Mount Benson Elementary got its name from Mount Benson, which the school has an excellent view of, and because it was the public school for children who lived on the north-east slope of the Mountain. The Mountain itself was named after Doctor Alfred Benson,: who was an Employee of the Hudson's Bay Company, the first doctor in the area, a photographer, a collier and a friend of Robert Dunsmuir, the founder of Wellington. The name of Wellington was moved to the junior high school level with the opening of a Wellington Junior High School in 1967.