The History of the Parliament Buildings in Victoria BC

The Parliament Buildings are among the most dignified and visually pleasing civic structures in British Columbia. Opened at the end of the nineteenth century, they were built during a period when Victoria was changing quickly. Industrial expansion, political consolidation, new technologies, social change, and growing confidence in British Columbia’s future all influenced the decision to replace the old legislative buildings with a grander and more permanent home for the provincial government.

The buildings also reinforced Victoria’s role as the capital of British Columbia. That role was never a small matter. The presence of Parliament brought government employment, political influence, public spending, visiting officials, and rising property values. It helped secure Victoria’s civic identity even as Vancouver and the Lower Mainland later became the province’s dominant population and commercial centre.

Architecturally, the Parliament Buildings helped establish the formal, British-influenced character still associated with Victoria. Together with the Empress Hotel, the Inner Harbour causeway, Beacon Hill Park, James Bay, and the city’s older residential districts, the Legislature forms part of the historic setting that continues to shape how Victoria is seen by residents, visitors, and home buyers.

In 1880, Victoria was still a small city of approximately 6,000 people. By 1900, the population had risen to about 20,000. In only two decades, the city had more than tripled in size. This growth was not merely residential. Late nineteenth-century Victoria was a busy commercial and industrial centre with a more diversified economy than many people now associate with the city.

The city’s waterfront and industrial districts supported sealing, salmon canning, shipbuilding, ship chandlery, carriage making, brewing, sash and door manufacturing, iron works, boot and shoe factories, sawmills, planing mills, wire works, corset manufacturing, vinegar and pickling businesses, meat packing, cooperage works, cigar factories, soap works, book binderies, and other trades. Roughly 1,200 workers were employed in several of these industries, with approximately half of them working in fish canneries.

Contemporary descriptions emphasized Victoria’s commercial importance. In 1889, the Portland newspaper The West Shore portrayed Victoria as a city that delighted tourists, with more than a dozen good hotels and one or two that were already known beyond the region. It described Victoria as the largest and wealthiest city in the province, noting the presence of the Albion Iron Works, an important industrial operation on the Pacific coast outside San Francisco.

The Victoria press was equally confident. In 1890, the Victoria Times claimed that Victoria possessed three times the combined wealth of Nanaimo, Vancouver, and New Westminster. It estimated the personal property of Victoria citizens at $6,386,830. This was a striking change for a city that, only a few years earlier, reportedly turned off its three electric streetlights when the moon was bright enough to save electricity.

Resource wealth from Vancouver Island and the surrounding coast also supported the city’s prosperity. In 1889, Victoria sealers brought back pelts valued at $247,170. That same year, salmon exports were valued at $1,890,200, representing 335,458 cases. Coal wealth also played a major role in the wider Island economy. The Dunsmuir family, whose money came largely from coal, spent generously in Victoria, including on Craigdarroch Castle, while their coal operations exported millions of tons from Nanaimo.

The question of where British Columbia’s capital should be located was politically charged from the beginning. Before the colonies were united, Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia had been separate Crown colonies, each with its own legislature. Vancouver Island’s capital was Victoria, while the mainland colony was centred at New Westminster.

When the two colonies were united in 1866, both were heavily in debt. Vancouver Island owed $293,689, while the mainland colony owed $1,002,953. Servicing Vancouver Island’s debt consumed a large share of its revenue. In that context, the selection of a capital had enormous consequences. The capital would benefit from civil servants, government buildings, political appointments, influence over public expenditure, employment, and increased land values. The losing centre could expect a decline in influence and possibly in property values.

Both Victoria and New Westminster had supporters. One of the more colourful stories from the capital dispute involved Captain William Hales Franklyn, a Nanaimo magistrate and former P. & O. captain. New Westminster entrusted Franklyn with presenting its case to the Legislative Council. According to the old account, Franklyn was badly affected by drink when he attempted to read his prepared speech. After a recess was called so he could recover, one version of the story says that a Victoria supporter removed the lenses from his eyeglass frames. When Franklyn returned, he could not read his speech at all. New Westminster lost the vote, and Victoria retained the capital.

The controversy did not end there. Mainland critics continued to argue that Parliament should be located where the population and industry were greater. Even after the fine stone Parliament Buildings replaced the old “Birdcages,” some mainland voices still wanted the seat of government moved. As late as 1914, when the east and west wings were added, there were still arguments that the Legislature should be transferred to the Mainland, brick by brick if necessary.

Victoria’s defenders could answer that the city was the oldest British colony on the Pacific coast and that, without Victoria and James Douglas, there might not have been a Canadian New Westminster or Vancouver. The establishment of the Vancouver Island settlement in 1848 also played an important part in the wider imperial and diplomatic history of the Pacific coast, including the Oregon Boundary settlement that left the land north of the 49th parallel with Britain and, later, Canada, while preserving southern Vancouver Island as an exception below that line.

Before the present Legislature, British Columbia’s politicians met in the old wooden buildings known as the “Birdcages.” As the province grew, these structures came to seem inadequate for the dignity and ambition of a provincial capital. Many Victorians believed that a grand, permanent Parliament Building would silence mainland criticism and confirm Victoria’s status once and for all.

The decision to construct the new Legislature was made during a period of optimism, despite economic setbacks. The United States financial panic of 1893 to 1897 had affected the region, but the confidence built during Victoria’s prosperous years carried forward. Premier Theodore Davie ordered the project in 1893, when the entire provincial population was only about 175,000 and Victoria’s population was about 17,000.

The original projected cost was $600,000, an enormous amount at a time when the province’s annual revenue was approximately $1,500,000. The final cost reached approximately $923,000, about half as much again as the estimate. Critics complained about the expense, but the finished building became one of the most important public works projects in British Columbia’s early provincial history.

The building was opened in 1898 by Premier J. H. Turner. Turner had arrived in Victoria during the gold rush era, built a successful business as a carpet merchant, served as premier, and later became British Columbia’s Agent-General in London. He also had a notable home at Point Ellice, at the corner of Bay and Pleasant Streets, and was known for his interest in horticulture. In retirement, he fulfilled a personal ambition by living near Kew Gardens in London.

Turner led a political grouping made up largely of businessmen who had made their fortunes in mining, salmon canning, railroad construction, wholesale merchandising, and related ventures. Many were former business associates. The Legislature project reflected the ambitions of this business-minded political class and its desire to give the province a public building that expressed permanence, confidence, and authority.

Designs for the new Parliament Buildings were invited from across the continent. The winning architect was Francis Mawson Rattenbury, a 26-year-old Englishman who had arrived in Victoria only about a month before the competition. Despite his youth, Rattenbury already had experience with public buildings in England, and his design became the defining architectural image of British Columbia’s capital city.

Rattenbury’s design is usually described as free classical, with a strong ceremonial composition, copper-sheathed domes, arched openings, stone walls, and carefully balanced massing. The front façade is imposing, with statues of Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie and Sir James Douglas flanking the entrance. Many observers, however, have considered the rear of the building equally attractive, particularly because the later wings and deeper frontage give the complex a more expansive appearance from that side.

Rattenbury later left a major mark on Victoria’s architecture. He also designed the Empress Hotel, the C.P.S. Pavilion, Crystal Garden, renovations to the courthouse on Bastion Square, and the Bank of Montreal building on Government Street. His Victoria home was on Beach Drive and later became part of Glenlyon Preparatory School for boys.

Rattenbury’s architectural reputation was later overshadowed by the scandal and tragedy of his personal life. In Victoria, he became involved with Alma Victoria Clark, also known as Mrs. Caledon Dolly, who was many years younger than he was and had been married before. She was cited as co-respondent in his first wife’s divorce action. After Rattenbury married her, the couple moved to England in 1928 and settled in Bournemouth.

Their life in England deteriorated. Rattenbury became melancholy and fearful about money, while both he and his wife were described as heavy drinkers. They increasingly lived separate lives under the same roof. Mrs. Rattenbury then became involved with George Percy Stoner, a 19-year-old chauffeur-handyman she had hired. In 1935, Rattenbury was attacked from behind while reclining in a chair and killed with a carpenter’s mallet.

Both Mrs. Rattenbury and Stoner were charged with murder. The case against Mrs. Rattenbury could not be proven, while Stoner maintained that he alone was responsible. He was sentenced to penal servitude for life. Soon after the sentence, Mrs. Rattenbury took her own life. The sensational end to Rattenbury’s life became one of the darker stories attached to an architect whose buildings had helped define Victoria.

With minor exceptions, local materials and local labour were used in constructing the Parliament Buildings. The foundations and steps were made from granite from Nelson Island in the Malaspina Strait. The exterior masonry was faced with andesite from the Haddington Island quarries, located roughly 200 miles north of Victoria. The roof slate, valued for its silica and alumina content, came from Jervis Inlet.

There were some exceptions to the local-materials principle. The hand-wrought iron gates at the main entrance came from London, England, while the marble lining the rotunda came from Tennessee. Even so, the project was largely a British Columbia undertaking and helped showcase the province’s own stone, trades, and construction ability.

Labour in the 1890s had not yet developed the level of militancy seen in later periods, but two strikes did affect construction. A stonecutters’ strike reportedly arose after a worker was accused of spoiling a stone. A masons’ strike followed over accusations that the masons were delaying the work. The dispute was resolved after the masonry contractor, Fred Adams, drowned while on his way to the quarries, and McGregor & Jones later took over as general contractors.

Rumours circulated that outsiders or “foreigners” might be receiving too much benefit from the project. To counter these claims, Fred Adams published a list of the names and nationalities of the workers involved, showing that only seven of several dozen were United States citizens.

Firms and trades associated with the project included Bishop & Sherborne as carpenters, Richard Drake as plasterers, Albion Iron Works Co., H. T. Flett for plumbing, W. H. Perry as coppersmith, and E. Spillman as painters. E. C. Howell served as Superintendent of Works, while Victor Moretti worked as fresco artist and decorator. Fred McGregor, son of one of the later contractors, was later noted as a leading life insurance salesman in Victoria.

The east and west wings were added in the early twentieth century, with work associated with the 1912 period and a cost of approximately $1,000,000. These additions doubled the floor area of the main building and gave the Legislature a broader and more balanced plan.

The wings are often appreciated from the rear of the building because the greater depth and grounds allow the additions to be seen more fully. While the front of the Parliament Buildings is the famous postcard view, the rear elevation, wings, and surrounding grounds form a more extensive civic composition than many visitors realize.

The Parliament Buildings contain many sculptural references to British Columbia’s colonial, Indigenous, maritime, political, and exploration history. Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie and Sir James Douglas flank the main entrance, representing two of the most prominent figures in the province’s colonial history.

At the rear of the buildings, inset figures include Sir Anthony Musgrave, Chief Maquinna of Nootka, and John Bunyan standing in for David Thompson, the explorer associated with locating the source of the Columbia River. According to the old account, the sculptor could not find a likeness of Thompson. Thompson’s daughter reportedly said that he resembled John Bunyan, so Bunyan effectively became the model for Thompson in stone.

The library wing includes additional sculptures by C. Maroza. Figures represented around the building include Chief Maquinna, Chief Justice Begbie, John McLoughlin of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken, Captain Cook, Sir James Douglas, Sir Francis Drake, Lord Lytton, Sir Anthony Musgrave, and General Moody.

Many politicians of the period would likely have enjoyed being immortalized in stone on the buildings. The choice to include figures such as Captain Cook and Sir Francis Drake, who had limited direct connection to Vancouver Island compared with some local claimants, may have helped avoid disputes among more immediate rivals for recognition.

The selection of figures also reflects the assumptions of its time. The sculptures present a colonial and imperial reading of British Columbia’s past, combining explorers, colonial officials, Indigenous leaders, judges, administrators, and imperial symbols into a single civic building. Modern viewers may see both the artistic ambition and the limitations of that historical perspective.

Inside the Parliament Buildings, the rotunda and murals are among the major features. The murals were the work of Victoria artist George Southwell. Visitors have also long been encouraged to view the photographs of Victoria Cross heroes and the Legislative Assembly chamber, which was modelled on the parliamentary traditions of Westminster.

The Provincial Library was also considered one of the impressive interior spaces associated with the complex. Alongside the chamber, rotunda, murals, and public halls, it helped give the buildings a sense of provincial ceremony and institutional weight.

One curious oversight attributed to Rattenbury was the omission of washrooms in the main building. The old account makes the point with some humour, describing crude accommodations for visitors who had to travel a long distance to reach a lavatory only to find it crowded. The image of guests urgently seeking relief in a grand new public building became one of the more human and comic details in the Legislature’s early story.

One of the most enduring features of the Parliament Buildings is the nighttime outline of lights tracing the roofline and domes. More than 3,000 light bulbs were used to illuminate the buildings, with the first lighting associated with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The buildings were illuminated even before they were fully completed because Victorians were so proud of them.

The first illumination was a public event. H.M. ships Imperieuse and Amphion, along with the American warships Columbine and Alert, were in Victoria for the occasion. The lighting was an immediate success and helped make the Parliament Buildings one of the most recognizable night views in British Columbia.

The illuminated Legislature has remained a defining image of the Inner Harbour. For visitors walking the causeway, arriving by ferry, staying at nearby hotels, or dining around the harbour, the glowing outline of the Parliament Buildings is one of Victoria’s signature sights.

Tourism was already important to Victoria before the Parliament Buildings were completed. In the late nineteenth century, the city was known for its hotels, harbour setting, gardens, British character, and public buildings. The Legislature added a powerful new attraction to that mix.

The main building drew significant public interest soon after opening. The old account notes that the Parliament Buildings helped attract approximately 70,000 tourists in 1899. From that point onward, the Legislature remained one of the city’s principal tourist landmarks.

The building’s appeal was not only architectural. It stood at the centre of a harbour setting that included shipping, hotels, gardens, government offices, public promenades, and later the Empress Hotel. This combination helped give Victoria the image of a refined capital city with a scenic waterfront and a strong sense of history.

The presence of the Legislature and the provincial civil service had a major effect on Victoria’s economy. The location of the province’s main body of civil servants in Victoria provided the city with a large and stable payroll. The old account estimated that about 5,000 civil servants were located in Victoria, making government one of the city’s most important economic anchors.

Government employment helped protect Victoria from some of the economic ups and downs that affected more resource-dependent communities. In addition to civil service salaries, the city benefited from spending by members of the Legislature, visiting businesspeople, dignitaries, officials, and those connected with maintenance, office supply, public works, and the care of the legislative grounds.

This government presence also influenced Victoria’s social character. The routines of administrators, public servants, and government offices helped foster a settled, orderly, conservative way of life. Residents invested their energies in gardens, cultural societies, public institutions, and municipal affairs. Many came to Victoria intending to stay.

Critics sometimes described Victoria as passive, cautious, and resistant to newcomers. The old account refers to the city as a place where business was in trusted hands and where newcomers could find it difficult to enter established circles. It also connects this caution to Victoria’s reputation for traffic lights, stop signs, regulations, and restrictions that some mainland visitors found excessive.

The grounds of the Parliament Buildings are an important part of the site’s history. The Victoria Centennial Fountain at the rear of the buildings was activated in 1962 and includes native fauna associated with British Columbia Indigenous totemic imagery. The Confederation Garden, located to the west, opened in 1967 and includes a fountain, eternal flame, provincial shields, and symbols of Canadian identity.

Facing the waterfront is a plinth honouring Sir James Douglas, Royal Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Colony for many years. In front of the buildings stands the statue of Queen Victoria, from whom the city takes its name. Mounted on a Swedish granite base, the statue was created by Allan Bruce Joy, a London sculptor and architect.

Joy was reportedly unhappy with the statue’s location. He had intended Queen Victoria to stand closer to the main entrance of the Legislative Buildings, near the fountain that was built by a New York firm in 1905 at a cost of $1,400. He complained that the statue’s placement made it awkward to view, suggesting that one risked being run over by a car or falling into the water while trying to see it properly.

The northeast corner of the grounds contains the War Memorial. Together with the Queen Victoria statue, the Douglas plinth, the fountains, the Confederation Garden, and the surrounding lawns, the memorials and landscape features make the Legislature grounds a layered public space rather than simply the setting for a single building.

The flags around the Parliament Buildings have long carried symbolic importance. The Maple Leaf flag became Canada’s national flag in 1965, replacing the Canadian Red Ensign with its quartered national emblems. In Victoria, the new flag was not accepted with the same enthusiasm it received in many other parts of Canada. In 1970, one Victoria citizen even challenged the legality of replacing the Union Jack with the Maple Leaf.

Victoria’s affection for the Union Jack reflected the city’s British background, its imperial loyalties, and the naval traditions associated with the Royal Canadian Navy presence on the Pacific coast. Many veterans and families who had lost sons in the two World Wars felt a strong emotional attachment to the Union Jack, under which Canadian troops had fought.

For many Canadian-born citizens, however, the Maple Leaf represented Canada’s maturity and independent national identity. The Parliament Buildings and their grounds thus became a place where British, provincial, and Canadian symbols met. The Union Jack continued to appear on a separate flagstaff and in the flag held by Captain Vancouver’s statue on the main cupola, while the British Columbia flag also acknowledged the province’s historic ties to Britain.

The British Columbia flag, authorized in 1960, includes blue and white wavy bars, a setting or rising sun motif, the Union Jack, and a golden antique crown. Its presence at the Legislature reinforces the blend of provincial identity, British symbolism, and Pacific geography that shaped Victoria’s public image.

The BC Parliament Buildings remain one of the strongest symbols of Victoria’s history. They represent the city’s role as provincial capital, its British colonial inheritance, its harbourfront geography, its civic ambition in the 1890s, and its continuing importance as a government and tourism centre.

For Victoria, the Legislature is both architecture and identity. It helped secure the city’s capital status, strengthened the Inner Harbour’s public character, supported the government economy, and gave British Columbia one of its most recognizable public buildings.

The canneries, sealing fleets, shipbuilding yards, and older industrial trades that supported Victoria’s nineteenth-century optimism are now mostly gone. Tourism, government, heritage architecture, and the city’s harbour setting remain. In that sense, the Parliament Buildings are not only a monument to Victoria’s past. They are still part of the city’s present-day character and one of the reasons the Inner Harbour continues to define Victoria in the public imagination.