Reginald Atherton was born in England but spent most of his life in the Kootenays where his father, John Joseph Atherton was a newspaper publisher. A professional accountant, Reginald Atherton was first elected to City Council in 1957 and was subsequently re-elected for 1960, 1961, 1966, 1967 and 1968. In 1970, he was honoured as a Freeman of the City of Vancouver.
Ritchie, Frederick Arthur Reginald
Reginald Ritchie was born in Levis, Quebec. He worked in various eastern banks before heading west to work on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. After a period in Alaska (1907), he eventually settled in Vancouver in 1910, where he established the Ritchie Contracting and Supply Company with his brother, Purves. He served in the Engineer Mechanical Division during World War I. After the war, he resumed his business career with his brother in Purves Ritchie Company and Ritchie Equipment Company, acting as Managing Director until 1961.
Reinhard Hoffmeister was born in Wellington County, Ontario. He came to Vancouver in 1888 and established the city's first electrical shop. He built the city's first electric generator, which was used to create light and test electric apparatus. He also installed electrical plants at the B.C. Sugar Refinery, the Trail smelter, and the original Hotel Vancouver. He patented the designs for an electrical gold mining machine and a combined brake and footrest for bicycles. After his death, the business was carried on by his brother, Jacob, and son, Frank.
Richard Henry Alexander (1844-1915) was Manager of Hastings Mill and a public official in the Vancouver area.
He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and emigrated to Toronto with his parents. In 1862 he travelled to the Fraser River gold fields. After arriving in New Westminster he was involved in various occupation until he took charge of the Hastings Mill Store in 1870. He soon became accountant for the mill, and then was made the manager of the mill upon the death of Captain Raymur. He also served as a Justice of the Peace, and as a member of the School Board of Granville, Burrard Inlet, and was involved with numerous other public bodies.
Richard Storer was born in England and moved to Vancouver prior to World War I. He served as a fighter pilot and aerial photographer with the Royal Flying Corps and was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre. After the war, he returned to Vancouver and established a printing business, but he continued to fly. In 1932, he and a co-pilot flew from Montreal to Vancouver in a biplane to attempt a one-day non-stop air mail service.
Robert Bruce was born in Vancouver. Trained as a carpenter, he also worked as a bookkeeper. He also owned a small boatbuilding workshop on Dollarton Highway.
Dr. Robert Fraser (1859-1940) was born in Westmeath, Ontario, and graduated in medicine from Queens University in 1884. He served as assistant surgeon for the C.P.R. Lake Superior Division for one year before undertaking medical studies in London, England, from 1885 to 1886. On his return, he established a medical practice in Thomasville, Ontario, before coming to Vancouver in 1921. He stood for election as a Councillor of the Municipality of Point Grey and was elected by acclamation for four terms between 1925 and 1929. He was a leading advocate of the amalgamation of Point Grey and Vancouver, and served as alderman for the XII ward (West Point Grey) for two terms. He was also on the teaching staff of the Medical Faculty of the University of Manitoba and was active in public health work. He was a member of the Greater Vancouver Health League and was one of the founders of the Preventorium.
Robert Norris Manning was born in Vancouver. He grew up in the Kerrisdale neighbourhood and served with the RCAF in the Second World War. He moved to California in 1957.
Twizell, Robert Percival Sterling
Robert Twizell was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. He studied with the Newcastle architectural firm of Hicks and Charleswood and became an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1900. He came to Vancouver around 1907 and established the firm of Twizell and Twizell, with his brother George S. Twizell. The firm designed a number of schools and houses but was principally noted for its church projects, notably Canadian Memorial Church and St. Andrew's Wesley. Twizell was a charter member of the Architectural Institute of British Columbia and president of the Art, Historical and Scientific Association of Vancouver from 1918 to 1922.
Sam Brighouse was a native of Huddersfield, Yorkshire, who arrived in New Westminster in June 1862. He purchased the first landholdings within what is now the west end of Vancouver together with John Morton and William Hailstone. He later followed a career of farming in Richmond. Brighouse returned to Vancouver in 1881 and stood for alderman in the civic election of 1887, after having been one of the principal persons involved in obtaining the City Charter. In 1911 he returned to England; he died in England in 1913.
Sheila Neville was active with the Vancouver Little Theatre Association for many years. She was president of the V.L.T.A. for 1962-1963 and 1963-1964. In 1974-1975, she was a member of the Performing Arts Committee (Theatre) of the Community Arts Council of Vancouver.
Sherwood Lett was born in Iroquois, Ontario in 1895. In 1912 he accompanied his family to Vancouver where he pursued university studies until 1916 when he enlisted for service in World War I. He served in France and was awarded the Military Cross. In 1919, as a Rhodes Scholar, he studied law in Oxford. After returning to Vancouver in 1922, he entered private practice, specializing in corporate and tax law until the outbreak of war in 1939. In 1942 he participated in the Dieppe Raid and was awarded the D.S.O. In 1947, as a member of an official three-man commission, he visited Japan. Following his return he was elected president of the Vancouver Bar Association and a bencher of the B.C. Law Society. In 1951, he was elected Chancellor of University of British Columbia. In 1954 he was appointed Commissioner to head the Canadian truce delegation in Vietnam. In 1955 he was appointed Chief Justice of the B.C. Supreme Court, and in 1963 Chief Justice of the B.C. Court of Appeal. He died in 1964.
Sir George Bury was born in Montreal in 1866. He secured a job with the Canadian Pacific Railway, rising to the position of Vice President by the start of World War I. In 1917, he travelled to Russia at the request of the British government to study the Russian railway system and the Revolution. He received his knighthood in 1917 and retired to Vancouver the following year.
Susan Louisa Allison (nee Moir) was born in Ceylon. Her family moved back to England and then to Hope, British Columbia. After her marriage to John Fall Allison in 1868, she settled near Princeton, where Allison ranched, trapped, mined, and kept a trading post. Susan Allison worked with her husband for many years, and continued to manage their cattle ranch after his death in 1897. She composed poetry, native Indian tales, short stories, and a series of newspaper articles, "Early History of Princeton". Her recollections were written after she moved to Vancouver in 1928.
Thadeus Lyons, better known as Teddy Lyons, was a local celebrity. For forty years he was the gregarious conductor of the open air B.C. Electric observation car that toured the city during the summer months. The sightseeing tour was stopped in September 1950 and Lyons retired in the following year.
Thomas Guns was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, and first saw Vancouver in 1884 as an apprentice on the barque Highland Glen. He returned to Vancouver to work on various coast vessels of the Canadian Pacific Navigation Company. In 1894, he received his Master's ticket, and in 1916 he joined the Vancouver Pilotage Authority where he worked until his retirement in 1935.
Thomas Townley was born in Newmarket, Ontario, and was called to the bar of Manitoba in 1886. He later travelled to Vancouver where he practiced until 1889, being at that time appointed Registrar of land titles for the District of New Westminster; from 1901 to 1910 he was also Registrar of land titles for Vancouver. In 1910 he resumed private practice; however, his association with the New Westminster office continued until 1927. In 1901 he was elected Mayor of Vancouver. As a Lieutenant-Colonel, he was also commander of Vancouver's first military unit.
Thomas Wicks was born in La Cola, Quebec. In 1882 he signed on an as apprentice on sailing ships and landed in B.C. in 1883. Christened Skookum Tom by the Coast Indians, he lived near Alert Bay. From 1903-1907 he lived in Vancouver, but returned to Alert Bay, serving there as a police officer. In 1911 he married Kate Curling. He helped raise money for the Alert Bay Mission Church. In 1916 he served in the Pioneer Battalion overseas. After the War he farmed in the Chilliwack district, a highly successful market gardener. Briefs were prepared on the operation of the farm for presentation to committees for returned soldiers farms in Britain. In 1938 he moved to Nanaimo.
William L. Inglis was General Manager of the Vancouver International Airport from 1949 to 1976.
W.F. Evans was born in Wales in 1874 and came to Vancouver in 1887. He was the builder and president of the Hotel Devonshire, and a founder of Dyke, Evans and Callaghan Music Company. He was an active supporter of the Vancouver Symphony Society. He died in 1949.
Walter Francis (Frank) Ing was born in 1881 or 1882 and died in November 1926 in Vancouver. He was with the North West Mounted Police, then moved to Vancouver in approximately 1918 and worked for the Canadian Bag Company. From 1920-1926 he was provincial secretary of the Retail Merchants' Association of Canada. His residences from 1920 until his death in 1926 were 820 Richards Street, 873 Seymour Street, and 3350 Manitoba Street. He was married to Grace Cornelia Ing (born Clinton, Ont., in 1906, died in Vancouver in February 1956).
Whitford VanDusen was born in Tara, Ontario, and attended the University of Toronto. At university he met H. R. MacMillan, who encouraged him to study forestry. VanDusen graduated in Forestry in 1912. From 1913 through World War I, he worked as a forester for the British Columbia provincial government. In 1919, he joined the H. R. MacMillan Export Company as manager. From 1945 to 1949, VanDusen was Senior Vice President of the company and, following its merger with Bloedel, Stewart and Welch in 1949, was Vice-Chairman until 1955. He was on the Board of Directors of MacMillan Bloedel until his retirement in 1969. VanDusen was also involved in many philanthropic works, including establishing the Vancouver Foundation in 1943 and donating the purchase amount for the old Shaughnessy Golf Course, now VanDusen Botanical Gardens.
William Curtis Shelly was born in Ontario and moved to Vancouver in 1910 to expand his bakery business. He became involved in politics and was elected to the legislative assembly in 1928, serving as Minister of Finance in the Tolmie government.
William E. Drake (1864-1940) was a businessman and manager in Vancouver.
He was born in Kingsville, Ontario, the son of Dr. and Mrs. W.H. Drake. He moved to Vancouver in 1892 to work as manager of the Vancouver branch of the McClary Manufacturing Company. In 1898, he was declared the attorney for the Company at its British Columbia headquarters on Water Street. He resigned from this company in 1911, and later worked for the B.C. Agency of A.C. Leslie and Co. Ltd. He retired from this position in 1928, and died in Vancouver in 1940.
William Hailstone was one of the "Three Greenhorns" (William Hailstone, Sam Brighouse and John Morton) who were the first European settlers in what is now the west end of Vancouver. Hailstone returned to England at some time prior to 1894 and remained there until his death in 1912.
William L. Keene (d. 1953) was an early settler and district official in North Vancouver.
He moved to Canada from England in 1888, and settled in North Vancouver in 1889. He served as municipal clerk for the District of North Vancouver, and was involved with the newspaper The News-Advertiser. He remained in North Vancouver until 1928, when he moved to Comox, and then to Esquimalt.
William Malkin was a native of Burselm, Staffordshire and emigrated to Canada in 1884 with his brother James Frederic Malkin. They first settled in Grenfell, Assiniboia, Northwest Territories. W.H. Malkin came to Vancouver in 1895, with his brother John Philip Davey Malkin, to join J.F. Malkin who preceded them. The brothers founded the wholesale grocery firm of W.H. Malkin and Company in 1897. In 1902 William Malkin was elected President of the Board of Trade. He served on the Royal Commission on Taxation in 1911, and was chairman of the Victory Loan Campaign during the World War I. In 1928 he was elected Mayor. He was also active in the cultural affairs of Vancouver and was one of the founders of the Vancouver Art Gallery. He served as the vice-president of the Vancouver Symphony Society, president of the Cancer Foundation and Honourary Colonel of the British Columbia Regiment. He was awarded the OBE in 1945 and made a Freeman of the City in 1947.
William McNeill (1867-1960) came to B.C. in 1891. He worked in various provincial government offices, including treasury, mining, lands and works, for seven years. In 1898 he entered private business, becoming Vice-President of the Vancouver, Westminster and Yukon Railway, and secretary of the Stave Lake Power Company. Between 1904 and 1908 he negotiated and purchased right-of-way into Vancouver for Vancouver, Victoria and Eastern Railway. In 1908 he secured investments in Montreal and London to develop a power plant on the Stave River. The Stave Lake Power Company sold out to Western Canada Power Company in 1909 and McNeill became a director and manager of the company. McNeill was also a private secretary to John Hendry, President of B.C. Mills Timber and Trading Company (formed by the merger of Hastings Saw Mill and Royal City Planing Mills) and of the Vancouver, Westminster and Yukon Railway and other companies. Hendry had various investments in timber mills, railroads, mining and power plants, and McNeill served as his agent in many business transactions in B.C., Ontario and England. In 1898 McNeill married Minnie Jean Munsie of Victoria. In 1913 McNeill resigned his positions with Vancouver, Westminster and Yukon Railway.
William Pierce was born in Vancouver. He worked as a cabinet maker, and was active in the trade union movement, in community affairs, and in politics. After his retirement, he was involved in a seniors' group and the Mount Pleasant Community Centre.
William Pleming was a native of Porbus, Cornwall. He came to Vancouver in 1889 and in 1893 married Kate Hawker of Exeter, Devon. Pleming organized the first Labour Day Parade in Vancouver in 1890. He was a member of the South Vancouver School Board in 1911 and served as Health and Sanitation Officer for the Municipality of South Vancouver. After amalgamation he served with the Vancouver Health and Sanitary Department. Pleming also founded the South Vancouver Horticultural Society.
Richard Irving Bentley (1854-1909) was born in Newmarket, Ontario. He graduated from the University of Toronto. He was Medical Officer of a tea plantation in India from 1877-1882. He went into private practice in New Westminster, and in 1882 was appointed Medical Superintendent of the Asylum and Jail, a position from which he resigned in 1895. Bentley married Maria Amy Woods in 1884, daughter of Archdeacon Charles E. Woods of Holy Trinity, New Westminster. In 1895 they went to Juneau, Alaska, returning in 1897 to settle in Slocan City. He subsequently lived in Vancouver, Grand Forks, Slocan, Enderby and Port Moody.
James Anthony Clarke (1834-1914) was born in St. Andrew's, New Brunswick. By 1855 he was a master mariner. He went to San Francisco in 1860 and by 1864 was in Victoria, where in 1866 he married Katie Magowan. From 1864 to 1869, Clarke was in charge of Governor Seymour's private yacht, the Leviathan. In 1872 he bought a farm in Langley Prairie, and in 1875 moved to New Westminster. When the CPR decided that Port Moody would be its western terminal, Clarke cleared and subdivided the property he had held since 1868, moving to Port Moody. Later the family returned to New Westminster, and Clarke went back to sea on the Dominion government boat Samson. He invented and patented a compound tandem steam engine to drive twin propellers, and built the Gemini to demonstrate it. In 1898 he retired, in 1902 moving to Vancouver's West End; in 1911 he returned to Port Moody to establish a real estate business, and in 1913 he became an alderman.
Major J.S. Matthews was a native of North Wales who arrived in Vancouver in 1898 from New Zealand. He was with Imperial Oil for most of the period 1898-1920 and held various executive positions during the twenties. In 1933 he became City Archivist for Vancouver, a position he held until his death.
A. Stewart McMorran collected archival material relating to the 29th (Vancouver) Battalion, CEF. The battalion was formed in 1914 under the command of Lt. Col. Henry S. Tobin. The battalion left in May 1915 and served on the European continent for the rest of World War I. It returned to Vancouver in May 1919.
Adelaide Seymour Fowler was born in Vancouver in 1890. Between 1951 and 1952 she was President of the Women's Auxiliary to the Vancouver Pioneers' Association.
Adrien Mansvelt, while Consul General for the Netherlands in Vancouver, collected genealogical information on Captain George Vancouver, the City of Coevorden and the van Coeverden family, showing Captain Vancouver's link with the Dutch city of Coevorden.
Aileen Campbell is a writer for the Province. In this capacity she has interviewed Harry Patten Archibald, a partner in the engineering firm of Bayfield and Archibald from 1904 to 1972.
Alexander Begg was born in Scotland and emigrated in 1846. He taught school in West Huntington and Oshawa, and later published pioneer newspapers in Ontario. In 1869 he was made collector of customs and inspector of inland revenue for the North West Territories. He subsequently accepted a position as emigration commissioner in Scotland for the Ontario government; however, in 1881 he returned to the N.W.T. as a special correspondent for the Toronto Mail. In 1887 he became special commissioner for the settlement of crofter fishermen on Vancouver Island. In 1894 Begg published his History of British Columbia, and in 1895 he founded The Mining Record. From 1897 to 1899 he and his sons were involved in promoting railway construction.
Alexander Godfrey was born in Mount Forest, Ontario. He went to Manitoba around 1876, where he stayed until 1887. At that time he came to Vancouver and went into the hardware business with his brother Thomas. Godfrey was elected alderman for Ward 2 for 1891-1892. In 1894 he moved to New Westminster where he had his own business, and in 1899 he went to Atlin as an agent for Dunn Hardware. In 1900 he moved to Dawson where he died suddenly of pneumonia.