To this point, the social life of upper-class families in Victoria had been controlled by those in a governing position, those who were farming the land, and those who were surveying it. It was inevitable that sooner or later lawyers would also become involved as part of the social scene.
Henry Pering Pellew Crease, a native of Cornwall, was the lawyer destined to lead the way. Born in August 1823 at Ince Castle, near Plymouth, he was the eldest son of Captain Henry Crease, an officer in the Royal Navy who retired early to manage tin mines for the Duchy of Cornwall. Henry’s mother, Mary Smith, was the heiress of Ince Castle and an artist of some note. As a boy, Henry attended Mount Radford School in Exeter and was a contemporary of Joseph Trutch, who would later become British Columbia’s first lieutenant-governor.
Henry graduated from Clare College, Cambridge, and was called to the Bar of the Middle Temple in London. After being called to the Upper Bar in 1849, he moved with his family to Toronto hoping to salvage the family fortunes, which had been slowly dwindling. Failing to prosper there, he returned alone to England where Sarah Lindley, his fiancée, was waiting for him.
By 1858, he had decided to try his luck again in Canada, this time in the west. So, at age thirty-five, he came to Victoria, hoping the news he had heard of the Cariboo gold rush was true and that he would soon make his fortune. His wife and three small daughters, Mary, Susan, and Barbara (one son had died in infancy) would come out two years later.
Crease soon made his mark in Victoria, not as a gold seeker but as a lawyer and politician. On December 22, 1859, as his wife and daughters were sailing to join him, an advertisement in the Colonist shows that he was already running for election in the House of Assembly:
I claim your suffrages as a liberal and independent reformer. Every measure that will promote the rapid growth of this promising colony, and foster its real progress, will have my warm support.32
In December 1859, he became Victoria’s first barrister when he was called to the Bars of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. On October 14, 1861, he also became Attorney General of the Colony of British Columbia, and in 1870 he was made Justice of the Supreme Court.
As a member of the executive council and as Attorney General, Crease was part of the group who drafted the Terms of Union with Canada in 1870, and had opened the notorious debate on the subject of Confederation in March that year. He was well aware of the importance of the occasion, as he felt strongly that Confederation was the only choice for “faithful subjects of the British crown.” He emphasized his opinion with these words:
Our only option is between remaining a petty isolated community . . . or, by taking our place among the comunity of nations, becoming the prosperous western outlet on the North Pacific of a young and vigorous people, the eastern boundary of whose possessions is washed by the Atlantic.33
Despite his legal and political successes, Crease, it would seem, also made enemies, the most notable being Amor de Cosmos, politician and fiery editor of the Colonist.
Through the years, de Cosmos was both for and against a number of political issues. When Crease won his first election, de Cosmos was busy waging a tireless campaign against the Hudson’s Bay Company, James Douglas, and anyone else he suspected of being company linked, including Henry Crease. His editorial in January 1860 had even intimated that “agents of the Company [had] secured the return of Tolmie and Crease” to power. De Cosmos’s caustic and often bitingly poisonous pen continued to attack Henry Crease and his contemporaries in the newspapers of the day.
Sarah Lindley Crease joined her husband in late February 1860. Her arrival aboard the Athelstan was welcomed by Henry, but Sarah was surprised to find that her husband was already involved in the stormy political scene.
Sarah was the artistic elder daughter of a famous London botanist Dr. John Lindley. She was born in a suburb of London in November 1826, and grew up with a love of gardens and a wide knowledge of plant life, passed on by her father. She also was a proficient artist and enjoyed engraving on copper, sketching botanical specimens, and making watercolour sketches. She spoke both French and German and enjoyed reading and writing. Her mother’s strong religious beliefs had been a large part of Sarah’s life since childhood, and one of her earliest memories was being present at Queen Victoria’s coronation in Westminster Abbey.
It was perhaps their mutual love of art that had first brought Henry Crease and Sarah Lindley together. Sarah once described her feelings for Henry in a typically Victorian manner:
You know how I have told you before, that I fell in love with your drawings (the coloured ones in those days). I read in them a character which I was sure I could not help loving.34
The couple married at Acton Church in London on April 27, 1853, and Sarah sketched her own wedding cake, which stood two feet high with the ornaments. After a honeymoon on the Isle of Wight, the Creases settled in St. James Square in London. When Henry left to seek his fortune in the new world in 1858, Sarah waited at home with their daughters.
She set sail to join her husband in August 1859, and the voyage must have seemed like going to the very ends of the earth. It was a particularly brave thing to do, for she had always disliked the sea and was terrified by some of her unpleasant experiences during the six months before she reached Victoria.
Initial impressions of Victoria were not good. The family’s first accommodation was in bare, cold rooms that they were forced to share with a family of rats. Later they secured a small cottage on Fort Street and eventually moved to Fernwood, the house that Crease’s friend, Benjamin W. Pearse, had built. Pearse, being a bachelor at that time, had no need for such a large home. During her first months in Victoria, Sarah began painting watercolour sketches. Many of these she sent to her family back in England as a pictorial record of her early impressions so that they could better understand the life she was now leading. Making them was “a pleasure and a solace to the ‘home sickness’ that most people going to a far country know so well.”35
Her father entered these sketches in the British Columbia Department of Canada section of the London International Exhibition of 1862. According to Sarah’s own inscription on the cover of one of the twelve paintings she sent home, she claims that her father’s “sole object in displaying these poor sketches to the public, was simply for the interest of those who had dear friends or relatives in Victoria, BC, and for those who might be thinking of going to that Colony themselves.”36
Like Joseph Pemberton’s books, Sarah Crease’s watercolours served as a descriptive record of life in the young colony. She sketched the fort in its last days, the red-brick government buildings, Government, Yates, and Fort streets, Native women, churches, and pretty landscape scenes.
Late in 1861, the Creases moved to New Westminster, which was quickly overtaking Victoria as a social and political centre. Henry Crease had been made Attorney General of BC by then, and his work was chiefly centred on the mainland.
Before long, the Creases were part of that close-knit circle of upper-class families whose social life was extremely full. In her book, A Pioneer Gentlewoman in British Columbia, Susan Allison wrote of this social life:
We met many friends, Judge Crease and his family, our old friend, Mr. O’Reilly and his wife, formerly Miss Trutch (sister to Joe and John Trutch) . . . Our society leaders were Mrs. Trutch, Mrs. O’Reilly, Mrs. Crease.37
Perhaps it was this active time as “society leaders” in New Westminster that set the pace for these ladies to form the social nucleus in Victoria over the next four decades. Their New Westminster social activities at Government House or aboard ships such as the Cameleon and the Sparrowhawk meant “lots of gaiety for the young people.”38
Colonel Moody and the Royal Engineers organized theatricals, dances, and musical events. Picnics were held along the banks of the Fraser River in summer and skating parties in winter. During this period, the Creases also attended the opening of the Alexandra Suspension Bridge with their friends, the Trutches.
Their home on Sapperton Road was called Ince Cottage, and during their years in New Westminster, two more children were born to them, Josephine and Lindley. The Trutches were godparents to Josephine.
From 1861 until 1870, Henry Crease drafted most of the laws for the new colony, so his role in the settlement and establishment of the area was quite considerable. He described this time rather amusingly:
Became Attorney General in July, 1861. Worked like blazes and did all the Government business in the House and drew and fought thro’ the House over 500 Acts of Parliament & the Crown business of Colony.39
In 1868, the Creases, with their five children, moved back to Victoria where the new capital of the joint colonies was finally to be established. They had made many investments on the mainland, so the move back to Vancouver Island was not financially satisfactory.
Their first task was to find a suitable home for their growing family; two more sons were born to them, Henry and Arthur. For a while the Creases rented Woodlands on Government Street near Beacon Hill Park, the home of James Bissett. In October 1871, they picked a property on Fort Street Hill (the part that was then known as Cadboro Bay Road), which belonged to Edward Graham Alston. It consisted of five acres of fields and oak trees, and an old house they planned to remodel. A few days before they were due to move in, the house mysteriously burned to the ground, so again the family was temporarily homeless and financially harmed.
They found a house to rent at the corner of Menzies and Superior streets but still owned the Alston land and, in 1874, they laid the cornerstone for their own home on that acreage. The new house, completed in 1875, was called Pentrelew, a Cornish word meaning “house-on-land-sloping-two-ways,” and was later to become important in the province as a political and social centre.
There were eventually six Crease children growing up at Pentrelew. Son Henry had died in infancy and one daughter, Barbara, died young. Apart from these tragedies, the Crease home was a happy one. Sarah taught all four daughters to sketch and, as was to be expected, the two Crease sons became interested in law.
When Lindley and Arthur Crease were growing up, there was a notable lack of good boys’ schools in Victoria, so Lindley was sent to England to be educated; he was only ten years old. He began his schooling at Conynghan House School in Ramsgate, where he was teased unmercifully about his Canadian background. Nicknamed “Beavergrease” or “Greasepot,” he suffered these insults bravely as he attempted to settle into the strange English way of life.40 Later, after excelling at sports and winning prizes for English and French, he was enrolled at Haileybury College. He returned to Canada in 1885. His brother, Arthur, who had attended the Boys’ Collegiate School in Victoria, was also sent to Haileybury College in 1886 at age fourteen.41
The Crease girls received their education in Victoria, first from their mother at home, then at Mrs. Fellows’ Private School for Girls, and later at Angela College on Burdett Street, where Henry Crease’s sister, Emily Howard Crease, was principal in the 1870s, following in the footsteps of Susan Pemberton. Later, both Susan and Josephine Crease took art courses through the Ladies Department at King’s College, London, a bold and innovative move for young women at that time. The entire Crease family, through their love of and dedication to art, were later very active in Victoria’s art circles. Josephine Crease was particularly involved in the Victoria Sketch Club, which was formed in 1900, and in 1903 she was elected president.
The family was also very community minded. Anglican by religion and Conservative in their politics, various family members were also involved with the formation of the Alexandra Club, the Masonic Order, St. Andrew’s Lodge, and the Men’s Canadian Club. Sarah Crease was an accomplished and charming hostess, a little in advance of her time, as evidenced by her interest in women’s rights movements. She was an active member of such organizations as the Local Council of Women and the Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire. Her daughters, Susan and Josephine, were involved in similar issues. In recognition of her work with the Local Council of Women, Susan Crease was awarded the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal in 1935. Josephine was a particularly active organizer of the Alexandra Rose Tag Days, which raised much-needed money for hospitals.
All these activities show that, despite their wealth and position in society, the Crease women were far from idle. Indeed, they used their power and influence to achieve a great deal for the community.
In the early years, Sarah Crease frequently accompanied her husband on the mainland when he carried out his judicial duties there, by steamer, stage coach, private coach, or simply on horseback. A brave woman, she endeavoured to keep pace with her husband at all times, witnessing firsthand the rough life of the Cariboo.
Following a horse-riding accident, Judge Crease was forced to hold court while lying on a stretcher in great pain. Sarah was there at his side, assisting as best she could. Another time, she witnessed her husband being held at gun-point when they were riding through wilderness. Her unusually calm reaction to this episode, which might have caused a more faint-hearted woman to experience an attack of the vapours, probably prevented a tragedy, and the incident passed off without harm.
Even at home, life was not without its excitement. In March 1887, Ah Chu, a Chinese servant, who had previously been a loyal, hard worker, suddenly seized an oil can and threw it on the kitchen fire, spreading flames across the floor and into the nearby wood box. Obviously deranged, he then grabbed a large kitchen knife and proceeded to attack a guest staying at Pentrelew, who had tried to calm him. The guest received numerous wounds before the servant fled, by which time everyone was more concerned with trying to extinguish the fire. A contractor working on a nearby building ran to Pentrelew with his men and, with the aid of a hose, finally managed to quell the flames.
Meanwhile, the servant had taken off for Clover Point, and there he attempted to end his life by rushing headlong into the water. A spectator dragged him to safety, and it was later discovered that he had swallowed a quantity of the coal oil himself prior to the incident.
The Chinese culture was obviously very foreign and, although having Chinese servants was customary among the elite of Victoria, families such as the Creases often found the Chinese difficult to get along with and made little or no attempt to understand them. Many misunderstandings occurred as a result of differences in language and customs.
A rather patronizing letter written by Sarah Crease in 1864 illustrates this attitude of many upper-class families to their Chinese servants:
We have all been longing to let you know what a charming Chinaman we have got. I don’t know when we have had things so comfortable as since he came. He is clean, orderly and industrious, bakes and cooks to our hearts content . . . God, I’m sure, sends such Chinamen as all good things come from Him.42
In 1896, a great honour was bestowed upon Henry Crease; a memo was received from Lord Aberdeen on January 1:
It gives me much pleasure to inform you that the Queen approves of the bestowal of Knighthood upon you on the occasion of your retirement from an honorable judicial career, commencing so many years ago, that you are now the only remaining Judge in Canada appointed directly by the Imperial Government. Accept sincere congratulations and best wishes.43
The judge was now to be known as the Honourable Sir Henry Pering Pellew Crease. The Colonist of January 3, 1896, was ecstatic in its praise, this being one year after the death of Amor de Cosmos, a Crease critic, and long after his association with that newspaper. The paper reported:
The people of British Columbia will be well satisfied the Queen has been pleased to confer the honour of knighthood upon Mr. Justice Crease. They will, no doubt, look upon it as a fitting closing of a useful and honorable career at the bar and upon the bench. The new Knight’s ability as a Judge has gained for him the respect of British Columbians generally and his uniform courtesy, his geniality and his amiability secured for him hosts of friends, in every part of the province. Sir Henry carries with him into retirement the esteem and good wishes of all who have had the privilege of making his acquaintance in any capacity.44
Sir Henry lived on for nine more years at Pentrelew until his death there in 1905. Lady Crease outlived him by many years, dying in 1922 at ninety-six.
Following Sarah Crease’s death, Lindley, Josephine, and Susan continued to live at Pentrelew, attempting to uphold the old traditions and the style of social life that had once existed there.
Mary Maberly Crease was the only daughter to marry. She and an English lawyer, Frederick George Walker, were wed in 1886 and had five children: Madge, Jerry, twins Freda and Joan, and Harvey.
Though Lindley Crease never married, he was engaged twice. In 1903, his brother Arthur married Helen Louise Tyrwhitt-Drake, a childhood friend of the Crease children, and the daughter of another judge. The couple had four children: Harry, Maude, Thomas, and John.
The name of Crease has survived in Victoria through the law firm of Crease & Company. Established in 1891 by Lindley Crease (who had been admitted to the Bar in 1890), the firm later included his brother, Arthur, and Frederick C. Fowkes. Through the years since then, there have been many legal connections to the original firm, but eventual amalgamation of all these legal lineages became the law firm of Crease & Company. A further reorganization and amalgamation with Harman & Company in 1992 created the firm of Crease, Harman & Company.
Many of the Crease family are buried in Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria. Arthur, the youngest of Sarah and Henry Crease’s children and the last remaining Crease of the original legal dynasty, died in 1967.
The Crease family had greatly influenced the social life and times of early Victoria, just as the name Crease still pulls considerable weight in legal circles well over a century later.