Ceremonies
In Victoria’s Victoria, the Freemasons and other membership-based organizations
created a sense of community within the middle class that was based on a set of shared
values.1 Just as their American cousins had no trouble constructing a history worth
celebrating out of their short nationhood, Victoria’s Victorians saw themselves as the
authors and heroes of history in the establishment of the colony.2 The settler community
was small, local heroes and political movers liked public attention, and the bonds
between the few respectable “men” in Victoria were strong. The programs for
cornerstone laying ceremonies read like a local street map, including the names of people
like James Douglas, Eli Harrison, and Matthew Bailley Begbie.
Prominent men and women could also afford to make large contributions to the
building project. The buildings examined in this site are the product of financially hungry
building projects and raising the money to begin construction represented an achievement
in itself. Everyone who contributed was invited. The ceremonies were also announced
and reported on publicly.
In any membership-based organization, the implication is that people were also
excluded. The Catholic Church, and various Protestant denominations used many
ceremonies that served to make their members feel united and protected from “the
profane world outside the temple.”3 The politics of inclusion and exclusion are not so
clear-cut in early Victoria. James Douglas, for example, sent his daughters to Saint Ann’s
Catholic school, but participated in multiple Protestant functions and ceremonies.
Prominent figures could slide across religious lines to partake of the festivities, but most
of Victoria’s middle class considered themselves prominent. And why shouldn’t they?
However, there were few indigenous people at any of the ceremonies. Was this
because of the distinctly colonial nature of the cornerstone-laying ritual? In religious
cornerstone laying ceremonies in parts of the province where missionaries had found
many converts, indigenous people participated in large numbers, but photos of
cornerstone laying ceremonies in Victoria show few identifiably indigenous people. Of
course, this was probably the case because their presence and conversion translated into a
larger percentage of the financial contributions to the building projects in less settled
areas and contributions to the building project are what the ceremonies sought to
emphasize.
In a Victoria, with a stable population of less than 21,000,4 thousands contributed
to community building projects and thousands arrived en mass to catch a glimpse of the
stone mason laying the “first” stone. This stone was symbolic, but generally not the first
one laid (see cornerstones). Often, especially in catholic ceremonies a list of people who
Clifford E. Clark, Jr., “The Ambiguities of Middle-Class Respectability,” Reviews in
American History, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Sep., 1985): 399.
2
Nathalia Wright, “The Monument That Jonathon Built,” American Quarterly 5.2
(1953): 167.
3
Clifford E. Clark, Jr., “The Ambiguities of Middle-Class Respectability,” Reviews in
American History, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Sep., 1985): 399.
1
4
http://vihistory.ca/content/documents/abstract01.aspx
subscribed or made large financial contributions was included in the time capsule laid the
same day.
Lynn Dumenil. Freemasonry and American Culture, 1880-1930. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1984.
F-01946
Saint Andrews
“Bless, O Lord this creature of stone, and grant by the invocation of thy Holy Name, that
whosoever with a pure mind, shall give aid to the building of this Church may receive
health of body and healing of mind. Through Our Lord, Christ : Amen.”5
On Sunday October 5th, 1890, Victoria’s Victorian’s laid the cornerstone for St.
Andrew’s Cathedral at its current location. The weather cleared and the skies were blue
“ushering in the day whose proceedings are expected to have such an influence on the
religious future of the Pacific Coast.”6 In preparation for the ceremony, the building
frame and other signs of construction “that it had been necessary to leave on the ground”
were covered or otherwise hidden from view.7 The equipment used for laying the
cornerstone and the skeleton frame of the building was shrouded in decorations suited to
a highly religious catholic ceremony. According to the Victoria Daily Colonist: “The
character of the service … was impressive alike upon the Protestants and Catholics.”8
With dimensions of 5x5x3 feet, the cornerstone actually played a structurally integral role
to the building. The five and a half ton block came from Keefer’s quarry in the Burrard
Inlet and bares the name of Reverend Bishop John Nichola Lemmens, who oversaw the
project from start to finish. Estimated costs for the construction of the church went
upwards from $80,000 in 1890 and only $45,000 of that had been raised at the time of the
cornerstone laying ceremony. The Victoria Daily Colonist began covering news of the
construction as soon as it was underway, even before the cornerstone was laid and paying
special attention to the permanency of the structure.
“The Corner Stone: Description of the Ceremony to be Performed this Afternoon by the
Right Rev. Bishop Lootens,” Victoria Daily Colonist (Sunday October 5, 1890): 5.
6
“The New R.C. Cathedral: Impressive Cermonies Attending the Laying of the
Foundation Stone of St. Andrew’s,” Victoria Daily Colonist (Tuesday October 7, 1890):
2.
7
“The New R.C. Cathedral: Impressive Cermonies Attending the Laying of the
Foundation Stone of St. Andrew’s,” Victoria Daily Colonist (Tuesday October 7, 1890):
2.
8
“The New R.C. Cathedral: Impressive Cermonies Attending the Laying of the
Foundation Stone of St. Andrew’s,” Victoria Daily Colonist (Tuesday October 7, 1890):
2.
5
Lemmens worked with Montreal architects to design a church like one he had seen in
Quebec the Church of Longeuil, imitating the European cathedrals of the fourteenth and
fifteenth century, while he travelled back and forth between Victoria and Kyuquot Sound,
BC. As a missionary, Lemmens worked closely with the indigenous people from
Kyuquot Sound to Victoria and in other parts of the country. He was acutely aware of the
ruggedness of missionary frontier life and worked cooperatively with other missionaries,
settlers, and indigenous people to survive. In his diary, he even talks about Rev. Nicholay
working in a saw mill near Kyuquot Sound, when help was needed.
In practice, Rev. Lemmens daily life brought him into contact with labourers and
indigenous peoples, but the Victoria Daily Colonist makes no mention of diversity
amongst the crowds gathered at the cornerstone ceremony or the opening of the church.
Actually placed inside the cornerstone, the time capsule is a copper manuscript box
containing “the names of the Pope, Her Majesty the Queen, and the Governor-General, a
list of subscribers names and the amount subscribed up to the present date, specimens of
the coinage of the Dominion, and copies of The Colonist and Times containing an
account of the proceedings [sic].”9
These contents represent the way that Victoria’s Victorians wanted to see themselves:
emphasizing influence, being able to afford to donate to such an ambitious project;
literacy and education; but also as monuments.
The Victoria Daily Colonist referred to Jesus Christ as “the chief cornerstone in all the
plans of God” and Lemmens, with the others that paid for the building of St. Andrew’s
Cathedral felt they were playing an integral part to the planning of the colony.
http://www.tclayton.demon.co.uk/pics/qv/1d/1d89o.jpg
http://robin-on-aclecoins.co.uk/coins_for_sale/coin_00000703_1.jpg
“The New R.C. Cathedral: Impressive Cermonies Attending the Laying of the
Foundation Stone of St. Andrew’s,” Victoria Daily Colonist (Tuesday October 7, 1890):
2.
9