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Archival description
Series Farm life--British Columbia
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Marriner, Edward, -1884. Cowichan Bay; Farmer.

Diaries (5 vols.): Aug 5, 1862 - Apr 3, 1863, and Apr 1 - Sep 12, 1867; Nov 24, 1867 - Apr 15, 1868, and Jun 28-29, 1868; 1862; 1883; and 1884. Entries describe Marriner's voyage from England around Cape Horn to Victoria in 1862 and his life, work, expenditures and receipts at his farms at Somenos and Cowichan Bay. Volume 2, 1867-1868, contains detailed reports of sermons heard at Anglican Church services he attended.

Marriner, Edward, d. 1884

Letterbook and diaries

Letterbook, 1903-1914 signed Harry Burr and diaries, 1901-1910 describing farming activities at Ladner.

Kenneth McKenzie family personal and business papers

The McKenzie Family collection consists of the business and personal papers of Kenneth McKenzie (1811-1874), his ancestors and descendants, including correspondence, notebooks, diaries, and other papers. It documents over one hundred and fifty years of family history. The collection is divided into those records relating to Vancouver Island (Boxes 1-19) and those relating to Scotland (Boxes 20-25). The Vancouver Island papers contain correspondence and documents pertaining to Lakehill Farm, the settlement of estates, official appointments, and other family matters. They also chronicle the organization and operation of Craigflower Farm and, to a lesser extent, the other farms operated by the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company on Vancouver Island. The Scottish papers document family events, relationships and property from 1779 to 1852. Included is an extensive record of the protracted settlement of the estate of William Blair (Boxes 22-23). William Blair was the father of Janet McKenzie (Blair).

Born in Edinburgh October 5, 1811, the son of Dr. Kenneth McKenzie (1786-1844) and Janet Blair (1784-1820), Kenneth McKenzie was raised and educated in the same city. Later he moved to his father's estate of Rentonhall, Haddingtonshire, East Lothian where he managed the operations. The estate was sold in 1851 and McKenzie, his wife Agnes Russell (1823-1897) and their six children emigrated to Vancouver Island in 1853. McKenzie had been hired by the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company to oversee the establishment and operation of Craigflower Farm near Victoria. In 1866 the family, now with eight children, moved to Lakehill Farm just north of Victoria. Kenneth McKenzie died there April 10, 1874. A comprehensive biography of Kenneth McKenzie by William R. Sampson is in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, X, pp.477-479. A rough genealogy of the McKenzie Family is provided in the hardcopy version of the finding aid.

Numbers appearing at the upper left corner of documents are references to the old catalogue system and should not be used for citation.

Boxes 1-4: Kenneth McKenzie (1811-1874) and family: correspondence inward
Box 5: McKenzie, Kenneth (1846-1906): correspondence inward
Box 6: Kenneth McKenzie (1811-1874) and Kenneth McKenzie (1846-1906): correspondence outward
Box 7: Kenneth McKenzie (1811-1874): notebooks and personal papers
Box 8: McKenzie Family: notebooks, diaries, correspondence and personal papers
Box 9: McKenzie Family: material relating to Lakehill property
Boxes 10-18: Craigflower Farm
Box 19: Puget's Sound Agricultural Company
Boxes 20-25: McKenzie family: material relating to Scotland. N.B. See also box 25 for further material relating to the estate of William Blair, d.1800

Journal

Journal describing life on Galiano Island, May 12, 1881 to June 4, 1887; entries added to 1895(?). Dominion of Canada, certificate of naturalization, 1930.

Hulbert family correspondence

Thirty-five letters inward from Charles Edward Searle (tutor, Pembroke College, Cambridge University, England) to Thomas George Askew; nine letter books, 1884-1928, of Henry and John Hulbert, Sardis; 14 ledgers of Hulbert family farm, Sardis. (John Hulbert was the grandson of T.G. Askew, who built the first lumber mill at Chemainus.)

Presented from the estate of John Hulbert, Koksilah by David R. Williams, Duncan, 1975.

Finding aid: file list.

Henry, Arthur, 1876-1946. Sayward; Farmer

Diaries. From 1896-1900, Henry was in the Royal Marine Artillery on board H.M.S. Victorious on the China Station; he emigrated to B.C. in 1911, and from November 1913 to February 1914 worked as a carpenter at South Wellington mine; in May 1914 he pre-empted Lot 8, Sayward district; he served in the army from 1915-1917, partly in England; in April 1920 the family returned to Sayward. A typescript of the diaries for 1897-1900 is filmed after the 1935-1936 diary, and contains photographs, programmes, etc. Photos transferred to Visual Records.

Harry Moffat diaries and farm account books

Harry Moffat was a Cariboo pioneer and farmer at Alexandria, B.C. He died in 1947. The records diaries and farm account books of Harry Henry Moffat, Cariboo pioneer, and his descendants (12 volumes).

Moffat, Harry, d. 1947

Diaries of Henry Pennant Cornwall

The series consists of transcript and microfilm copies of H.P. Cornwall's diary, from December 10, 1864 to June 13 1865 describing life on the farm at Ashcroft Manor.

Diaries and other material

Diaries (1908-1962) of T.M. Edwards, 1908-1962, who lived in Calgary, Whitehorse and England before emigrating to Chilliwack in 1920. Also two notebooks, one re Fraser Valley Milk Producers' Association, of which he was a director; diaries (1923-1965) of his wife, Daisy Evelyn Edwards; and diaries (1909,1929-1942) of her mother, Hannah Harvey, who emigrated from England to Canada in 1934. Hannah Harvey material also includes a birthday book, photograph and In Memoriam card for Anne Matheson. Box 1: Volumes 1-25 of the T.M. Edwards diaries are located; Box 2: Volumes 26 to 50; Box 3: notebooks; Box 4: Volumes 50- 73 of the Daisy Edwards diaries; Box 5: volumes 74-89; Box 6: Hannah Harvey diaries and ephemera (Volumes 90-105).

Diaries

The series consists of the diaries of C.F. Cornwall, kept May 1862 - July 1864, November 1866 - June 1869, July 1869 - December 1871, and 1872 - 15 July 1873 (in diary for 1865) recording life at Ashcroft Manor, a sojourn at Wild Horse Creek in the summer of 1865, and in Ottawa as a senator in the spring of 1872. Also includes "The story of the coyote hounds", 1868-1888.

British Columbia Farmers' Institutes records

  • GR-0505
  • Series
  • 1912 - 1992

The series consists of B.C. Farmers’ Institutes records of several different types, including: records of Farmers’ Institute districts; records concerning the reporting of local institutes to the Registrar of Companies and the Dept. of Agriculture; correspondence of the Superintendent of Farmers’ Institutes (in the Dept. of Agriculture); and records of the Farmers' Institute Advisory Board ca. 1961-1967.

The series includes files regarding local Farmers' Institutes. These records document the function of the B.C. Registrar of Companies and subsequently the B.C. Dept. of Agriculture in their responsibility for B.C. Farmers' Institutes. The records document how each local institute registered as a society, carried out its annual reporting, and was dissolved. These files may include: a declaration of desire to form a society under the Societies Act, the certificate of incorporation as a society, constitution and by-laws, a list of first directors, the annual reports which include the institute's annual financial statement, and a memo to file regarding the local institute being struck off the corporate register and dissolved. Files may also include minutes and correspondence. A Declaration of Association includes the names, occupations and address of the local people who wished to form the association.

The annual reports include: a financial statement listing receipts and expenditures, balances, and names of auditors. It also includes the membership numbers, and names and occupations of officers and directors. Annual reports also consist of remarks, sometimes lengthy, about the nature of the local institute and its activities during the past year.

Records of Farmers’ Institute districts date from ca. 1961 through 1967 and from 1968 to 1980. These files include minutes of and resolutions from meetings and annual conventions, correspondence, and financial statements.

The series also includes miscellaneous correspondence ca. 1961-1963, in-going and out-going, from the office of the Superintendent of Farmers’ Institutes of the Dept. of Agriculture.

Where file codes exist on the files, these codes were created based on the number assigned to that institute at the declaration of association.

Annual reports and other corporate records were submitted first to the B.C. Registrar of Companies and subsequently to the B.C. Dept. of Agriculture. Prior to 1956, the Farmers’ and Women’s Institutes were administered under the Institutes Act and Societies Act, and they reported to the Registrar of Companies (the Corporate Registry). Registry files created by the Registrar of Companies documented the registration, corporate history and dissolution of all companies, societies and co-operatives that operated in British Columbia, and were dissolved between 1860 and 1993. Companies, societies and co-operatives that carried on business in British Columbia were required to register with the Registrar of Companies and regularly submit reports and other records to the registry office. For this reason, prior to 1956, Farmers’ and Women's Institute records were held by and in the provenance of the office of the Registrar of Companies. In 1956 the B.C. legislature passed a new “Farmers’ and Women’s Institutes Act” (an act initially dating from 1936). The 1956 act placed the institutes entirely under this act instead of being administered under the Institutes Act and Societies Act, and the institutes were now the responsibility of, and reported to, the Dept. of Agriculture.

Many records of the institutes initially held by the Registrar of Companies were transferred to the Dept. of Agriculture, and the Dept. of Agriculture continued to create records after 1956. Those records transferred to B.C. Archives from the Dept. of Agriculture and its successor, the Ministry of Agriculture, make up the records of GR-0505. Some Farmers’ and Women's Institute records remained with the Registrar of Companies and were transferred directly from that office to B.C. Archives. These records are located in series GR-1526 - Corporate registry files.

Container GR0505-0007 contains some files regarding the B.C. Women's Institutes, as follows:

Aberdeen Women’s Institute
Bonnington and South Slocan Women’s Institute
Carmi Women’s Institute
Christian Valley Women’s Institute
Deer Park Women’s Institute
Lasqueti Women’s Institute
Monte Lake Women’s Institute
North Fraser Lake Women’s Institute
Nukko Lake Women’s Institute
Peace Arch Women’s Institute
Pitt Meadows Women’s Institute
Tatalrose Women’s Institute
Telkwa and District Women’s Institute
Terrace Women’s Institute
West Langley Women’s Institute
Woss Lake Women’s Institute

British Columbia. Dept. of Agriculture

Annie Margaret Angus family papers

Diaries, documents and research notes concerning the family of Annie Margaret Angus, especially her father Major William James Anderson. Materials consist mostly of diaries (1885-1924) of Major Anderson, and his wife Laura, which cover his career in the British Army and the family's efforts in establishing a fruit orchard in the Kettle Valley/Rock Creek district of British Columbia. They also include papers regarding W.J. Anderson's military career, family history, Annie M. Angus' correspondence and research notes regarding here family's history, and her annotations and notes on her father's diaries. Also included are two family photograph albums which have been transferred to Visual Records.

Annie Margaret Angus was the eldest daughter of Major William James Anderson and his wife Laura. Born in Turkey, she was raised in Scotland and India before her family emigrated to the Rock Creek valley of British Columbia in 1909. There they worked at establishing a fruit ranch until her father's death in 1915 and the abandonment of the orchard for Vancouver in 1919. Annie Anderson attended the University of British Columbia from 1919-1923 and married Dr. Henry Angus in 1924. Following his retirement from the faculty of the University of B.C. in 1956, where he served as the dean of Graduate Studies, Dr. Angus was appointed Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission. Mrs. Angus was active in community affairs, serving as a member of the Vancouver School Board from 1952-1958, and on the Senate of the University of British Columbia from 1957 to the mid-1960s. She was also active in child welfare agencies in Vancouver and at the national level.

Major William James Anderson, 1860-1915, the father of Annie Margaret Angus, was the son of Colonel John Cumming Anderson of the Royal Engineers in India. As a young officer J.C. Anderson had been in charge of the defences of Lucknow during the Sepoy Mutiny. W.J. Anderson was also first cousin (on his father's side) to Alexander Caulfield Anderson, a chief factor with the Hudson's Bay Company in British Columbia. W.J. Anderson was raised in India and England and was commissioned in the British Army in 1882. He was posted in India, Crete and Turkey, where he served as a military consul from 1899 to 1903. In 1900 he married Laura Elsworth who was born in Wisconsin in 1870, and taught at an American missionary school for girls in Turkey where she and William Anderson met. With the rank of Major, William Anderson retired from the army in 1909. The family then emigrated to British Columbia to establish a fruit ranch in the Kettle Valley/Rock Creek district on land purchased from the "Kettle Valley Irrigated Fruit Lands Company". In 1915 Major Anderson was recalled to active duty and was killed while serving at Gallipoli on October 19, 1915. Laura Anderson was forced to abandon the orchard in 1919 and to move to Vancouver.