Mullachard—home of the first colonist in Sooke.
IMAGE PDP34 COURTESY OF ROYAL BC MUSEUM, BC ARCHIVES
Dressing in silk, satin, or expensive brocade, and driving in highly polished, liveried carriages or the very latest electric automobile were mere trimmings to a life of overall wealth and elegance. For those who liked to think of themselves as Victoria’s elite, a more accurate symbol of their financial status was their homes.
From the beginning, it had been of paramount importance to be a person of property, and the grander and more elegant that property was, the more superior its owner felt.
The homes in this chapter are a sample of that earnestly sought-after splendour, a splendour that existed even in the days when Amelia Douglas longed to escape the confines of the fort and set up her own home. It continued down through the years, gaining momentum with every new home built in Victoria, as each attempted to out-do the one that went before.
A certain elite way of life was reflected by those homes. It is interesting to note, however, that of the sixteen residences and mansions mentioned here, only seven remain, an indication that the era when such regal mansions reigned supreme was short-lived.
Mullachard—home of the first colonist in Sooke.
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In 1849, some twenty-five miles from Fort Victoria in the wild Sooke countryside, Vancouver Island’s first settler, Captain Walter Colquhoun Grant, set about the unenviable task of clearing the land on which he proposed to settle.
The location, though truly isolated, seemed ideal as it was suitable for a sawmill as well as a house and the necessary farm buildings. The house was originally called Achaineach, but more commonly referred to as Mullachard, and was built of square logs, roofed with cedar shakes. It was located in the Sooke Harbour area between two rocky knolls on which were mounted two cannon.113 Grant also built adjacent accommodation for his labourers, adequate farm buildings, and the sawmill, and then set about cultivating at least thirty-five acres of his one hundred.
Grant’s dreams for future expansion on the adjacent one hundred acres, in order to form a small Scottish colony, never materialized.
Douglas home on Elliot Street.
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James and Amelia Douglas’s house, built in 1851, stood a little to the east of Government Street between Belleville and Elliot streets, near where the Royal British Columbia Museum stands today. It faced south and was surrounded by a fine garden. The grounds sloped down to the water’s edge. Although given authority to build another house as an official government residence, Douglas preferred to use his own home for all official occasions.
Building a large mansion in those early days was a problem. With no contractors and numerous difficulties in obtaining materials, construction was a slow process. The Douglas home was a Quebecois-style house, rectangular with two storeys and an attic. Divided by a wide hall, the main floor consisted of dining room and kitchen, and a front and back drawing room. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and another wide hall.
An 1861 assessment roll shows that the land was valued at four thousand pounds and improvements at ten thousand, nine hundred and fifty pounds. The following year the land was assessed at thirty-eight thousand pounds, but in 1868, after Douglas had subdivided the property, it was assessed at only six thousand, five hundred pounds with improvements at two thousand pounds.114
Amelia Douglas continued to live in the house for thirteen years after her husband died, seldom leaving the estate until her own death in January 1890. Members of the family lived on there for another decade. In 1902, an auction was held at what was billed as “the Old Colonial Official Residence.” At that time, most of the Douglas furniture was sold. On October 4, 1906, the house itself was sold by auction and then demolished in order to allow Elliot Street to go through to Government.
Only the cherry tree in James Douglas’s garden continues to bloom to this day as a reminder of the old Douglas home.
• • •
Helmcken House, the second-oldest house in the province, was built in 1853 for the young fort doctor, James Helmcken, and his bride, Cecilia Douglas, on property adjacent to the Douglas house. The contractor was Gideon Halcrow.
In view of shortages of both labour and material, it was no easy matter to build a house at that time. Helmcken himself stated in his Reminiscences that
there being no lumber, it had to be built with logs squared on two sides and six inches thick. The sills and uprights were very heavy and morticed—the supports of the floor likewise—the logs had to be let into grooves in the uprights.
Well, the timber had to be taken from the forest—squared there and brought down by water. All this had to be contracted for by French Canadians, then when brought to the beach—I had to beg big oxen of the company to haul it to the site. Then other Canadians took the job of putting the building up as far as the logs were concerned—and then shingling—the Indians at this time made shingles—all split. All this was very heavy, very expensive, and very slow work, for the men were by no means in a hurry . . .
Well, the shell is up—now to get it finished—lumber very scarce and a favour to get any at forty dollars per thousand in the rough—so it all had to be planed and grooved by hand! Much of it was cut by Kanakas in a saw pit—so it was not very regular thickness. He [presumably Halcrow the contractor] had a yellow cedar planking for doors, windows, and skirting boards sent down to him from Fort Rupert.115
Home of Dr. James Helmcken—638 Elliot Street.
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It is a testament to the soundness of the building, however, that Helmcken House still stands on its original site, over a hundred and fifty years later. Today, the pioneer doctor’s residence (the oldest house in the province open to the public) also has an incredible medical collection on display and is open from mid-June to mid-September (10:00 AM to 5:00 PM) with special holiday events offered at other times of the year, catering to school or other special groups.
• • •
Overlooking Esquimalt Harbour, later to be known as Skinner’s Cove, Oaklands was built in 1853, high up on a sunny slope. Many oak trees had to be cleared to accommodate the twin-gabled, one-storey structure for the growing Skinner family. The house was apparently “solidly built, homelike, and charming. Its shuttered windows opened wide to the fresh air and sunshine.”116
Mary Skinner planted a large garden around her home, reminiscent of the one she had left behind in England. It was full of all her favourite English flowers and enclosed by a trellis fence, giving all who came upon it the feeling they had discovered an oasis of beauty in that early colonial wilderness.
Oaklands has long since disappeared, and today Skinner’s Cove is the location of the Esquimalt Graving Dock.
The original J.D. Pemberton home was built in the late 1850s by men of the Hudson’s Bay Company. At that time, Pemberton paid them forty pounds to build him a thirty- by-twenty-foot log house with a barn and some outbuildings. The cabin was surrounded by five cultivated acres.
Home of Dr. James Helmcken—638 Elliot Street.
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Oaklands—the Skinners’ residence.
IMAGE B-00179 COURTESY OF ROYAL BC MUSEUM, BC ARCHIVES
In that small place, Pemberton and his sister managed, by candlelight, to entertain many of the early colonists. The old traditions of dressing for dinner, and a dining table with white tablecloth, china, sparkling glassware, and good wine, were carried on as though the cabin were an elegant mansion in London.
After Pemberton’s marriage, and with subsequent years of accumulating wealth and acreage, he was able, in 1885, to build Gonzales, a fine type of English country home, at Rockland and St. Charles.
Gonzales was little short of palatial. Its massive ten thousand square feet contained twenty rooms. The drawing room was an enormous forty-five feet by eighteen feet, and the dining room thirty feet by eighteen. There were five bathrooms, a billiard room, a library, and a separate writing room. The tower held a conservatory with splendid views of the city and the ocean. All the rooms were so large and high ceilinged, and so difficult to heat, that dinner guests often complained of shivering throughout the entire evening.
Gonzales—home of the Pemberton family.
IMAGE A-07779 COURTESY OF ROYAL BC MUSEUM, BC ARCHIVES
Following Teresa Pemberton’s death in 1916, the Gonzales estate was broken up, but the children continued to live on parts of the property. The house itself was sold and for a number of years was used as the residence of Norfolk House Girls School. Until the 1930s some of the roads in the area, such as Gonzales between Despard Avenue and Foul Bay Road, which once formed the original driveway, were still private property. In November 1952, Gonzales was demolished. The demolition crew was said to have found five gallons of honey in hives between the walls of the once elegant mansion.
Mount Joy—Fred Pemberton’s home.
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Mount Joy once stood at the corner of Foul Bay and Fairfield roads and was the home of Frederick Bernard Pemberton, J.D. Pemberton’s eldest son. The house was named for Mountjoy Square in Dublin, where Fred Pemberton’s great-grandfather, the mayor of Dublin, had once lived; it was built in 1903 on ten acres that were part of the original Gonzales estate. Mount Joy was known for is thirteen tiled fireplaces and a conservatory with its own miraculous heating plant. Fred Pemberton died in November 1947 at the age of eighty-three, and the house was subsequently sold. It sat vacant until March 1953, at which time it burned to the ground in a spectacular fire.
• • •
Today, Pentrelew Place, heading south from Fort Street near the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, marks the spot where once the estate of Henry Pering Pellew Crease was located.
Pentrelew—home of the Crease family.
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Pentrelew itself was built in 1875 on property Crease had acquired in the early 1870s. His intention had been to build a house in what was then the fashionable Italianate style, similar to Queen Victoria’s Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. He wrote to Wright and Sanders, San Francisco architects, regarding the design of the home, and he had very definite ideas. “We want the house plain but pleasing with clear bold projections and good exterior.”117 Both Henry and his wife, Sarah, made numerous suggestions in their correspondence and obviously wanted them all incorporated into the final design of Pentrelew.
The name Pentrelew was taken from the Cornish word meaning “house-on-land-sloping-two ways.” It was originally quite modest, but in 1890 was enlarged considerably. Additions to the house were designed by Leonard Buttress Trimen and included a three-storey, campanile-style tower, dormer windows, and many more rooms. Eventually, the house contained eleven bedrooms, two drawing rooms, a very large dining room, two pantries, a study, a morning room, and two kitchens.
Pentrelew soon became the site for important, high-society entertaining and often overflowed with guests from around the world. The large grounds surrounding the house were also famous for many years, the scenes of picnics and summer entertainments. It was said that hardly an admiral in the British navy had not, as a midshipman, once climbed the cherry trees at Pentrelew.
The English oaks behind the house are supposed to have been grown from acorns Henry Crease received from the English jurist Torrens, who had collected them from beneath the Tree of Liberty in the garden of William Pitt the Younger (under which tree, William Wilberforce, the renowned emancipator, had made a pledge to free slaves around the world).
Some more modern amenities such as electric light did not come to Pentrelew until the late 1930s. The house itself survived at 1201 Fort Street as the Victoria Truth Centre for some years but was much altered from its original design. Finally, in 1984, it was demolished.
• • •
Ince was built for Arthur Crease and his wife, the former Helen Tyrwhitt-Drake, daughter of a well-known Victoria judge, in 1908. The couple had married in 1903 and first lived in James Bay at the corner of Superior Street and Bird Cage Walk (which is today Government Street). In 1908 they commissioned architect William Ridgeway Wilson to design a larger home for them, and Ince was the result. The style was definite Tudor Revival, with its half-timbering on the upper storey and large columns next to the lower windows. Eight fireplaces were installed in the mansion.
In the 1950s, Ince was converted to suites. It still stands today at 2021 McNeill Avenue and is an important heritage asset, the last reminder of that once-famous legal family.
Ince—2021 McNeill (Arthur Crease’s home).
IMAGE F-07701 COURTESY OF ROYAL BC MUSEUM, BC ARCHIVES
Point Ellice House at 2616 Pleasant Street is one of Victoria’s oldest houses. Built by John Work around 1861 for his daughter, Kate, and son-in-law, Charles Wentworth Wallace, a steamboat and mining man, it has had a number of alterations through the years.
In 1867, Peter O’Reilly bought the house for fourteen thousand dollars and moved in with his family. He and Caroline raised their children there (their daughter Kathleen being born only a matter of weeks after they moved in). They also entertained many important guests in the house, including the first prime minister of Canada, Sir John A. Macdonald.
The house has twelve rooms and seven fireplaces, and the kitchen has a built-in French range and a brick inside chimney. Architects John Teague and William Ridgeway Wilson designed some of the alterations to the house at various times. Many of the original interior furnishings still exist today, including Persian rugs and much of the O’Reillys’ furniture. Members of the O’Reilly family lived at Point Ellice until the 1960s, when they opened the single-storey home to the public as a museum.
Point Ellice House (home of the O’Reillys), c. 1903.
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This private enterprise did not succeed, so in December 1974, the provincial government purchased Point Ellice House with all its contents and also opened it as a tourist attraction. Through the years since then, it has become a well-known historic site in Victoria and, like Helmcken House, is open for viewing from mid-June to mid-September, with daily tours of the house and garden—a garden that is a magnificent example of Victoriana in all its original splendour.
• • •
Fairfield House on Trutch Street was once approached by a long driveway, which now is part of Collinson Street. It was an elegant home and, according to the historian J.K. Nesbitt’s “Old Homes & Families,” was situated in acres of grounds . . . [with] oldtimers remembering ‘the Trutch estate’ as it was called, for its fields painted purple and gold and lily white with wild flowers. Horses grazed under the trees and cows chewed in the pastures, which are today the streets and houses of the Fairfield neighbourhood.
The exact date of the house’s construction is not clear, but it was around 1861 when Joseph Trutch purchased ten acres of land (formerly part of Governor James Douglas’s Fairfield Farm) and there built what was described as a prettily situated, modest cottage. In 1864, Trutch lent his house to Governor Kennedy for use as the vice-regal mansion while Cary Castle was undergoing renovations.
Fairfield House on Trutch Street.
IMAGE C-01218 COURTESY OF ROYAL BC MUSEUM, BC ARCHIVES
The year after Trutch’s death, the Trutch estate was subdivided and Trutch Street was put through. In 1906, the Colonist bemoaned this march of progress:
Tis goodbye to the estate where broom was first planted in Victoria—one by one the family demesnes—the scenes of old-time gaieties—are being swept away by the growth of the city and now the historic Trutch homestead is being divided up in the march of commercialism . . . The library, with its bookshelves in alcoves on either side of the open fireplace, and the drawing room, recall the many festivities held in the old mansion, when crinolined belles stepped gracefully through quadrilles and minuets, but abhorred that new fangled invention, the waltz.”118
Another writer remarked that there were many traces of its elegant past. The gracefully turned banister is Spanish mahogany. At the bend in the staircase is a magnificent stained-glass window, with green, red, and purple lights like emeralds, rubies, and amethysts. The fireplace mantel in the former library is California redwood, and in some rooms six-inch flooring still sparkles and shines. There are eight fireplaces, twenty-eight doors, and thirty-six windows. The high gables and eaves are typical of the times in which the house was built. Its low windows looked across the gardens and fields to the hills of Sooke, and it was said there was no finer sunset view in all Victoria than from the paved terrace that skirted the outside of Fairfield House.119
Interestingly, Trutch himself did not gain legal title to his home until 1890, well after the death of James Douglas. Trutch had previously only rented the land from the Douglas estate. After the property was subdivided, the house lost some of its value. Through the years, many other families lived at Fairfield House, including the Springetts and the Fatts. The house’s name was changed to Dulce Domun and later to Villa Elenore when it became a guest house. Renovations in the 1980s have now made the old home of Joseph and Julia Trutch an important part of the Trutch Street cluster of character houses.
• • •
Hollybank, which once stood at 952 Humboldt Street, was east of the site of the Fairfield Health Centre (the old St. Joseph’s Hospital). The Rithet family owned the entire block bounded by Humboldt, Vancouver, Collinson, and Quadra streets.
Hollybank—952 Humboldt Street (the Rithets’ home), c. 1903.
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The house was built as a wedding gift for Robert Rithet and his bride, the former Elizabeth Munro, by her father, Alexander Munro, a retired Hudson’s Bay Company factor. The young couple moved in soon after their wedding in 1875.
Hollybank was once one of the most beautiful and elegant mansions in Victoria. It was especially noted for its iron fence, six chimneys, holly trees, and winding garden paths. To the rear of the property was a two-storey barn with a number of outbuildings. In the paddocks numerous horses roamed.
The Beaconsfield—998 Humboldt (Genge family home), c. 1959.
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The Rithet family remained at Hollybank for many years. The house was finally demolished in 1953 shortly after Elizabeth Rithet’s death, but a piece of the famous iron railing fence was saved and moved to the grounds of the Royal British Columbia Museum. Today it surrounds James Douglas’s cherry tree, planted there in 1854.
• • •
In keeping with tradition, Robert Rithet also presented his daughter with a house as a wedding gift when she married Lawrence Genge in 1904. The Genge house, at 998 Humboldt, was built at the eastern end of the Rithet property. It was a Maclure design and underwent more Maclure renovations in 1913.
Hip-roofed and shingle-clad with a half-timbered second floor, the original design had a veranda on one side and an entrance porch on the other. The 1913 renovation added a sunroom gallery across the entire front elevation at ground-floor level. The house still exists as a bed and breakfast, called The Beaconsfield.
• • •
Duvals, at 1462 Rockland Avenue, was built around 1860 for Mrs. Elizabeth Miles, who later bought Cary Castle and sold it to Governor Arthur Kennedy. Duvals was later owned by Chief Justice Joseph Needham, who sold it to Francis J. Barnard in 1870. In 1895, his son, Harry Barnard, took his new bride to Duvals, and they lived there for the rest of their lives.
The home remained in the Barnard family for nearly eighty-five years, during which time it was the scene of many social functions. Today it is known as the Mary Manor Apartments on Rockland Avenue, opposite Government House.
• • •
The original Clovelly, built by A.J. Weaver, burned down and was rebuilt in 1894. At that time it was the residence of Mrs. A.J.W. Bridgman, and a Colonist report that year described the house:
Scarcely ever before, even in the brightest times, have so many houses of the first-class sprung into life in one year as in this year of Our Lord, 1894. One is in Esquimalt, the residence of Mrs. A.J.W. Bridgman. The principal feature is the beauty of the cedar panelling in the hall and inglenook, the drawing room being entirely of this exquisite wood. Another point of merit is the massive cedar staircase with the lower newel running to the ceiling and with a double arch on either side, through which is seen the 24-light stained-glass window. It would be hard to find a home which, though by no means large, is so complete in every respect. The contractor for the whole is Mr. George McFarland.120
In 1908 the house was sold to Sir Francis S. Barnard and his wife, and called Clovelly by them. It soon became the elegant backdrop for Lady Barnard’s numerous dinner parties, which earned fame due to their delicious menus, exquisite dining ambience, and guests from the upper echelon of society.
Duvals on Rockland Avenue (the Barnards’ home).
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Clovelly in Esquimalt (home of Sir Frank Barnard).
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By 1949, Clovelly, at 761 Sea Terrace, was occupied by the Sisters of the Love of Jesus. It was demolished in 1960.
• • •
The present-day Government House on Rockland Avenue, official residence for the lieutenant-governors of BC, is the third building to occupy that site. Today it is surrounded by nearly thirty acres of gardens. The previous two government residences both met the same fate, destruction by fire—the first in 1899 and the second in 1957.
Government House was long called simply Cary Castle. It was named for the original builder and first occupant, George Hunter Cary, who built his somewhat unusual, castle-like, turret home on a hillside overlooking Ross Bay in the early 1860s. Upon returning to England, Cary had left his castle vacant. It was bought by Mrs. Elizabeth Miles, who named it Stoneleigh.
Government House/Cary Castle, residence of the lieutenant Governor of BC, c. 1910.
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When the new governor, Arthur Kennedy, arrived in Victoria in 1864, there was no official residence for him, and he purchased Cary Castle from Mrs. Miles. Kennedy did substantial renovation work before finally moving himself and his family into the house in July 1865. He spent a great deal of money in the process and was criticized for his extravagance.
Subsequent lieutenant-governors made other alterations to the castle until the original was hardly recognizable. Julia Trutch, during her husband’s tenure there, brought larks and other songbirds from England, and tried to recreate a pleasant environment for them in the gardens.
One of the many important personages who stayed at the official residence (and also fell in love with it despite criticism from others) was Princess Louise, Queen Victoria’s daughter. During her three-month stay there, she described it as “halfway between heaven and Balmoral.”
The original Cary Castle burned to the ground on May 18, 1899, and the then lieutenant-governor, Thomas Mcinnes, was said to have escaped with only the clothes on his back. The A.A. Green residence, known as Gyppeswyck, became the official government residence for a while at a monthly rent of fifty dollars, until another Government House could be built. By the middle of 1903, the new Government House was ready for occupancy. There was also a new lieutenant-governor, Sir Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière.
James Dunsmuir succeeded de Lotbinière in 1906 and brought a new meaning to the words elegance, wealth, and entertainment. His American-born wife was an excellent hostess whose entertainment extravaganzas had never been seen in Victoria. The large Dunsmuir family (two sons and eight daughters) meant more additions to the house, including a nursery.
Through the coming years, there were constant fears and numerous warnings about the possibility of another fire, because of defective wiring and cigar and cigarette burns to rugs. An additional threat was the possibility of a brush fire in the surrounding grounds. On April 15, 1957, predictions came true and a “blast-like fire wiped out BC’s historic Government House” once again, said the Colonist.
[T]all, fire-blackened chimneys and an ornamental battlement rise today above the ashes and charred debris of what was once Government House . . . Stately rooms that were never coldly impersonal, that were always blessed with a warm, human graciousness, have gone . . . Through the massive oak doors had walked men and women of all degrees, received with a hospitality that brought stature to the province and had won respect, admiration and affection for those who dispensed it.121
New plans were soon under way for the third official Government House, with the final design reflecting the Maclure and Rattenbury style and incorporating the old stone porte cochère and tower left standing after the fire. Costs, not including furnishings, were estimated to be eight hundred thousand dollars.
Excavation for the new residence began in December; meanwhile, the flag of the lieutenant-governor flew over the Empress Hotel throughout the 1958 centennial celebrations. Princess Margaret and her large entourage stayed in the vice-regal suite at the Empress. On April 26, 1959, Lieutenant-Governor Ross moved into the new mansion, and in subsequent years numerous royal visitors and other notable guests have passed through the doors. A scroll bearing the word “Salve” (Latin for “welcome”) is engraved in the drawing room’s marble fireplace.
Today, the exquisite grounds of Government House, where a volunteer gardener program is now in place, are frequently used as a setting for wedding parties.
• • •
William John Macdonald, who came to Victoria from Scotland in 1851 working for the Hudson’s Bay Company, later prospered so well in business that he was able to purchase twenty-eight acres of prime real estate in James Bay.
In 1876, he commissioned architect Thomas Trounce to design a home for him. The result, a two-storey stone-and-brick residence completed in 1877, could only be described as imposing. It was built in the style of a castle on Skye and called Armadale.
Armadale had ten rooms on the ground floor and another twelve upstairs. The thirty-three-foot-long drawing room had a twelve-foot ceiling. The main staircase was polished mahogany. Eight solid marble fireplaces graced the residence, as did embossed ceilings and gold-and-black wallpaper. The house was naturally the scene of many an important social function, as it lent itself admirably to entertaining. Among its distinguished guests were Princess Louise, and Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald.
Armadale (Macdonald residence), c. 1903.
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The grounds of Armadale contained stables and a carriage house, as well as rolling lawns, tennis courts, and bridle paths, all adding to its beauty. William Macdonald and his wife, the former Catherine Balfour Reid, raised their six children (three sons and three daughters) at Armadale. During their absence abroad from 1890 until 1892, the house was rented to the Beetons. Henry Coppinger Beeton was a partner in the firm of Turner, Beeton and Company, wholesalers at the time of the Klondike gold rush. Beeton was also agent general for BC in London for a while. When he himself retired from public life, he moved to Weston-super-Mare in England and called his own house there Armadale.
In 1913, two years before Senator William Macdonald died, a syndicate of British and Canadian businessmen made him a substantial offer for his Armadale estate for a future housing development. In the spring of 1914, the senator and his unmarried daughter, Lilias, moved to Oak Bay, where William worked on his memoirs.
The land surrounding Armadale was subdivided into building lots, but a slump in the real estate market caused the whole deal to fall through, and the property reverted back to Macdonald for a while. Later it went to the city. The part south of Niagara Street became residential property while land to the north formed Macdonald Park. William Macdonald donated a portion of the land to be reserved as a playground. Niagara Street today cuts through what was once the driveway to Armadale.
Armadale itself was later converted into apartments. During the Second World War it also served as a nightclub, but because of the need for extensive repair, it slowly fell victim to neglect and vandalism. It was finally demolished in 1949, despite efforts to save the historic landmark.
• • •
Within the walls of the aforementioned mansions, one of Victoria’s favourite rituals took place on a regular basis: the all-important tea time.
In the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, tea had simply meant the practice of drinking cups of tea. Less than thirty years later, it had taken on a whole new meaning. It was now referred to as tea time or high tea and had become not only an additional meal but a veritable tradition among those of British descent.
The whole phenomenon can perhaps be attributed to actress Fanny Kemble’s visit to the Duke of Rutland’s castle at Belvoir, where one of her fellow guests was Anna, Duchess of Bedford.
Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria.
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I received on several occasions private and rather mysterious invitations to the Duchess of Bedford’s room and found her with a “small and select” circle of female guests, busily employed in brewing and drinking tea, with her grace’s own private tea-kettle. I do not believe that now universally honoured and observed institution of “five o’clock tea” dates farther back in the annals of English civilization than this very private and, I think, rather shamefaced, practice of it.122
With every passing year, more and more food was consumed with the beverage—including thin bread and butter, biscuits, cakes, muffins, hot scones, delicate watercress or cucumber sandwiches, and assorted buns and shortbreads—until finally the ritual had turned into a rather splendid tradition of special treats. Originally meant merely to alleviate the Duchess of Bedford’s “sinking feeling” while waiting for dinner at 8:00 PM, it could now be classified as a meal on its own.
Tea time arrived in Victoria with the upper-class ladies from England, all of whom prided themselves upon their teas. Their importance in society was very often judged by the standard of their teas, and they continued the tradition at their weekly at-homes well into the twentieth century.
By the turn of that century, Victoria was also well known for the many tea rooms scattered around the city. The Zetland, the Tea Kettle, Clays, the Cozy Corner, and Spencer’s tea rooms were all well patronized by the residents. In addition, most of the best hotel dining rooms, such as those at the Dallas and the Driard, served tea at 4:00 PM every day.
The Driard was once considered to be as fashionable and as grand as the rather splendid Palace Hotel in San Francisco, and was described in Emily Carr’s words as “all red plush and palm trees.” Having tea there was thought to be the very last word in elegance.
Another equally important ritual in early Victoria was the garden party. Each high-society family tried to outdo the others with the splendour of their grounds and the extravagance of their parties. Some of the grandest were held by the O’Reillys at Point Ellice House on the Gorge. Many famous people disembarked from a barge at the O’Reilly boathouse and strode up the gravel path to the rolling green lawns to enjoy a game of croquet (another ritual) or a set of tennis, or simply to sip tea in elegant surroundings. Those lawns also hosted the first women’s provincial tennis championships.
The O’Reilly gardens were renowned for their beauty. This was hardly surprising, as the O’Reilly family members were all avid gardeners and prided themselves on their horticultural talents. Gardening was considered by them, and by most of the elite, to be both spiritually and morally uplifting.
Kathleen O’Reilly carried on the gardening tradition after her father’s death in 1905. Hollyhocks, roses, jasmine, lily, and lilac are just a few of the delights to be found in this lovely old-world garden, where once the upper class in Victoria carried on the tradition of garden parties of the finest kind.
The O’Reillys kept extensive records in their diaries and journals of the laying out and planting schedules of their gardens, and they retained many seed catalogues and receipts. This has enabled historians to restore the gardens to the original concept for, by the 1950s, the gardens had become completely overgrown. Restoration was a mammoth undertaking, but it has been ongoing since the mid-1980s. Treasures such as the redwood tree planted by O’Reilly in 1876, as part of the woodland walk to protect his garden from prevailing winds and to provide a cool place to walk on a hot day, still exist.
Another important place to be invited for a croquet party was the Bowker family residence in Oak Bay. John Sylvester Bowker, an American, had come to British Columbia in the 1850s to try his luck in the Cariboo. He then farmed for a while on San Juan Island, and from there he frequently took his boat over to Oak Bay to call on his old friend, Hudson’s Bay Company man John Tod. In May 1864, Bowker married Tod’s daughter, Mary, and the couple spent their time between their sheep farm on San Juan Island and the Tod acreage in Oak Bay. Mary Bowker later became a renowned hostess at the Oak Bay farm. The setting was perfect for croquet lawns; some said they were the finest in the northwest, as they stretched almost to the beach at Willows and faced the islands across the strait. There was a tea house on the lawns and tea was served under the trees. Some guests even donned bathing suIts for a swim, thereby initiating the now-popular Willows Beach.
Another important ritual was the wedding ceremony and reception that, through the years, became a status symbol for the wealthy, as it depicted their standing in the community.
Two of the first and certainly the most charming wedding descriptions can be found in the words of Dr. James Helmcken and Martha Cheney. Both were simple affairs. That did not last, however, and it soon became popular to hold weddings of a very grand nature.
In the beginning, life was uncomplicated. When Helmcken married Cecilia Douglas at Christmas in 1852, he describes the nuptials in the following amusing manner:
The day before the time fixed it snowed and it snowed—lord, how it snowed!—so that a couple of feet of snow lay on the ground. The only thing approaching to a carriage was a two-wheeled light cart—the governor’s carriage—useless, there not being any roads. The bridegroom (himself) goes to church. The bride (his intended) and her maidens at home, waiting for the carriage. The cart was at the fort, had travelled a hundred yards the wheels no longer would turn and there was a dead stop. The charioteer, a lively, active, good-natured French-Canadian gentleman, full of resource, got an idea. He sent to the store for a dry-goods box, cut off the top and one side, put a seat in and threw some scarlet cloth over all. Having hewn a couple of willows growing close at hand, of these he made shaft and runners all in one! The box arriving is fixed upon the willow runners, the horse harnessed, the sleigh hastens for the bride and maids.
The poor bridegroom is waiting impatiently in the mess-room church; the hour approaches twelve! His best man rushes into the mess-room, to put the clock hands back, when he suddenly encounters the chaplain’s wife, dismayed he kicks out a dog, to disguise his intentions, and returns disappointed. The chaplain appears, and says, if the bride does not arrive before twelve, it only wants a quarter now, I will not be able to perform the ceremony today, it being illegal to do so. Here’s a pretty kettle of fish; but just then the tinkle of the sleigh bells are heard, and the bridesmaids and dry-goods box appear. The whole party hurry into the church, the ceremony is proceeding, the clock strikes twelve, just as the ring is put on the finger, etc.: the ceremony over, the bride and bridegroom leave the church to return to their parents’ house for a good time, and then the guns roar from the bastions. The bell in the middle of the fort rings—the dogs howl thereunder—the men fire muskets—all hurrah. Grog is served out all round, there is feasting, revelling and jollity, and everybody heart and soul wishes the handsome, favorite, and favored couple very many happy new years.123
This was a lesson in ingenuity; the old maxim “to improvise is to specialize” came to the fore.
Martha Cheney describes her wedding to Captain Ella on July 16, 1855, in an equally delightful manner:
I was married to Mr. Ella by the Rev. Mr. Cridge. We were married at home by special licence. It was a beautiful day, but very warm; we had a large dinner party, had a tent made out of doors, it being too warm in the house for so many people. The governor and his family honoured us with their company.124
In England in April 1853, another wedding showed the beginning of a trend toward the grander and more extravagant nuptials seen in Victoria in later years. Henry Crease married Sarah Lindley at Acton Church in London, and the apparel of bride, groom, and bridesmaids was of the utmost importance. In addition, the wedding cake was described as “a magnificent one, it stood 2 feet high with the ornaments.”125 The Creases’ honeymoon is even mentioned: it was spent on the Isle of Wight.
An important wedding, which was also an interesting alliance from a political standpoint, took place between Constance Skinner and Alexander Davie in 1874. The ceremony was held at the Skinners’ Cowichan home, Farleigh, and was presided over by the Reverend David Holmes.
Two of the O’Reilly family weddings were also social events of note. Caroline Trutch and Peter O’Reilly’s wedding in 1863 was a fairy-tale event. The sun shone brightly on that December day and the trees were festooned with glistening snow, as the carriage in which Caroline rode to Christ Church Cathedral with her brother set off on its journey. The carriage was decked with ribbons and rosettes and afterward carried the bride and groom to a wedding breakfast at Fairfield House. The honeymoon was spent at Belmont.
When their son, Arthur John O’Reilly, married Mary Beresford Windham, the wedding party was dressed in outfits that were fashionably rich, and the honeymoon was spent in Paris.
A Pemberton wedding of note took place between Ada Georgina Pemberton, J.D. Pemberton’s eldest daughter, and Hugo Robert Beaven in 1905. The ceremony was performed by the Right Reverend Bishop Cridge, who also proposed the health of the couple at the reception. He reminded the couple and their guests that
on such occasions there must be room not only for mirth, but for those hallowed memories which may keep their place in our hearts. The wheel of life must move, but our hearts are none the less tender, because we take the cup of joy, as we take the cup of sorrow, knowing both are from the hand of God.126
An interesting collection of gifts at the Pemberton wedding is mentioned, including an onyx clock and candelabra from the manager and staff of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, and a set of silver cruets from the staff of Pemberton & Son.
In a popular, quaintly worded phrase of the times, “a marriage was arranged and did take place” between John Trutch and Zoe Musgrave in December 1871. Here again, celebrations were elaborate, and the reception afterward was held at Cary Castle. As Zoe was the sister of the last royal governor, His Excellency Anthony Musgrave, as well as the future sister-in-law of the first lieutenant-governor, Joseph Trutch, the choice of Government House for the reception was appropriate.
The wedding in 1904 between Lawrence Genge and Gertrude Rithet was perhaps the very last word in splendour. Both Christ Church Cathedral, where the ceremony was performed by the Venerable Archdeacon Scriven, and Hollybank, where the wedding reception took place, were decorated with a brilliant profusion of flowers. The grounds of Hollybank were festooned with coloured lanterns, and everyone agreed the setting was perfect. Other than the Dunsmuir wedding extravaganzas, few families could compete with the Genge-Rithet wedding that year.
In 1882, when Alice Barnard married John Andrew Mara, the guests gathered at Duvals to witness the ceremony, performed in the drawing room by the Reverend Stephen. Later in the evening, furniture and carpets were cleared away and dancing went on well into the night, followed by a sumptuous meal at midnight.
The following year, Alice’s brother Frank married Martha Loewen at the Loewen home on Pandora Avenue. As a charming part of that ceremony, which was performed by the Reverend Jenns, the Victoria Leiderkrantz serenaded the newly married couple from the veranda. The couple left for a honeymoon in Portland, Oregon.
As the twentieth century dawned, high-society weddings in Victoria continued to be more and more elaborate. It was a far cry from the days when weddings between HBC men and Native women took place in the custom of the country.
• • •
Finally, the end of the journey, when the last rites were read over all those important pioneering spirits, also became something of a social extravaganza. From the very beginning, social status in the colony had dictated the way a person worshipped or the religion he chose and, at the end, Victoria funerals continued to reflect someone’s allotted place in life.
Religious differentiation was connected with social standing, and one early observer in Victoria noted that
we may assert that the religious sect was commonly determined by the extent of a man’s business, or his position . . . [It was] the Church of England, the “state church” as it was called by many, [that] contained the bankers, lawyers, wholesale dealers and the governing class.
“Just as with their augmented resources the people erect comfortable houses,” said a visitor, “so they seek to provide themselves with a church suited to their advanced social position.”127
The first church on Vancouver Island was erected on twenty acres of land granted by the HBC to the Church of England. The Reverend Edward Cridge, who had replaced the Reverend Staines in 1855, became the minister of “Christ’s Church,” which later became the cathedral (1865) and was destroyed by fire in 1869. Naturally, this was to become the established church and, as such, would control status among the governing class.
The Governor and his family sat in the “Governor’s Pew,” a large square apartment with a table, cushioned seats, carpets, and hassocks. One’s social standing was determined by the proximity of his pew to that of the Governor’s, and people sought to court the Governor’s favour by sitting in the free seats behind his pew. Seats were occupied in the gallery near the organ, and a few ladies and gentlemen sang in the choir. Hymns only were sung during the service. A great deal of equipment for the church, as well as a 25,000-pound endowment, was sent out from England by Miss Burdett Coutts, relieving the financial burden of the Church considerably, so that by the time Bishop Hills arrived early in 1860 to take charge of the diocese, a new church, Saint John’s, was in the process of construction.128
By April 1860, St. John’s (the “Iron Church”) was about to be consecrated and, again, had a primarily upper-class congregation.
In time, a mixture of religious denominations became apparent in Victoria, partly as a result of different ethnic backgrounds. The first Victoria directory lists two Anglican churches, one Roman Catholic, one Congregational, one Wesleyan, and one Presbyterian Church, and one Jewish synagogue.
Whatever church the upper-class citizens joined, church life would make up a large part of their social activity. Being involved in church work was an especially respectable role for the ladies. Organizing teas, bazaars, and other charitable endeavours occupied an enormous part of their lives and, more importantly, enabled them to be seen as pillars of society.
The church having played so large a part in their lives, it was hardly surprising that the funerals of some of the early colonists were splendidly extravagant. The funerals of the rich were always solemn, sedate occasions, when the virtues of the departed were extolled in a grand and elaborate manner.
Victoria’s original cemetery, which was at the southwest corner of Douglas and Johnson streets, was closed by 1860 because of numerous problems, not the least of which had been stray dogs digging up some of the graves.
Edgar Fawcett reports in his Some Reminiscences of Old Victoria that, as a young boy in 1859, he witnessed coffins and corpses being removed from their original location and re-interred in the Quadra Street Cemetery, now Pioneer Square.
Even this cemetery outgrew itself, and it was decided that a new cemetery should be found.
[A] place where our children and children’s children, as they wander through the winding avenues of that “City of the Dead” . . . will call to remembrance the early dead, and contemplate upon the mighty past.129
By 1873, burials were no longer taking place at Pioneer Square, as the land for Ross Bay Cemetery had been acquired the year before.
One of the first burials in Victoria was that of Charles Ross (after whom Ross Bay is named). Ross was the man who had first taken command of Fort Victoria, but his leadership was brief, as he died a few months later and was buried in the old burying ground near the gully on Johnson Street. On the ninety-ninth anniversary of his death, in June 1943, a monument to him was unveiled and stands today in Pioneer Square, where his remains are now buried.
Ross Bay Cemetery soon became the very epitome of grandeur with its “winding avenues” and elegant memorials. Many important people were laid to rest there. By 1881, the cemetery had over a thousand graves, the most important situated near the circular carriageways, an indication that wealth demanded a more strategic, easily accessible location. The BC Funeral Furnishing Company (owned by the Hayward family) conducted many of those early funerals.
Hearses were elaborate black-and-silver contraptions, with a profusion of carvings and trimmings. The horses drawing the hearse were draped in black net, from which hung many tassels. A child’s hearse, by contrast, was white and drawn by Shetland ponies draped in white net. They were all solemn affairs, conducted with pomp and ceremony and the appropriate degree of dignity.
By far the most impressive of all funerals was that of James Douglas. And, just as this narrative began with the Douglas family, so it should end with that solemn occasion in 1877, when the Father of British Columbia passed on. Victoria was plunged into deep mourning: buildings were draped in black, schools were closed, and only the rumble of navy guns in the distance broke the solemn silence as the funeral party wound its way to Ross Bay.
Earlier, Bishop Cridge had preached the sermon in the church that he and James Douglas had founded together, and declared that “the right man had been in the right place” at a time when BC had needed good leadership. The respect given him was rightly deserved and proves that indeed “no history of the province can be written without Sir James Douglas forming the central figure.”130