Are you reading the full article with photos? click the title above or URL below:

https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives/news_feed/marrion-street-photos-of-an-oak-bay-stree-that-disappeared

Marrion Street, first laid out as Prospect Road (not to be confused with Prospect Place) in the early 1890s, was a short road extending southeast from the junction of Fort x Foul Bay. Its first residents were Alfred Howell & family. It was renamed in 1910/11 for Robert Marrion, a settler prior to 1906. It’s one of few (the only?) Oak Bay streets to have disappeared; all properties were purchased by the municipality in the 1970s to develop the Oak Bay Recreation Centre on Bee St. The street’s name is perpetuated in Marrion Village seniors' housing complex.

These photos of houses on Marrion St were taken for one of the municipal Finance Department’s series of appraisal cards (OBA CR 140 AC-L), 1950s-1970s. In most cases they are the only photos in the Archives of these houses. A notable exception is the Howell house (no number as Prospect Road, first numbered 1940 Marrion, later renumbered 2064 Marrion), which appears in several of resident Bert Howell's photos (OBA PR 198).

Browse all 1800 photos in this series @OakBayArchives on Flickr: https://bit.ly/3SH0ERD

Parts of this display were mounted in the exterior (parking lot) and Archives corridor display cases at Municipal Hall in October 2022.

Browse all 1800 photos in this series @OakBayArchives on Flickr: https://bit.ly/3SH0ERD

These images were created in the course of District business by District staff after 1948, and remain in copyright (c) The Corporation of the District of Oak Bay.

Questions? Please get in touch!

Website: https://www.oakbay.ca/archives

Photo Search: https://www.oakbay.ca/archives/photographs

Blog posts: https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives

Email: archives@oakbay.ca

Phone: 250-598-3290

- Post by Anna Sander, 6 October 2022.

To cite: Sander, Anna. (2022, October). 'Marrion Street: photos of an Oak Bay street that disappeared.' [Blog post]. District of Oak Bay, Archives. Retrieved from https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives/news_feed/marrion-street-photos-of-an-oak-bay-stree-that-disappeared [date accessed].

Are you reading the full article with photos? click the title above or URL below:

https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives/news_feed/a-new-look-at-historic-photos-of-oak-bay-properties-municipal-hall-foyer-display-aug-sept-2022

Much of my Oak Bay working time in August was taken up with making a large collection of photos of Oak Bay properties, taken from historic long appraisal cards (municipal Finance department, Archives series CR 140 AC-L), available online.

90%, almost 5000 cards, were scanned by Archives volunteers 2017-2020; I finished photographing the final 550 ahead of the 2021 MH renovation work. This year, the next layer of processing: renaming the files to include their archival reference code as well as the relevant street address, extracting the small photos from each image (photos are typically in the top right hand corner of the card and measure 2x3"), watermarking each photo, uploading batches of photos, and checking for errors at each stage.

Why watermark photos? To make it easy for researchers to find the source. Digital images take on a life of their own and, in practical terms, just aren't 'controllable' once they're online; they often circulate informally without captions or dates, let alone any other original contextual information, link back, or acknowledgement, and it's important that someone who finds one photo of interest is able to get in touch and investigate the possibility of more images and information relevant to their research. That's it.

The photos are not dated; the cards were in use 1950s-1970s. This series of historic appraisal cards is not complete for every property or street in Oak Bay, and not every extant card includes a photo.

Browse all 1800 photos in this series @OakBayArchives on Flickr: https://bit.ly/3SH0ERD

As part of the Oak Bay Village history project, this foyer display focuses on photographs of Oak Bay Avenue properties from the long appraisal cards. NB street addresses on these photos are those on the corresponding cards, but some may have changed over time - another reason to get in touch before using!

These images were created in the course of District business by District staff after 1948, and remain in copyright (c) The Corporation of the District of Oak Bay.

Questions? Please get in touch!

Website: https://www.oakbay.ca/archives

Photo Search: https://www.oakbay.ca/archives/photographs

Blog posts: https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives

Email: archives@oakbay.ca

Phone: 250-598-3290

- Post by Anna Sander, 2 September 2022.

To cite: Sander, Anna. (2022, September). 'A new look at historic photos of Oak Bay properties - Municipal Hall foyer display Aug-Sept 2022'. [Blog post]. District of Oak Bay, Archives. Retrieved from https://connect.oakbay.ca/admin/projects/archives/news_feed/a-new-look-at-historic-photos-of-oak-bay-properties-municipal-hall-foyer-display-aug-sept-2022 [date].

Are you reading the full article with photos? Click the title above or URL below:

https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives/news_feed/sport

The July theme over at Explore Your Archive on Twitter @explorearchives, run by the Archives & Records Association of the UK and Ireland is SPORT! To join in on Twitter, follow #EYASport and #ExploreArchives . I've adapted this to Sport & Recreation - where's the line?

George Murdoch, Reeve of Oak Bay, provides considerable detail about the history of sports and recreation in Oak Bay in his history (1968), pp.186-193: click here

OBA PR 235 Taylor Album 1.17C Sack race at the Drake Hardware company picnic [nd, ca 1914]. Definitely a sport, especially with hats. Samuel J Drake was Reeve of Oak Bay 1920-22 Richard Ratcliffe Taylor, company secretary at Drake Hardware, was also Reeve 1936-40.

OBA PHOT 2012-001-004 Horse racing at Willows Park (Exhibition Fairgrounds), now Carnarvon Park area. Looking up Lansdowne slope: houses at top right are on Cadboro Bay Road, electricity poles across the top of the slope indicate Lansdowne Road. Photographer unknown. [nd, ca. 1930.]

OBA PHOT 2012-001-104 Oak Bay minor hockey team at Esquimalt Arena, ca. 1985

OBA 2012-001-106 Boys’ soccer team in front of the original Windsor Park Pavilion. Tom Whittemore back row far left, Walter C Brynjolfson back row far right. Photographer: Wilfred Gibson, 1940-1941

OBA PHOT 2012-001-052 Victoria Lawn Tennis Club (founded 1886) members at their second location at Foul Bay Road x Fort, occupied 1910-1966. Photo ca 1937. Not to be confused with Oak Bay Tennis Club, founded 1911 as BC Electric & Railway Tennis Club, based first at Oak Bay Park (now Windsor Park), now on Bowker. Or is it the other way around? We need more photos!

OBA PHOT 2013-018-003, Liz Conlon collection. Horses and riders from Carley’s Victoria Riding Academy, by the Willows Fairgrounds (now Carnarvon Park area) ca. 1945. In the background is Cadboro Bay Road at Tod Road and Hamiota Street.

OBA PHOT 2015-010-082, Pattinson Collection. Oak Bay young men on a bike hike, ca 1937. L-R: Don Smith, Jack Syme, unidentified, Roy Pattinson, Ray Walls.

OBA PHOT 2015-010-90 + 92, Pattinson Collection. Joan Pattinson playing tennis in the yard of the Pattinson family home and pharmacy at 2228-2248 Oak Bay Avenue, now the location of the Penny Farthing Pub. Summer 1938.

OBA PHOT 2012-001-016 An Army ice hockey team that played out of the short-lived Olson Arena (Victoria Memorial Arena, former Horse Show building) in the Willows Fairgrounds, north of Fair St x Eastdowne during WWII (nd, 1941-44)

OBA PHOT 1994-016-033, McCrimmon Collection. Oak Bay Girls' Drill Team at Willows Exhibition Fairgrounds, 1 July 1946. Demonstration as part of the Lions Club Dominion Day Tin-Lizzy Derby at the racing oval.

OBA PHOT 2003-005-005 Gwladys Downes Collection. Oak Bay High School Girls’ Field Hockey Sevens, and friends, on playing field facing Cranmore Road in the spring of 1930. Back row L-R: Marjorie Checkley, Peggy Walton (P.W. Packard). Front row L-R: Mary Sparrowhawk, Phyllis Mackintosh, Dorothy (Dot) Hunton, Mollie Bywood and dog Biddy, Adele Bucklin, Gwladys Downes, Jane McIlmoyle, Joyce Adams.

I didn't have space to include material about the Bee St Rec Centre and other recreational facilities in Oak Bay, or the 1994 Commonwealth Games - more for another time.

Reference library books on display:

Peter Corley-Smith, Victoria Golf Club 1893-1993 : one hundred treasured years of golf

Helen Edwards, The History of Professional Hockey in Victoria BC 1911-2011

George Metcalfe, The Oak Bay Tennis Club 2011: 100th anniversary

Terry Reksten, A Century of sailing, 1892-1992 : a history of the oldest yacht club on Canada's Pacific Coast

John Schofield, Sticky Wicket: over 150 years of cricket on Vancouver Island

Questions? Please get in touch!

Website: https://www.oakbay.ca/archives

Photo Search: https://www.oakbay.ca/archives/photographs

Blog posts: https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives

Email: archives@oakbay.ca

Phone: 250-598-3290

- Post by Anna Sander, 19 July 2022.

To cite: Sander, Anna. (2022, July). 'Sport & Recreation in Oak Bay - Municipal Hall foyer display July 2022'. [Blog post]. District of Oak Bay, Archives. Retrieved from https://connect.oakbay.ca/admin/projects/archives/news_feed/sport [date].

Oak Bay Avenue 100 years ago

Above: Oak Bay Avenue section of 1911 municipal planning map.

What was different in 1921?

OBA PHOT 2010-010-001

There was a streetcar track along the north side of the road. The Oak Bay streetcar ran from downtown up Fort St, along Oak Bay Avenue and then down Newport to Windsor Park. It was built 1891 and ran until 1948. In the early days of the streetcar, a lot of Oak Bay was still farmland, and cows sometimes wandered onto the tracks! More here

The road was not paved, and there were no concrete sidewalks either.

There were many more single family homes with gardens on Oak Bay Avenue in 1921 than there are now. Only one is left (I think), at 2150 Oak Bay Avenue, next to Bosley’s pet supplies. There is a huge hedge in the front; more of the house is visible from Theatre Lane. The house was built by a Mr Henderson in 1910 – the same one that Henderson Road in north Oak Bay is named after. He was Reeve (Mayor) of Oak Bay 1909-11. It’s been divided into apartments but the outside looks the same. More about him: https://www.dictionaryofarchitectsincanada.org/node/2430

Elgin Road was called Burns St.

Granite St was called Gonzales Ave. More about street name changes here

Some of the address/house numbers have changed as occupancy became denser.

OBA PHOT 2012/001/048

Oak Bay High School was where the Municipal Hall is now (2167). It had four classrooms.

OBA PHOT 2016-005-002

The first municipal hall building was where Pharmasave is now. Photo:

There was a movie theatre on Oak Bay Avenue (the Avenue Theatre at 2013, not the later Oak Bay Theatre at 2188 – both buildings are still standing but have changed purposes)

You can see which people and businesses occupied properties on Oak Bay Avenue in the City Directory: https://bccd.vpl.ca/index.php/browse/title/1901/Victoria_City_Directory - in the left hand menu, choose ‘Victoria Streets’ and then ‘O’ for Oak Bay Avenue.

Detail of Oak Bay Avenue listings in 1921 Victoria directory - full page here

What is the same now as it was in 1921?

Oak Bay Avenue and many of the side streets had the names we know: Hampshire, Monterey, Oliver, Wilmot, Yale, Mitchell.

Some house numbers have changed over the years. Lot numbers as on the map above (not the same as address numbers) are attached to the land and not the buildings. These have stayed the same, so we can trace the history of different buildings on the same site as old ones are renovated, extended, demolished and replaced.

There were lots of different shops and businesses on Oak Bay Avenue as well as homes, though not as many as now. There were even apartment buildings 100 years ago.

OBA PHOT 1994-001-017

The building at the NW corner of Oak Bay Avenue and Monterey was already built by 1921, and looked much the same as it does now. It was a grocery store for many years, and then a tearoom (café) for many more. Now it’s the Oaks Restaurant. The low building next to it has had an upper storey added.

OBA PHOT 2019-018-006

The same brick building now at 2209 Oak Bay Avenue was already there in 1921. It was built in 1913 as apartments above stores, which is how it’s still used. Can you find its name over the door in the middle?

Businesses on Oak Bay Avenue in 1921 included: pharmacy, grocery, bakery, furniture, bank, dry goods (fabrics and clothes), hardware, post office. They are not exactly the same businesses or in the same places, but we do have the same kinds of businesses on the Avenue today. What other kinds of businesses are on Oak Bay Avenue these days?

1915 - 1923 Henry Pollock Hope (1877-1937)

1923 - 1929 Gordon Downes (1890-1929)

1929 – 1930 Thomas Saward (Tom) Whittemore (1892-1969)

1930 - 1932 George M Billings

1932 – 1952 Dunmail Horatio Hartness (1893-1953)

1951 - 1963 Charles A Gibbard (1898-1988)

1953 Junior High School opens

1953 - 1966 Rudyard T. Kipling (1900-1984) (junior high)

1963 - 1970 Jack (John) Graham Wallace (1909-1984) (senior high)

1966 - 1973 Peter Alwin Boldt (1923-2021) (junior high)

1970 - 1975 David Voth (senior high)

1973 - 1977 Jack (John) Murray Drummond (1918-1993) (junior high)

1976 - 1980 Donald Macdonald (senior/amalgamated)

1979 Junior & Senior schools amalgamated

1980 - 1983 Keith Bickmore

1983 - 1993 Court Brousson

1993 - 2002 Doug Shaw

2002 - 2017 Dave Thomson

2017 - 2020 Randi Falls

2020 - Tom Aerts

Sources:

BC Archives, death certificate of DH Hartness online here

__________, " " " TS Whittemore online here

Brentwood College School, The Brentonian yearbook 1937, obituary of HP Hope online here

British Colonist newspaper, passim online here

City directories, passim online here

Daily Times newspaper, passim online here

Gary Wilcox, Oak Bay Encyclopedia online here

Gillian Fosdick, 'The history of Oak Bay Senior High School', 1972 online here

Oak Bay News online here

Obituary of Peter Boldt online here

UBC Totem yearbook 1929 online here

Questions? Comments? Please contact the Archivist

Website: https://www.oakbay.ca/archives
Photo Search: https://www.oakbay.ca/our-community/archives/photographs-view
Blog posts: https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives
Email: archives@oakbay.ca

Phone: 250-598-3290

- Post by Anna Sander, 12 July 2022

Something for #MarbledMonday - a selection of marbled paper covers and endpapers I'm encountering as I accession and catalogue old ledgers, historic corporate records transferred to Archives last year. More about the contents and arrangement later, but for now an unexpected array of colours and patterns from the carapaces of otherwise mostly prosaic codices:

This one looks to me like the patterns made by sunlight through water over rippled sand.

I'm surprised how very worn this inside cover is.

To see larger images, right-click on a photo and select 'open in new tab'. Then to magnify further, click on the image if a little magnifying glass appears.

Well, there's no getting around it, this one just looks like salami.

Classic red nonpareil pattern - very common but no less one of my favourites.

This looks like a moonscape - made of green cheese? The bumps are from water damage that has caused distortion in the pulp board underneath.

More of same water damage here.

Spectacular bright colours on black - like fireworks.

My Jubilee Bunting for today is Alice Olive Bunting, known as Olive, Clerk/Bookkeeper at Oak Bay municipal offices 1915-21. Born on 1 February 1893 in Morton (Boissevain), Manitoba, to English parents Herbert and Mary Ellen Bunting, she moved to Victoria - and Oak Bay - with her family ca. 1910, where her father worked as a building contractor until his death in 1917. Olive graduated from St Ann's Academy aged 18 in June 1911, receiving a Gold Medal for typewriting. She worked as a stenographer (shorthand typist) for Bell Development Co. before taking up the clerical post at Oak Bay Municipal Hall. In 1920 her Oak Bay salary was $115/month.

(An Olive Bunting turns up doing well in school in Greenwood BC in 1908 (British Colonist 14 July 1908, p.7). Could Herbert Bunting have moved his family there from Manitoba before travelling further west to Victoria? I don't have access to a 1908 BC directory, if there was one.)

Olive and her mother experienced a double loss in 1917 - Herbert Bunting died on 29 October, aged 61, barely two weeks before son Archie was killed in action in France, aged 28. Mary Ellen Bunting continued to live in the family home at 1461 Hampshire until her death in November 1936.

In 1921 Olive married James Alexander Munro (1884-1958), Chief Federal Migratory Birds Officer for the western provinces, and went to live in Okanagan Landing, just outside Vernon on the north end of Okanagan Lake. James had been widowed in 1919 and had a young daughter, Isobel Alison (born 1915, later Mrs GN Cull). Together Olive and James Munro had a son, David Aird Munro (1923-2004).

James Munro's ornithological career is outlined in Baillie, below, and his academic papers are listed in the BC Provincial Museum's annual report of 1963, here. The 1926 and earlier BC Directories list James Munro of Okanagan Landing as 'naturalist'; 1927-55 Vernon City & North Okanagan/BC Directories as 'game warden BC Govt'. Olive made her husband's papers available to at least one researcher after his death - did she arrange the disposal of his collections? Particularly given her relevant professional background, was she involved in creating and organizing her husband's records during his career? The relevant museums will have accession records. (Interested? see #ThanksforTyping.)

Olive Munro returned to Victoria in 1967, living only a block from her former school at 1005 Pakington Street (1967-86). By the 1980s her son, a conservation policy consultant, was living in Sidney. Olive Munro died in January 1993, only a few weeks short of her hundredth birthday.

Sources:

James Baillie, 'In memoriam: James Alexander Munro'. Auk (Journal of the American Ornithological Society) Vol 86 (1969), pp. 626-630. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/86/4/624/5209544 on 03 June 2022

'In Woman's Realm'. Victoria Daily Colonist newspaper, 28 June 1911, p.8. Accessed 6 June 2022: https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist53532uvic/page/n7/mode/1up .

'Sergt. Bunting Gives Life For Country.' Victoria Daily Colonist newspaper, 29 November 1917, p.5. Accessed 6 June 2022 https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist59y305uvic/page/n4/mode/1up

Funeral notice for Herbert Bunting. Victoria Daily Colonist newspaper, 2 November 1917, p.7. Accessed 6 June 2022 https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist59y282uvic/page/n6/mode/1up

BC death certificate for Alice Olive Munro. Digital image via BC Archives

BC death certificate for Herbert Bunting. Digital image via BC Archives.

BC death registration for Mary Ellen Bunting, no. 1936-09-520629 . Search at https://search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Genealogy

BC marriage certificate for James Alexander Munro and Alice Olive Bunting. Digital image via BC Archives

BC City Directories, passim.

District of Oak Bay, Council Minutes 1921, p.2 etc.

Ottawa Citizen newspaper. Obituary: "James A. Munro, Ornithologist, passes here, 74." Digital image via newspapers.com

Victor Lewin, 'The Introduction and current state of California Quail in the Oakanagan Valley of British Columbia.' The Condor, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 1965), pp. 61-66. Accessed 6 June 2022: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1365380

Description of JA Munro fonds at Royal Ontario Museum via Archeion

This post is a collection of @OakBayArchives tweets for #Archive30, an annual outreach initiative from the Archives & Records Association of Scotland for which archivists and archive workers and volunteers post features from their collections in response to daily prompts. An advantage of repeating the tweets in blog post form is that the text for each photo is not limited to 280 characters, allowing for expansion of abbreviations and more information where available.

Time for the annual round of #Archive30 themed tweets! This year I'll focus on a current project, digitization and cataloguing of Bert Howell's photos (OBA PR 198). Day 1 #YourArchive, the Howell collection as laid out soon after arrival in the archives in 2017 by @_cmduncan, showing several different negative & positive photo formats. And yes, gloves are generally required for handling photographic media, though I'm using nitrile rather than the stereotypical white cotton.

Clean dry hands are usually preferable to any kind of gloves for handling documents on paper of parchment, but photographic media are often chemically less stable and more sensitive to the oils and salt on even clean hands, so gloves are best for handling any prints or negatives not in individual protective enclosures. Cotton gloves can catch or leave fibres on photos, which is why we tend to use latex or nitrile gloves instead.

Day 2 of #Archive30, a #TypicalDay digitizing glass plate and individual film negatives, and generating positive digital images. Equipment: the aforementioned nitrile gloves, dry-erase pen for labelling, a not-superlative phone camera & light box, Paint software. Extra cost: 0. Quality: sub-professional, of course, but more than adequate for access to the information in the photos and to facilitate future background research. Also good to avoid sending the collection offsite and to keep light exposure to a minimum. #DIYdigi

One wrinkle I discovered while taking digital photographs of a fluorescent light box is that the light in fact has a flicker, thanks to alternating current electricity. This flicker produces weird dark-orange stripes in the photos, example shown above. I was able to fiddle with the manual settings on my phone camera to get rid of the stripes, but the images were somewhat overexposed. On inversion, this made the generated positive images underexposed, so more correction was required, but no significant information was lost - certainly any lack of exactitude in the exposure aspect of reproduction is far outweighed by having the first access to positive images of these photographs in 50+ years.

Day 3 of #Archive30. Speaking of inverting negative images and adjusting exposure settings on the generated positives, here are three versions of one of several BA Howell self portraits in the collection. Was this a glow in the dark experiment? How did he get the teeth to glow like that? Ultraviolet light would make his white shirt collar stand out as well. I hope he wasn't using radioactive toothpaste... Anyway, Bert's teeth in this photo are certainly #SomethingScary. Look closely for evidence of touching up on the negative, around the mouth.

Day 4 of #Archive30, the Giant Whirl ride in Seattle's Luna Park (operated 1907-1913 at Alki Point, West Seattle) was #SomethingBig. Howell identifies its location incorrectly as 'Madrona Park'. Did he have a professional interest in the amusement park's impressive illuminations? Maybe we'll find out one day - so much more research potential in this collection.

Day 5 of #Archive30. Due to a lack of captions or contextual records, Bert Howell's photos are full of #UntoldStories. This young woman, shown here in an urban setting and wearing a fashionable hat, high lace collar and brooch, appears many times in his Portland period, identified only as "Bunches" and "Ida". One places her living at 83 7th St, Portland OR in 1907/8. Who was she? If the address was a boarding house, city directories may not list individual tenants, but it would be good to check.

Day 6 of #Archives30. Teeth again. #HealthArchives can turn up in unexpected places, such as these dental records in Bert Howell's WW1 attestation papers from Library and Archives Canada (the national archives). Aged 40, he was in France with the Canadian Forestry Corps (CFC) 1917-1919 - and had pretty good teeth!

Canada did not bring in WW1 conscription until the Military Service Act of 29 August 1917. Bert Howell signed up 6 weeks before that, less than a month before his 40th birthday. Were electricians a reserved occupation in Canada during WW1? more questions to come, more research to do...

Day 7 of #Archive30. Not many personal/family photo collections include pictures of early hydroelectric power plants, but Bert Howell visited and photographed them at Myrtle Creek, Falls City & Wilhelmina, Oregon, and Doty, Washington - presumably as part of his Portland-based work as an electrician/electrical machinist. #UnusualItem

Bonus entry, another Day 7 of #Archive 30, high wire rewiring. This #UnusualItem shows a young woman on scaffolding atop Portland's Meier & Frank department store building. The signs were illuminated - was Bert Howell changing some lightbulbs? This picture is not dated - maybe there are clues in the Meier & Frank archives within the holdings of the Oregon Historical Society.

Day 8 of #Archive30. Want to know more about #YourWorkplace (that is #MyWorkplace)? There's a photo tour for that! Click here As ever, information and research assistance are available from the (half time) archivist by phone, email, carrier pigeon etc.

Day 9 of #Archive30. Define the differences between #DigitalArchives #DigitizedArchives #DigitalCollection #DigitalImage #ElectronicRecords #BornDigital ... Anyway, somebody will be able to identify this distinctive mountain (probably BC, may be reversed), shown here in an undated snowy landscape. From the single film negative in Bert Howell's photos (OBA PR 198).

Day 12 of #Archive30. If the two pieces of this large glass plate negative (positive shown here) are ever reunited, that will be a #ConservationWin. No date or IDs, but the painted backdrop and theatrical period costumes set this and several other similar negatives apart as studio photos, rare in BA Howell's collection.

Day 14 of #Archive30. There's no caption written on the negative itself, but the sparse index for the little album of cellophane sleeves housing this one corresponds accurately: a crawfish picnic (probably in Portland OR ca 1908) for #ArchiveFoodandDrink. Ida/"Bunches" appears again in the centre. Most early photographs are stiffly posed formal portraits, but by the early years of the 20th century, and the introduction of the first truly portable 'box' cameras, informal private photography became possible.

Day 19 of #Archive30. For instant whimsy, swap hats: #ArchiveAdvice and yet more #ArchiveFashion, notably puffed sleeves and a strikingly striped tie. Bert Howell and friend, another picnic. There is the ghost of another picture on this one, maybe an accidentalpartial double exposure. OBA PR 198 temp ref Howell Box 3-01-05

Day 20 of #Archive30. A young woman, dressed in the height of #ArchiveFashion rational dress for ?ca.1908 in stockings, cycling bloomers and jacket, and with her hair tucked up under a cap, prepares to push off on her bicycle from a convenient perch against a fence. Another young woman is almost out of frame, showing only the front of her skirt and a blurred half of her face. OBA PR 198, BA Howell photos.

Day 25 of #Archive 30. For #SportArchives, Bert Howell presents to you: Extreme Sitting, ca. 1908 edition. "On Top of Fliedner Block, Washington St, Portland Oregon". Built 1905-6, the Fliedner building was already far from the tallest in Portland, but provided great views of the growing city.

Day 26 of #Archive30. More of Bert Howell's #ArchivePeople, foot passengers disembarking from the "ferry across Columbia River, Vancouver Washington", ie between Vancouver WA and Portland OR, ca 1907-1909. Lots of ferry history on this coast! This ship is also called the "Vancouver".

Day 29 of #Archive30. Next #ArchiveGoals digitization project: the family photo album of RR Taylor (1884-1942), who held the position of Reeve (i.e. Mayor) of Oak Bay 1936-40. Here, several photos of Drake's Hardware company picnic, ca.1914 (no date on photo). Drake's Hardware store at this time was downtown at 1418 Douglas, with another branch, briefly, on Oak Bay Ave. RR Taylor was company secretary. Samuel Drake also served as Oak Bay's Reeve 1920-22.

Questions? Please get in touch!

Website: https://www.oakbay.ca/archives

Photo Search: https://www.oakbay.ca/our-community/archives/photographs-view

Blog posts: https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives

Email: archives@oakbay.ca

Phone: 250-598-3290

- Post by Anna Sander, 9 May 2022.

To cite: Sander, Anna. (2022, May). 'Project #Archive 30, April 2022.' [Blog post]. District of Oak Bay, Archives. Retrieved from https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives/news_feed/project-2 [date].

May flowers and new leaves, slower than usual this spring but beautiful on a sunny day

Recently I've been processing a 2017 accession, several hundred photographs in a number of formats, mainly individual film negatives and positives and several sizes of glass plate negatives.

The photographer was Bertram Archer, known as Bert, Howell. Most of the photos in the Oak Bay collection are undated; the few with dates fall between 1905 and 1908, when Bert Howell was living in Portland, Oregon. This is a first glimpse into the collection: more family history research, and investigation of photo subjects, remains to be done. Stay tuned for future updates as the collection is processed further.

Bert Howell 1877-1972

• 1877 Bertram Archer Howell, born Cowes, Isle of Wight, to parents Alfred and Jane Howell
• 1886 arrives Victoria with parents and several siblings; family first lives in Fernwood
• Alfred farms (market gardens), builds family home at 1940, later renumbered 2064, Marrion St
• 1890s Bert works as messenger for David Spencer dry goods store, then apprentices as electrician and works at George C Hinton’s.
• 1902 Bert in Whitehorse to help install one of Canada’s first automatic telephone exchanges
• 1905 Bert moves to Portland Oregon, to set up lighting and wiring for Lewis and Clark Exposition, lives there until Expo closes in 1911. (Another Oak Bay connection - John Olmsted, planner of the uplands subdivision, also planned the Lewis & Clark exposition grounds [source]) More about the Expo, and the electrical installations required, from the Oregon State Archives: link
• Returns to parents’ house in Victoria, works on wiring and lighting for the BC Legislature buildings (the 1912-1915 additions?).
• Serves aged 40 in Canadian Forestry Corps overseas WW1, 1917-19
• Continues to live in his parents’ house with unmarried sister Helen, working as an electrician until retirement 1951 [source: city directories]
• Prolific amateur photographer – sister Kathleen (Lena) worked in photography studios.
• The Oak Bay Archives Howell collection is only one lot from the sale held when Bert vacated the house in Marrion Street near the end of his life. Do any of the other lots of photographs or other material survive?
• Marrion Street was redeveloped by the municipality to create the Oak Bay Recreation Centre on Bee Street; its name survives in the Marrion Village Baptist Housing complex.
• More photos from the collection will be appearing at https://www.flickr.com/photos/oakbayarchives/albums/72177720297267214

Display themes:

Portland 1907-08

‘My Home Two Years’ – Dunning McEntee & Gilbaugh Undertakers & Embalmers on the ground floor, with furnished rooms above: 1-3-5 7^th St x Pine, Portland OR.

All dressed up, Bert Howell (3^rd from left) and unidentified friends, outside the corner of the same building.

On top of the Meier & Frank department store building in downtown Portland with an unidentified young woman, who also appears high up among the illuminated letters of the (rooftop?) MEIER & FRANK sign. Meier & Frank celebrated a 50^th anniversary in 1907 with extra illumination around the exterior of the building – Bert Howell may have been involved with the electrical preparations and installation.

Foot passengers disembark up the gangway from the “Ferry across Columbia River, Vancouver Washington”.

“Geo + Lena B. Council Crest /08” – George and Lena (Kathleen) Brownlee, Bert’s sister and brother in law, visiting Portland in 1908.

Déjeuner sur l'herbe, a picnic with friends. The young woman in the centre is identified in other photos as 'Bunch' and ‘Ida’, of Portland.

Early hydroelectric power in the Pacific Northwest

• Bert Howell’s Oregon photos show a professional interest in street lighting and exterior building illumination, and early hydroelectric plants.
• Outdoor urban lighting development was closely connected to development of hydroelectric generating capacity, especially in the Columbia River Basin, and long-distance electricity transmission
• Photos often combine an electrician’s focus with aesthetic appreciation of both machinery and natural settings

Documenting hydropower plants at Myrtle Creek (possibly Idaho), Willamina and Falls City, Oregon, and Doty, Washington, not dated [1905-1911].

Canadian forestry corps, WW1

P.1 of Bert Howell’s Attestation (WW1 Army registration) papers, 1917. Online here

Crowded troop tender – outside Victoria?

Bert Howell (R), aged 40, and two Army colleagues

Canadian soldiers in camp – a group in front of bell tents, Bert Howell seated at right

Canadian Army camp – open truck marked O.H.M.S. (On Her Majesty’s Service) carrying soldiers on a partly gravelled road bordered by whitewashed rocks, a row of tents and a low white building in background.

Canadian soldiers preparing to board a Canadian Pacific troop train. Station shed roof marking ends “NAGE”.

Two photos of life in Army barracks and/or on board troop ship for England.

Victoria BC

Park and fountain – Gorge or Butchart? Not dated.

Empress Hotel, downtown Victoria. Undated photo, Empress completed 1908.

‘Connie, Mrs Fisher, Mr Fisher, Oak Bay Ave’. See e.g. LJ Fisher, blacksmith, Mitchell St off Oak Bay Ave (1908 city directory)

‘Old Exibition [sic] Bldgs Victoria BC’ – Willows Fairground, the ‘Crystal Palace’. Undated, [1891-1907].

Victoria inner harbour from Songhees, near Esquimalt end of Johnson St bridge.

Gorge Bridge

‘Picnic, Head of Gorge’.

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- Post by Anna Sander, 1 May 2022.

To cite: Sander, Anna. (2022, May). 'A first look at Bert Howell's photos - Municipal Hall foyer display March 2022'. [Blog post]. District of Oak Bay, Archives. Retrieved from https://connect.oakbay.ca/admin/projects/archives/news_feed/howell [date].