Author: Vancouver History

January 19 Charles Gardiner Johnson, called “the father of Vancouver’s shipping industry,” died in Vancouver, aged 68. Born February 8, 1857, near Dunblane, Scotland, he went to sea in 1870. In the 1880s he left seafaring to farm in Manitoba….

April 9 A banquet was held at the Hotel Vancouver in honor of visiting Governor General Viscount Willingdon of Ratton, who’d assumed the office October 2, 1926. Willingdon Avenue in Burnaby is named for him.

January 1 St. Francis in the Wood church in Caulfeild, West Vancouver, was consecrated. It was designed by Henry A. Stone, a local resident, businessman and early benefactor of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

January 1 Today, the municipalities of Point Grey and South Vancouver amalgamated with the city, and overnight Vancouver—with its expanded population of about 240,000—became Canada’s third largest city. (Its southern boundary had been 16th Avenue.) To the 22,047 school population of Vancouver were added 8,940 pupils from South Vancouver and 6,404 from Point Grey.

March 1 The “Fraser Valley Public Library Demonstration” began, with Dr. Helen Gordon Stewart as director. Background: the Carnegie Corporation of New York had donated funds for a bookmobile and library administration service in the Fraser Valley.