Images of historic modes of transport from the family albums of Richard (Dick) Ratcliffe Taylor Jr., 1884-1942, Oak Bay Police Commissioner 1918-1920, Councillor 1933-1936, Reeve of Oak Bay 1936-1940. Dick lived with his wife and first cousin Hannah, known as Annie, nee Winterbottom, and their daughter Marjory at 1388 Monterey Avenue.

This photo from a collection of family history material in the RR Taylor family fonds was taken at Christmastime 1899, in the Red River area of Manitoba. Several of the Taylor family children are being taken for a sleigh ride in the snow, in a Bain Wagon box fitted with sled runners, pulled by two horses. The background is a bank with a fence at the top, coming down to a flat surface which may be the frozen Red River itself.

Why transport? The 1920s and 1930s were an era of huge changes in modern transport, while many older vehicles still survived as well, so there’s an unusual variety represented in photos from that period. The Mill Bay ferry of 1930 looks surprisingly familiar, while the horse drawn dump cart and Bath chair are something from another era.

“Oak Bay Garbage”. If the (not contemporary) caption, transcribing the original, is correct, this unassuming duo may be the subjects of the most interesting photo in this collection – from an Oak Bay historical point of view at least. It shows the municipal horse and dump-cart contracted to collect and haul domestic refuse from around Oak Bay to the municipal dump. Garbage in the early days of the municipality was disposed of variously at McNeill Bay (Transit Rd), on Monterey Crescent near the mouth of Bowker Creek (site of the Fire Hall parking lot and baseball diamond), from 1927 in the former gravel pit on Burdick, and from 1929 by scow at sea. Horse drawn wagons were used for municipal garbage collection until 1940. Taylor album 1 86C

“Gordon Sword (Shell Oil) and RRT” – and a woman standing by the tail of the plane. As Director of the Victoria Super Service Station, Sword was a close colleague of RRT.

Gordon Sword was also a founder member of the South Vancouver Island Rangers, formed during WW2 as a home guard militia and later becoming a serious volunteer ground and air search and rescue team. Taylor Album 2 25A&B

RR Taylor and three women in an open car, driving over the unpaved Malahat, OBA Taylor Album 1 24B

“R.R.Taylor’s 1st car”: it looks like a lot like a 1925 Model T Ford touring car, vintage auto experts please weigh in! The car is shown here in front of the family home “Ormerod House” built by R.R. Taylor Sr. at the SE corner of Lansdowne and Richmond (formerly Mt. Tolmie Road), and features in many photos of family outings. (Fam hist 81, album 1 4A)

The Taylors are often shown travelling, whether at home in Oak Bay and on Vancouver Island, or visiting family on the Prairies and in England. By far the mostly frequently photographed mode of transport in the collection is the family car, often included in group photos, on road trips and at beach picnics, weddings, and christenings. Drives in an open car over the unpaved Malahat are included, as are holidays on Shawnigan Lake, using clinker-built rowing boats with optional outboard. Several photos show the car at home in the driveway, decked out to participate in the parade escorting King George VI and Queen Elizabeth through Victoria, including Oak Bay, during their Canadian tour in 1939.

Transport was also part of RR Taylor’s working life: he worked at Victoria Auto Supply on Yates and Drake’s Hardware (locations on Douglas and Oak Bay Avenue, also sold gasoline) and was later a partner in the Victoria Super Service Station (later Dunsmuir) in its original location at Blanshard x Johnson. Taylor Album 2 27A

Victoria Daily Times newspaper, 14 July 1942. Obituary notice for Richard Ratcliffe Taylor. https://archive.org/details/victoriadailytimes19420714/page/n2/mode/1up

Intrigued? For digital images of all the Taylor family photos in the Archives, see

https://flickr.com/oakbayarchives/collections

All images except as noted from OBA PR 235 Taylor fonds, original photo prints at Oak Bay Archives.