robert Hedley. Shatford was elected at the organization's first annual general meeting in 1913.