The Story of the First Public School on the Saanich Peninsula
Notes
1The Daily Press, Sunday, July 28, 1861. p. 3.
2Ibid.
3The Daily Press, Friday, September 13, 1861. p. 3.
4The Daily Press, Tuesday, January 2, 1862. p. 3.
5This is contrary to local lore, which states that the land (anywhere from 4 to 7 acres) was donated to the Church by William Thomson. See Bishop Hill Diaries, Vol. 7, May 6 – June 25, 1863, p. 172.
6St. Stephen’s Church was not called St. Stephen’s until the 1880s. Prior to this, it was simply called the District Church of South Saanich.
7The Daily Press, Sunday, June 1, 1862. p. 3.
8 Shortly after the Lowes arrived on the small sailing vessel Heather Bell (April 6, 1860), they were assigned to the Female Collegiate School, and Mrs. Lowe was placed as the Lady Superintendent. See Roberta L. Bagshaw, No Better Land: The 1860 Diaries of the Anglican Colonial Bishop George Hills, (Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1996), pp. 97, 221-222.
9The Daily Press, Sunday, June 1, 1862. p. 3.
10Letter from Edward Cridge, Acting Superintendent of Education, to W.A.G. Young, Acting Colonial Secretary, July 4, 1863; letter from Rev. Richard Lowe to Rev. Edward Cridge, June 12, 1863.
11Daily Evening Express, Wednesday, September 23, 1863. p. 3.
12Daily Evening Express, Monday, May 30, 1864. p. 3.
13Alfred Waddington, Vancouver Island – Board of Education, school inspection notebooks, 1865- 1867. July 1, 1865; A. Waddington to W.A.G. Young, July 12, 1865, manuscript, B.C. archives.
14 Ibid.
15 Waddington. School inspection notebooks. August 2, 1865
16 Ibid.
17 Nanaimo Free Press, Monday, April 9, 1909. p. 1.
18 GR-0766. British Columbia Department of Lands and Works – Pre-emption records for west coast land, 1861-1886. Box 6, File 24.
19Waddington. School inspection notebooks. July 1, 1865.
20 Ibid.
21Waddington. School inspection notebooks. October 3, 1865.
22Waddington. School inspection notebooks. July 2, 1866.
23Waddington. School inspection notebooks. August 3, 1866.
24Waddington. School inspection notebooks. December 21, 1866.
25Vancouver Island - Board of Education, Outward Correspondence, June 1865 – September 1867. No. 139. June 29, 1867; Vancouver Island – Board of Education, Minutes, June 1865 – March 1869. Board meeting of June 29, 1867.
26Ibid.
27Victor Virgin, History of North and South Saanich Pioneers and District, (Saanich Pioneers’ Society, 4th edition, 1997), p. 23.
28Arthur Vogee, “Grammar considered useless for farmers’ children in first school,” Saanich Peninsula & Gulf Islands Review, June 23, 1954. p. 1, section 3.
29Virgin., History of North and South Saanich Pioneers and District, p. 23.
30Vancouver Island – Board of Education, Minutes, June 1865 – March 1869. Board meeting of March 9, 1869.
31Vogee, “Grammar considered useless for farmers’ children in first school.”
32 British Columbia, Sessional Papers, 1873 First Annual Report of the Superintendent of Education, for the year ending July 31, 1873
33Ibid.
34Conveyances To The Crown, Vol.1, Fol. 1; Dated 9 April 1873, #787A [Section 8, Range 3 east, South Saanich], Surveyor General Branch, Ministry of Environment. Lands, and Parks. The land, at the northwest corner of White and Veyaness Roads, is still owned by the School District 63.
35Victoria Daily Standard, Thursday, June 12, 1873. p. 3.
36British Columbia, Sessional Papers, 1874, Annual Report of the Superintendent of Education, for the year ending July 31, 1874.
37Daily British Colonist, Friday, January 29, 1875. p. 3.
38Victoria Daily Standard, Thursday, March 6, 1873. p. 3.
39Betty Bell, The Fair Land, (Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1982).
