Hi guys,
Here's what I came up with for the group log. I would like to send this off to John tonight if possible. Let me know if you guys have any ideas for changes or items to include.
Scott
Group Awesome Log
Final division of labour for the website:
Scott: Verney page; Irvines page; copy editing
Dan: McKenzie page; website construction and graphics editing
Taryn: Melrose page; Bartleman page; copy editing
Our group began with a very broad conception of our project as examining rural land use, with a particular interest in farming, in the early years of colonial Vancouver Island. As such, we initially made two group visits to the BC Archives (February 14th and 19th) where we investigated such leads as the colonial ‘blue books,’ the McKenzie family papers, and various documents (particularly those filed under colonial correspondence) relating to the HBC and the PSAC. Though at that point our ambitions for the website were still undefined, we did find here several nuclei of our eventual product: Taryn discovered references to the Melrose Diary while examining clippings from a Colonist series on early families in Victoria. Scott also came across the first references to the Irvine family at that point. As mentioned above, we were targeting the McKenzie family from early on, and their extensive records became very valuable.
It was not long after these discoveries that we came to the dual realizations that, first, examining individuals might be a more rewarding (and more microhistorical) endeavour than examining statistics alone, and second, that all the individuals we had been examining had a strong connection to Craigflower farm. The article the class read on Edmund Verney compelled us to add him to our cast of characters, and shortly after, Taryn discovered repeated references to Bartleman in Melrose’s diary, which compelled her to examine his life further as well.
Parallel to these discussions, which had been taking place in class time, over email, on our blog, and at a couple of meetings at the university and downtown, we were considering how we might go about creating a website design which both suited the content of our project and was an innovative, useful method for presenting historical material on the internet. This latter consideration led us to develop the ‘two-window’ system which we believed would help eliminate a problem we had noticed on a number of similar websites – primary sources or other supporting information were generally presented in a format which, to examine them fully, required the viewer to leave the page which they were then reading. We decided that the most useful way to solve this issue would be to present a highly readable account of the character’s life on the left and complement that with a range of supporting text, documents, and other sources on the right. Not only was this a useful way of presenting historical information online in its own right, but we also felt that it would help our site to capture the attention of readers of various interest levels by offering them an easy way to choose how much of the site they explored.
The final assignments of pages took place fairly late in the process; for much of the period we were all working on many leads and swapping ideas for the various people we came across. Scott ended up taking on the Irvines since he had originally discovered their fonds in the BC Archives, and Verney since he had a prior interest in the Royal Navy and his mother had grown up in Esquimalt; Dan, being the most technically accomplished in the group, took on website construction, and as a result wrote only one page of the final site (though an important one) – this was McKenzie, chosen partly because Dan lives near Craigflower and had considered visiting the archives there; Taryn took on Melrose, since she had originally discovered the existence of his diary, and Bartleman, since he was mentioned in that diary.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Porcher citation
Dan,
Here's the citation for the Porcher painting you were looking for. It's in:
Porcher, E.A. A tour of duty in the Pacific Northwest. Edited and annotated by Dwight L. Smith. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2000.
The picture faces page 48.
Cheers,
SM
Here's the citation for the Porcher painting you were looking for. It's in:
Porcher, E.A. A tour of duty in the Pacific Northwest. Edited and annotated by Dwight L. Smith. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2000.
The picture faces page 48.
Cheers,
SM
Monday, April 16, 2007
Melrose Page
Hi guys,
Just adding my thoughts on the Melrose page to complete my critique from last night.
Taryn - I agree with everything you've posted.
Dan - I would vote for your new title. Also, I never heard back from you about helping with compiling the list of images that John wanted today. Can I assume that you've got it taken care of?
And now, without further ado:
MELROSE PAGE:
First paragraph - should be a comma after "Company of Adventurers of England"
Right window of Melrose's contract - his name is missing the T in the title introducing the transcription
In "The Journey to Canada" it says that the Melroses "eventually made land". Shouldn't this be "landfall"?
Near the beginning of "Life at Craigflower" there is an unnecessary period after the link to Peter Bartleman.
That's it!!! We definitely have the most awesome website ever.
Just adding my thoughts on the Melrose page to complete my critique from last night.
Taryn - I agree with everything you've posted.
Dan - I would vote for your new title. Also, I never heard back from you about helping with compiling the list of images that John wanted today. Can I assume that you've got it taken care of?
And now, without further ado:
MELROSE PAGE:
First paragraph - should be a comma after "Company of Adventurers of England"
Right window of Melrose's contract - his name is missing the T in the title introducing the transcription
In "The Journey to Canada" it says that the Melroses "eventually made land". Shouldn't this be "landfall"?
Near the beginning of "Life at Craigflower" there is an unnecessary period after the link to Peter Bartleman.
That's it!!! We definitely have the most awesome website ever.
Morning everyone!
I've also read through the site and have a couple of things to add to Scott's massive list! Some of the corrections are kind of pedantic, and I'm not trying not to nit-pick, but they just jumped out at me.
-Under "Craigflower Connections" (which I agree should have some spaces between it and the body of the text) we should have "through a microhistorical lens" rather than "lense". I checked in the dictionary, and "lens" is the standard spelling.
-On McKenzie's page, I think it should be "as the university-educated son...." (university-educated with a hyphen) as the phrase is being used as an adjective.
-Also on McKenzie's page - in the first line of the PSAC window, you've got "1830's and 40's) - I think it should be "1830s and '40s".
-Also on McKenzie's page - I noticed that the text of the first paragraph under "The Colonial Impulse" is exactly the same as the last paragraph in the PSAC window. Was that intentional?
-McKenzie again - in Goodie's window, we should have a citation for the quote "as lovely as a Greek goddess and the belle of many a ball"
-McKenzie - in "Problems with Agriculture", "May" should be capitalized in the second sentence!
-McKenzie - Under "Entrepreneurial Spirit" in the second sentence of the last paragraph, you wrote "the shortage of labour that lead to the use....". I *believe* the past tense is "led".
-McKenzie - in the "Recreating Social Networks", there shouldn't be an apostrophe in "the McKenzie's were also popular...."
-The citation for the labour book on Bartleman's page is
BCA, Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers, A-01481, Box 16, File 2, Labour Books, July 1861-November 1864.
-On the Irvine page - underneath "A Dream Realized?", I think "five year term" should be a "five-year term". It's in the middle of the second sentence.
-Irvines - in the "Move to Rose Bank" window, I think Danda Humphreys' column title should be capitalized to "On the Street Where You Live".
That's it for now. I'll try to look over it again later this afternoon after I've done a bit of prepping for an exam, and see if anything else catches my eye.
Edited to add: Dan, the title you propsed works for me.
I've also read through the site and have a couple of things to add to Scott's massive list! Some of the corrections are kind of pedantic, and I'm not trying not to nit-pick, but they just jumped out at me.
-Under "Craigflower Connections" (which I agree should have some spaces between it and the body of the text) we should have "through a microhistorical lens" rather than "lense". I checked in the dictionary, and "lens" is the standard spelling.
-On McKenzie's page, I think it should be "as the university-educated son...." (university-educated with a hyphen) as the phrase is being used as an adjective.
-Also on McKenzie's page - in the first line of the PSAC window, you've got "1830's and 40's) - I think it should be "1830s and '40s".
-Also on McKenzie's page - I noticed that the text of the first paragraph under "The Colonial Impulse" is exactly the same as the last paragraph in the PSAC window. Was that intentional?
-McKenzie again - in Goodie's window, we should have a citation for the quote "as lovely as a Greek goddess and the belle of many a ball"
-McKenzie - in "Problems with Agriculture", "May" should be capitalized in the second sentence!
-McKenzie - Under "Entrepreneurial Spirit" in the second sentence of the last paragraph, you wrote "the shortage of labour that lead to the use....". I *believe* the past tense is "led".
-McKenzie - in the "Recreating Social Networks", there shouldn't be an apostrophe in "the McKenzie's were also popular...."
-The citation for the labour book on Bartleman's page is
BCA, Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers, A-01481, Box 16, File 2, Labour Books, July 1861-November 1864.
-On the Irvine page - underneath "A Dream Realized?", I think "five year term" should be a "five-year term". It's in the middle of the second sentence.
-Irvines - in the "Move to Rose Bank" window, I think Danda Humphreys' column title should be capitalized to "On the Street Where You Live".
That's it for now. I'll try to look over it again later this afternoon after I've done a bit of prepping for an exam, and see if anything else catches my eye.
Edited to add: Dan, the title you propsed works for me.
Website stuff
Ok Guys, well my UVic email is acting all crazy and clipping out parts of my message, so I'm just posting my list of issues on the website here (which is what I should have done in the first place). Here we go - my email as it should have looked!
Hi guys,
I've spent the last few hours looking through the site and have gotten through everything EXCEPT the Melrose page. I will do that tomorrow, although it may not be until evening. Anyway, please find below a list of all the issues I've found...it's fairly long, but most of it is minor stuff like spelling etc. Let me just add before you guys read it that I think our site is awesome and is going to seriously rock once we get all the little stuff sorted out. Enjoy...
SM
Notes on the CF website, April 15th
A general point - we should standardize the titles at the tops of the character pages. For example, McKenzie has no 'title' (e.g. Irvine is "the independent farmer")...shouldn't we add in "the bailiff"? Also, Irvine has a colon after "The Independent Farmer", whereas the others have no colon there. Also on this point...the stuff we're adding after their names doesn't quite match up...for McKenzie we have "and the PSAC", for Verney we have just "Royal Navy" (which is almost part of his name and thus not really an addition); for Bartleman and Melrose, it is fairly consistent, with both of them called "X at Craigflower"; for Irvine, we have "the transition from servant to landowner", which doesn't quite match any of the others. May I propose the following to standardize this issue:
1.) The Bailiff (LINE BREAK, NO COLON) Kenneth McKenzie of Craigflower
2.) Leave Verney as is
3.) Leave Bartleman as is
4.) The Independent Farmer (LINE BREAK, NO COLON) John Irvine Sr. of Rose Bank
5.) Leave Melrose as is
HOME PAGE:
Can we have the "Welcome to craigflower connections" in non-italics and separated by a few spaces from the text below? I think it would look better, and we need to take up more space on that left side anyway
Can we remove the colon from after "How to navigate"...or we could add a colon to after "about the authors" - just looking for consistency
One change for the Microhistorical approach page:
- First sentence - change last part to "large-scale societal trends INTERPRETED FROM statistical data" - just don't want to say "based on" twice
KENNETH MCKENZIE PAGE:
"wide-range" should not be hyphenated in the first sentence (this would be correct were it being used as an adjective, but in this case it is a noun - a wide range)
second sentence - says "...skilled craftsmen were not TO only ones feeling..." - should be THE only ones
third sentence - not sure about whether we should call McKenzie the 'founder' of Craigflower....maybe that's just my Irvine bias talking since he was working on building the farm before McKenzie was even on the continent!
Second paragraph - again, "class-apart" should not be hyphenated...also I don't think it's strictly correct given the inclusion of Verney in the website...I think in actual fact he would have lain somewhere BETWEEN the labourers and Verney in class terms, which I suppose would technically mean that it is correct that he is a "class apart"....but the term gives the impression that he was a class ABOVE the others. Maybe we can just say that he was of a higher class than his labourers?
also second paragraph: given McKenzie's higher class status than his average labourer, does my analysis of the unusual nature of McKenzie's friendship with Verney still make sense? That is, given your study of McKenzie, would you say that it is indeed unusual that he would become friends with a thoroughly aristocratic, upwardly mobile, globe-trotting naval officer? My reflexive answer is still yes, even though McKenzie was of a higher class than his labourers, it would have been unlikely for Verney to chum around with a guy like him back in Britain....I'm just thinking that maybe my Verney page somewhat overstates the point given McKenzie's more affluent background. I'm no expert on class statuses in Victorian Britain, so if you guys have any insights on this (read my Verney page to see what I mean), I would appreciate it! I think the way it is is OK, but if I need to tone down the whole "unlikely friends" aspect, I would be open to looking at doing that.
Second paragraph in "colonial impulse" section, right at the end: can we remove "the" from in front of Norman Morrison? Also, all references to ships throughout the site should be italicized...Norman Morrison, Tory, Trincomalee (in the Mckenzie/RN window) and Grappler all come to mind.
The heading of the next section is "Arrival at Vancouver's Island"...we should standardize how we refer to the island, since I think I always used the modern "Vancouver Island". I have no problem with switching over to "Vancouver's" - in fact I think I might prefer it since it lends a more immersive quality to the narrative - but we do need to standardize. When did the name officially change, anyway?
Last paragraph of the "arrival" section: last line says that they moved into their home on April 1st, 1852, whereas above you say that they arrived on VI in January 1853 (which strikes me as correct)
in the "agriculture in Britain" link (first right window link on this page), there is an ending quotation mark missing in the second paragraph. I think it should be right after "[of Scotland]."
In the "Puget's Sound Agricultural Company" right window, the last paragraph has extra text still in the second-last line, which I assume is Taryn's original note to link to the Melrose agreement.
A general note - not sure if this is happening for you guys, but on my computer, some of the pop-up notes are going BEHIND the scroll bar when they are close to the right side of the left window, which makes it a little tough to read sometimes. Not sure if that's an easy fix...no big deal if it isn't.
In the Goodie McKenzie right window, there are a couple errors in the second sentence - it says "...her later reminces of her families arrival...". That should be "later reminiscences of her family's arrival"
Love the bit in that window about the Verney/Goodie connection...alas, she never married...perhaps suffering a broken heart for evermore after Verney's departure? Maybe also just amend the sentence where it says..."there is apparently a record of correspondence between the two dating after Verney...". I think we can remove 'apparently' - Pritchard says that the postcard from Goodie definitely exists.
In the "McKenzies: Home at Craigflower" link, first sentence, the apostrophe should be AFTER the 's' in "McKenzies". Also - love the photo from Dan's private collection!
In the "Problems of Agriculture" window, in the first paragraph, a sentence begins with "432 acres of the farm...". I don't think you're supposed to begin a sentence with numerals, so it should be spelled out - "Four hundred and thirty-two acres..."
In "McKenzie and Business with the RN" window, the link at the end says "more info", but I think it should just say "note", since elsewhere the more info seems to indicate an external link. Same thing in the "Goodie Mckenzie...First Nations" window.
In "Social Life at Craigflower" window, last paragraph first line, there shouldn't be an apostrophe in "McKenzies"
Same window - the Mckenzies' other farm is spelled "Lakehill", whereas in the left window it's "Lake Hill". I don't know if one is more 'correct', but this should be standardized.
Also regarding this window...it confirms my earlier suspicion that I may need to revise my "unlikely friendship" angle with McKenzie and Verney. Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.
VERNEY PAGE:
Dan, you forgot to take out the sentence in the first paragraph which begins "As such, he dedicated himself...". This sentence has been moved to the right window on H. Verney, so can be deleted from the left window.
I'm noticing on this page that the font of the titles of the right windows varies...have a look at the three in the first paragraph...two different styles. I prefer the non-italicized one, but it's not a strong preference, so whichever works...
In the Pritchard Special Thanks right window, can I change "unearthed and discovered" to just "discovered". Can I also change "Verney's British Columbia letters" to "Verney's Vancouver Island letters"...since that's the title of the book!
last sentence of this same window...can I change "a most interesting imperial relationship" to "a most interesting imperial role"
First paragraph, second sentence in "to the edge of the world" section: add "in" before "Vancouver Island", and change "of whom" to "among whom"
Can we have an enlarge function for that lovely Grappler painting in the right window (if it's not too much trouble)?
In the Esquimalt window, right in the middle of the text paragraph, it says "bases's". Should be just "base's"
In the "building a moral empire" section, the first "note" pop-up has no pop-up. It should be "Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 38-39, 43, and 132."
After the text "appropriate representative of imperial sentiments in Britain", there is a rogue "5".
Remove the very last sentence of the "An Unlikely Friendship" section ("Verney's relationship with the McKenzies of Craigflower....". I make this point at greater length in the paragraph beginning the next section anyway.
BARTLEMAN PAGE:
In the "Life at Craigflower" section, there is a rogue "8" after the first sentence.
In the same section, there should be a comma after the "Robert Melrose" link
Similarly, there should be a comma after "the Victoria constable"
There is a rogue "10" at the end of that sentence
Again...comma needed after "William and John Weir"
In the right window titled "Peter Bartleman's Duties..." (links from "once again hard at work" on the left), the note at the end doesn't have a pop-up.
In the right window "Bartleman's record of attendance", I imagine that it could be quite difficult for someone who didn't know where to look to find Bartleman's name in the list. Can you photoshop in a big red box or something around that section?
I'm sure you know this since it's noted there, but it still says "need citation" for this window.
This one's just a suggestion...the second paragraph, first sentence of the "Conflicts with Kenneth McKenzie"section contains the phrase "reached new heights". Can I suggest that this should perhaps be "reached new lows"?
In the Epilogue, "nineteenth-century" should not be hyphenated. Again, this is only appropriate if it is being used as an adjective.
IRVINE PAGE:
Second sentence, first section should say "When THEY boarded..." instead of "when he boarded"
Dan - you forgot to move the last two sentences of the first paragraph of the "more remote island" section. These were to be moved to beneath the Tory picture in that right window. Have a look at the blog. The first sentence should then be slotted in at the beginning of what is currently the second paragraph (will become the first/only paragraph) in that section of the left window
In the right window "The move to Rose Bank", the web link for the final reference in the source list still needs to be added -
The note at the end of "A Dream Realized" section is wrong - should be #4: "W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 38."
In "The Irvine Family, 1892" right window, there are a couple of mistakes in the photo caption. There should be a semi-colon after "Ethel Irvine", instead of a comma...similarly, semi-colon needed after "Jessie Irvine"...also the citation should be "Irvines in Victoria..." (no apostrophe in Irvines). That title should also be italicized since it's a book.
Back on the left, there is a rogue "5" at the end of the "Ownership" section. This should be a pop-up note reading: Patrick Murphy, "Great clan grows in Victoria from Scottish family of three" Victoria Times Colonist, 22 July 1992, C9.
Hi guys,
I've spent the last few hours looking through the site and have gotten through everything EXCEPT the Melrose page. I will do that tomorrow, although it may not be until evening. Anyway, please find below a list of all the issues I've found...it's fairly long, but most of it is minor stuff like spelling etc. Let me just add before you guys read it that I think our site is awesome and is going to seriously rock once we get all the little stuff sorted out. Enjoy...
SM
Notes on the CF website, April 15th
A general point - we should standardize the titles at the tops of the character pages. For example, McKenzie has no 'title' (e.g. Irvine is "the independent farmer")...shouldn't we add in "the bailiff"? Also, Irvine has a colon after "The Independent Farmer", whereas the others have no colon there. Also on this point...the stuff we're adding after their names doesn't quite match up...for McKenzie we have "and the PSAC", for Verney we have just "Royal Navy" (which is almost part of his name and thus not really an addition); for Bartleman and Melrose, it is fairly consistent, with both of them called "X at Craigflower"; for Irvine, we have "the transition from servant to landowner", which doesn't quite match any of the others. May I propose the following to standardize this issue:
1.) The Bailiff (LINE BREAK, NO COLON) Kenneth McKenzie of Craigflower
2.) Leave Verney as is
3.) Leave Bartleman as is
4.) The Independent Farmer (LINE BREAK, NO COLON) John Irvine Sr. of Rose Bank
5.) Leave Melrose as is
HOME PAGE:
Can we have the "Welcome to craigflower connections" in non-italics and separated by a few spaces from the text below? I think it would look better, and we need to take up more space on that left side anyway
Can we remove the colon from after "How to navigate"...or we could add a colon to after "about the authors" - just looking for consistency
One change for the Microhistorical approach page:
- First sentence - change last part to "large-scale societal trends INTERPRETED FROM statistical data" - just don't want to say "based on" twice
KENNETH MCKENZIE PAGE:
"wide-range" should not be hyphenated in the first sentence (this would be correct were it being used as an adjective, but in this case it is a noun - a wide range)
second sentence - says "...skilled craftsmen were not TO only ones feeling..." - should be THE only ones
third sentence - not sure about whether we should call McKenzie the 'founder' of Craigflower....maybe that's just my Irvine bias talking since he was working on building the farm before McKenzie was even on the continent!
Second paragraph - again, "class-apart" should not be hyphenated...also I don't think it's strictly correct given the inclusion of Verney in the website...I think in actual fact he would have lain somewhere BETWEEN the labourers and Verney in class terms, which I suppose would technically mean that it is correct that he is a "class apart"....but the term gives the impression that he was a class ABOVE the others. Maybe we can just say that he was of a higher class than his labourers?
also second paragraph: given McKenzie's higher class status than his average labourer, does my analysis of the unusual nature of McKenzie's friendship with Verney still make sense? That is, given your study of McKenzie, would you say that it is indeed unusual that he would become friends with a thoroughly aristocratic, upwardly mobile, globe-trotting naval officer? My reflexive answer is still yes, even though McKenzie was of a higher class than his labourers, it would have been unlikely for Verney to chum around with a guy like him back in Britain....I'm just thinking that maybe my Verney page somewhat overstates the point given McKenzie's more affluent background. I'm no expert on class statuses in Victorian Britain, so if you guys have any insights on this (read my Verney page to see what I mean), I would appreciate it! I think the way it is is OK, but if I need to tone down the whole "unlikely friends" aspect, I would be open to looking at doing that.
Second paragraph in "colonial impulse" section, right at the end: can we remove "the" from in front of Norman Morrison? Also, all references to ships throughout the site should be italicized...Norman Morrison, Tory, Trincomalee (in the Mckenzie/RN window) and Grappler all come to mind.
The heading of the next section is "Arrival at Vancouver's Island"...we should standardize how we refer to the island, since I think I always used the modern "Vancouver Island". I have no problem with switching over to "Vancouver's" - in fact I think I might prefer it since it lends a more immersive quality to the narrative - but we do need to standardize. When did the name officially change, anyway?
Last paragraph of the "arrival" section: last line says that they moved into their home on April 1st, 1852, whereas above you say that they arrived on VI in January 1853 (which strikes me as correct)
in the "agriculture in Britain" link (first right window link on this page), there is an ending quotation mark missing in the second paragraph. I think it should be right after "[of Scotland]."
In the "Puget's Sound Agricultural Company" right window, the last paragraph has extra text still in the second-last line, which I assume is Taryn's original note to link to the Melrose agreement.
A general note - not sure if this is happening for you guys, but on my computer, some of the pop-up notes are going BEHIND the scroll bar when they are close to the right side of the left window, which makes it a little tough to read sometimes. Not sure if that's an easy fix...no big deal if it isn't.
In the Goodie McKenzie right window, there are a couple errors in the second sentence - it says "...her later reminces of her families arrival...". That should be "later reminiscences of her family's arrival"
Love the bit in that window about the Verney/Goodie connection...alas, she never married...perhaps suffering a broken heart for evermore after Verney's departure? Maybe also just amend the sentence where it says..."there is apparently a record of correspondence between the two dating after Verney...". I think we can remove 'apparently' - Pritchard says that the postcard from Goodie definitely exists.
In the "McKenzies: Home at Craigflower" link, first sentence, the apostrophe should be AFTER the 's' in "McKenzies". Also - love the photo from Dan's private collection!
In the "Problems of Agriculture" window, in the first paragraph, a sentence begins with "432 acres of the farm...". I don't think you're supposed to begin a sentence with numerals, so it should be spelled out - "Four hundred and thirty-two acres..."
In "McKenzie and Business with the RN" window, the link at the end says "more info", but I think it should just say "note", since elsewhere the more info seems to indicate an external link. Same thing in the "Goodie Mckenzie...First Nations" window.
In "Social Life at Craigflower" window, last paragraph first line, there shouldn't be an apostrophe in "McKenzies"
Same window - the Mckenzies' other farm is spelled "Lakehill", whereas in the left window it's "Lake Hill". I don't know if one is more 'correct', but this should be standardized.
Also regarding this window...it confirms my earlier suspicion that I may need to revise my "unlikely friendship" angle with McKenzie and Verney. Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.
VERNEY PAGE:
Dan, you forgot to take out the sentence in the first paragraph which begins "As such, he dedicated himself...". This sentence has been moved to the right window on H. Verney, so can be deleted from the left window.
I'm noticing on this page that the font of the titles of the right windows varies...have a look at the three in the first paragraph...two different styles. I prefer the non-italicized one, but it's not a strong preference, so whichever works...
In the Pritchard Special Thanks right window, can I change "unearthed and discovered" to just "discovered". Can I also change "Verney's British Columbia letters" to "Verney's Vancouver Island letters"...since that's the title of the book!
last sentence of this same window...can I change "a most interesting imperial relationship" to "a most interesting imperial role"
First paragraph, second sentence in "to the edge of the world" section: add "in" before "Vancouver Island", and change "of whom" to "among whom"
Can we have an enlarge function for that lovely Grappler painting in the right window (if it's not too much trouble)?
In the Esquimalt window, right in the middle of the text paragraph, it says "bases's". Should be just "base's"
In the "building a moral empire" section, the first "note" pop-up has no pop-up. It should be "Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 38-39, 43, and 132."
After the text "appropriate representative of imperial sentiments in Britain", there is a rogue "5".
Remove the very last sentence of the "An Unlikely Friendship" section ("Verney's relationship with the McKenzies of Craigflower....". I make this point at greater length in the paragraph beginning the next section anyway.
BARTLEMAN PAGE:
In the "Life at Craigflower" section, there is a rogue "8" after the first sentence.
In the same section, there should be a comma after the "Robert Melrose" link
Similarly, there should be a comma after "the Victoria constable"
There is a rogue "10" at the end of that sentence
Again...comma needed after "William and John Weir"
In the right window titled "Peter Bartleman's Duties..." (links from "once again hard at work" on the left), the note at the end doesn't have a pop-up.
In the right window "Bartleman's record of attendance", I imagine that it could be quite difficult for someone who didn't know where to look to find Bartleman's name in the list. Can you photoshop in a big red box or something around that section?
I'm sure you know this since it's noted there, but it still says "need citation" for this window.
This one's just a suggestion...the second paragraph, first sentence of the "Conflicts with Kenneth McKenzie"section contains the phrase "reached new heights". Can I suggest that this should perhaps be "reached new lows"?
In the Epilogue, "nineteenth-century" should not be hyphenated. Again, this is only appropriate if it is being used as an adjective.
IRVINE PAGE:
Second sentence, first section should say "When THEY boarded..." instead of "when he boarded"
Dan - you forgot to move the last two sentences of the first paragraph of the "more remote island" section. These were to be moved to beneath the Tory picture in that right window. Have a look at the blog. The first sentence should then be slotted in at the beginning of what is currently the second paragraph (will become the first/only paragraph) in that section of the left window
In the right window "The move to Rose Bank", the web link for the final reference in the source list still needs to be added -
The note at the end of "A Dream Realized" section is wrong - should be #4: "W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 38."
In "The Irvine Family, 1892" right window, there are a couple of mistakes in the photo caption. There should be a semi-colon after "Ethel Irvine", instead of a comma...similarly, semi-colon needed after "Jessie Irvine"...also the citation should be "Irvines in Victoria..." (no apostrophe in Irvines). That title should also be italicized since it's a book.
Back on the left, there is a rogue "5" at the end of the "Ownership" section. This should be a pop-up note reading: Patrick Murphy, "Great clan grows in Victoria from Scottish family of three" Victoria Times Colonist, 22 July 1992, C9.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Thanks Scott!
whoops!! I thought that was in there somewhere. Thanks for pointing it out; I'll go change that now.
just a quick thought....
Taryn - just reading over your Melrose thing and I noticed one thing that you might want to include. It says that McKenzie was an agent of the Company of Adventurers of England...you might just want to add that this refers to the HBC - just to avoid confusion. Other than that - looks great! It's very exciting to have things so close to ready!
SM
SM
Melrose
Here's the Melrose page.
I cited the diary as a reprinted source.
Life in Scotland
Robert Melrose was born around 1828 in Garvald, East Lothian, Scotland and was the eldest son of George and Isabella Melrose. The 1851 census shows that he was a labourer, and on May 24, 1852, he inked his name to a contract [LINK TO IMAGES AND TRANSCRIPTION, with caption “Further to his official contract, Melrose agreed to a receive “a premium of twenty five pounds, over and above his wages of Seventeen Pounds p [sic] Annum”. After five years and upon renewal of his engagement with the Company for an additional five years, he would be entitled to another twenty five pounds.] with Kenneth McKenzie, agent of the Company of Adventurers of England more commonly known as the Hudson's Bay Company. Melrose agreed to work in the capacity of labourer for five years, and to defend “with courage and fidelity in his said station, in the said Service…the property of the said Company and their Factories & Territories.” 1] So it was that Robert Melrose boarded the Trident at Granton Pier on August 11, 1852 and shipped to London, where he boarded the Norman Morison with other of Kenneth McKenzie’s prospective employees and their families.
The Journey to Canada
The voyage was arduous, and the ship took six months to reach the colony of Vancouver’s Island. During this time, a number of passengers died, and the survivors endured a four day hurricane off of Cape Horn in November 1852. Melrose and his new wife eventually made land and arrived at their new home on January 22, 1853. Although he came from a family of labourers, Robert Melrose had received some education and was able to write, keeping a diary from August 1852 until July 1857.
Education
Like some of the other Craigflower labourers, he appears to have had a relatively decent education, for on March 15, 1854, he gave a lecture “on the discoveries of Optical science” and two weeks later, a fellow labourer, James Deans, gave a “lecture on the Nobility of man.” 2 In June of the same year, Melrose turned his attentions away from science and delivered a lecture “on the wonders of civilization.”3 Such lectures seem to have been a regular feature of life on the farm in 1854, and a number of different labourers tried their hand at teaching their fellow workers about subjects ranging from science to religion, and those who could not lecture often appear to have recited literature, some of which they may have penned themselves. [LINK TO JAMES DEANS RUSTIC RHYMES…caption “Pages from the book of labourer James Deans, entitled [check]. Comprising two exercise books, the poetry of James Deans ranges from his thoughts on his new home in British Columbia to odes to friends and those who died when the Point Ellice Bridge collapsed on May 24, 1896.]
Life at Craigflower
Although life at Craigflower was at times difficult, and other employees, such as Peter Bartleman [LINK TO PETER BARTLEMAN PAGE ] appear to have had strained relationships with Kenneth McKenzie, Melrose appears to have done relatively well for himself as a labourer, and was given a clock soon after arriving, and received both a gun and a cow in the summer of 1853. He made careful note of any matter relating to food or drink, and notes that on July 22, 1853 “fresh salmon [was] served out”.4 Such rations were likely to have been better than what he would have received as a labourer in Scotland, and Melrose appears to have lived well in Canada.
Melrose’s duties at Craigflower were quite varied, and his diary notes that he ploughed “a piece of ground for potatoes” and made bricks, as well as ground “wheat all night”. 5 He worked six days a week, and only had Sundays and holidays such as Christmas Day off, and for his trouble earned ₤4/5/- per quarter in 1853. In 1853, he agreed to accept money in lieu of rations, and was paid an additional ₤2/16/- per month. [LINK TO It has been noted that the lives of Scottish labourers were quite different than those of their English counterparts, and in northern England and Scotland, labourers were involved in "stock-rearing, fattening and cropping", wherein labourers were involved in "weeding, dunging, singling and intensive ploughing." 6 Scottish labourers were generally hired long-term and boarded on the farm, and the average day for a Scottish labourer was ten hours long with a two-hour rest. 7 As at Craigflower, it appears that most Scottish labourers generally were paid at least partially in kind rather than in money, and this system did not seriously decline in Scotland until the late nineteenth century. 8 Due to the fact that a number of Scottish farms were often located far from villages, it was impractical to pay labourers solely in cash.9] Unlike other of Craigflower’s workers, Melrose does not appear to have tried to escape to Sooke, although his diary reveals some discontent with McKenzie. On February 25, 1854, he notes that “monthly Ration pay due, not settled, want of money.”10 However, he doesn’t seem to have been terribly troubled, for he goes on to write, “J. Wilson ¾ d[runk]. The Author ¾ d[runk].” 11
Epilogue
Robert Melrose enjoyed a long life on Vancouver Island, and died at the age of 70 on July 26, 1898 at Royal Jubilee Hospital of pneumonia, from which he had suffered for three days. Although labourers have a tendency to be the silent workers and builders of Empire, being largely overshadowed by the upper classes who engineered colonization schemes, the experience of Robert Melrose appears to be fairly typical of workers at Craigflower. Arriving in the mid-nineteenth century and living out the rest of his life in British Columbia, it is likely, that he, like so many others after him, saw the young colony as a way to escape a stagnating economy back at home, and concomitantly, to experience adventure.
Notes
1. British Columbia Archives (hereafter BCA), Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers 1779-1943, A-01483, Box 19, File 1, Agreements with Employees, 24 May 1852.
2. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” British Columbia Historical Quarterly VII, No. 3, (1943), 198-218.
3. Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” 198-218.
4. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose,” British Columbia Historical Quarterly VII, No. 2, (1943), 119-135.
5. Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose,” 119-135.
6. T.M. Devine, “Introduction: Scottish Farm Service in the Agricultural Revolution” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 4.
.
7. Devine, “Introduction,” 4.
8. Devine, “Introduction,” 4.
9. Devine, “Introduction,” 6.
10. Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” 198-218.
11. Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” 198-218.
I cited the diary as a reprinted source.
Life in Scotland
Robert Melrose was born around 1828 in Garvald, East Lothian, Scotland and was the eldest son of George and Isabella Melrose. The 1851 census shows that he was a labourer, and on May 24, 1852, he inked his name to a contract [LINK TO IMAGES AND TRANSCRIPTION, with caption “Further to his official contract, Melrose agreed to a receive “a premium of twenty five pounds, over and above his wages of Seventeen Pounds p [sic] Annum”. After five years and upon renewal of his engagement with the Company for an additional five years, he would be entitled to another twenty five pounds.] with Kenneth McKenzie, agent of the Company of Adventurers of England more commonly known as the Hudson's Bay Company. Melrose agreed to work in the capacity of labourer for five years, and to defend “with courage and fidelity in his said station, in the said Service…the property of the said Company and their Factories & Territories.” 1] So it was that Robert Melrose boarded the Trident at Granton Pier on August 11, 1852 and shipped to London, where he boarded the Norman Morison with other of Kenneth McKenzie’s prospective employees and their families.
The Journey to Canada
The voyage was arduous, and the ship took six months to reach the colony of Vancouver’s Island. During this time, a number of passengers died, and the survivors endured a four day hurricane off of Cape Horn in November 1852. Melrose and his new wife eventually made land and arrived at their new home on January 22, 1853. Although he came from a family of labourers, Robert Melrose had received some education and was able to write, keeping a diary from August 1852 until July 1857.
Education
Like some of the other Craigflower labourers, he appears to have had a relatively decent education, for on March 15, 1854, he gave a lecture “on the discoveries of Optical science” and two weeks later, a fellow labourer, James Deans, gave a “lecture on the Nobility of man.” 2 In June of the same year, Melrose turned his attentions away from science and delivered a lecture “on the wonders of civilization.”3 Such lectures seem to have been a regular feature of life on the farm in 1854, and a number of different labourers tried their hand at teaching their fellow workers about subjects ranging from science to religion, and those who could not lecture often appear to have recited literature, some of which they may have penned themselves. [LINK TO JAMES DEANS RUSTIC RHYMES…caption “Pages from the book of labourer James Deans, entitled [check]. Comprising two exercise books, the poetry of James Deans ranges from his thoughts on his new home in British Columbia to odes to friends and those who died when the Point Ellice Bridge collapsed on May 24, 1896.]
Life at Craigflower
Although life at Craigflower was at times difficult, and other employees, such as Peter Bartleman [LINK TO PETER BARTLEMAN PAGE ] appear to have had strained relationships with Kenneth McKenzie, Melrose appears to have done relatively well for himself as a labourer, and was given a clock soon after arriving, and received both a gun and a cow in the summer of 1853. He made careful note of any matter relating to food or drink, and notes that on July 22, 1853 “fresh salmon [was] served out”.4 Such rations were likely to have been better than what he would have received as a labourer in Scotland, and Melrose appears to have lived well in Canada.
Melrose’s duties at Craigflower were quite varied, and his diary notes that he ploughed “a piece of ground for potatoes” and made bricks, as well as ground “wheat all night”. 5 He worked six days a week, and only had Sundays and holidays such as Christmas Day off, and for his trouble earned ₤4/5/- per quarter in 1853. In 1853, he agreed to accept money in lieu of rations, and was paid an additional ₤2/16/- per month. [LINK TO It has been noted that the lives of Scottish labourers were quite different than those of their English counterparts, and in northern England and Scotland, labourers were involved in "stock-rearing, fattening and cropping", wherein labourers were involved in "weeding, dunging, singling and intensive ploughing." 6 Scottish labourers were generally hired long-term and boarded on the farm, and the average day for a Scottish labourer was ten hours long with a two-hour rest. 7 As at Craigflower, it appears that most Scottish labourers generally were paid at least partially in kind rather than in money, and this system did not seriously decline in Scotland until the late nineteenth century. 8 Due to the fact that a number of Scottish farms were often located far from villages, it was impractical to pay labourers solely in cash.9] Unlike other of Craigflower’s workers, Melrose does not appear to have tried to escape to Sooke, although his diary reveals some discontent with McKenzie. On February 25, 1854, he notes that “monthly Ration pay due, not settled, want of money.”10 However, he doesn’t seem to have been terribly troubled, for he goes on to write, “J. Wilson ¾ d[runk]. The Author ¾ d[runk].” 11
Epilogue
Robert Melrose enjoyed a long life on Vancouver Island, and died at the age of 70 on July 26, 1898 at Royal Jubilee Hospital of pneumonia, from which he had suffered for three days. Although labourers have a tendency to be the silent workers and builders of Empire, being largely overshadowed by the upper classes who engineered colonization schemes, the experience of Robert Melrose appears to be fairly typical of workers at Craigflower. Arriving in the mid-nineteenth century and living out the rest of his life in British Columbia, it is likely, that he, like so many others after him, saw the young colony as a way to escape a stagnating economy back at home, and concomitantly, to experience adventure.
Notes
1. British Columbia Archives (hereafter BCA), Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers 1779-1943, A-01483, Box 19, File 1, Agreements with Employees, 24 May 1852.
2. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” British Columbia Historical Quarterly VII, No. 3, (1943), 198-218.
3. Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” 198-218.
4. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose,” British Columbia Historical Quarterly VII, No. 2, (1943), 119-135.
5. Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose,” 119-135.
6. T.M. Devine, “Introduction: Scottish Farm Service in the Agricultural Revolution” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 4.
.
7. Devine, “Introduction,” 4.
8. Devine, “Introduction,” 4.
9. Devine, “Introduction,” 6.
10. Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” 198-218.
11. Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” 198-218.
Bartleman
Hey guys
Here's the Bartleman info with footnotes. Dan - I can't find my notes right now with the thesis information for footnotes 12 & 13 (I think it got mixed up with my exam stuff, but I can't find it). Do you think you could put the info in for me? I've included some text at the end of this post to be included on the right hand side and I've footnoted it so that the footnotes follow those of the left hand side. (You'll see that the left hand footnotes go from 1 to 7, as the other ones are in the right hand text). I wasn't sure how you wanted to deal with the numbering.
Life in Scotland
Peter Bartleman was born in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, around 1823. In 1851, he was living with his mother, an agricultural labourer, and working as a blacksmith at Gifford Gate, Haddington. [LINK TO Haddington was the birthplace of John Knox, and had once been the fourth largest town in Scotland. At one time it was larger than Glasgow, but by 1851 numbered a mere 5,496 residents. 1] Although his reasons for leaving Scotland and joining Kenneth McKenzie [LINK TO KENNETH MCKENZIE’S PAGE] on Vancouver Island are unclear, it is likely that it was due to the poor economic situation in Scotland at the time, and perhaps Bartleman felt he would do better in Canada [LINK TO BLURB ABOUT AGRICULTURE IN SCOTLAND – TEXT AT END OF POST]. However, he was soon to discover that life in the small colony of Vancouver’s Island was not as rosy as he may have imagined.
Journey to Canada
After embarking on the Norman Morison on August 14, 1852 Bartleman and his new wife endured a difficult crossing, during which they survived a four-day hurricane with snow off of Cape Horn in November, and a number of adults and children died in the crossing.[LINK TO PASSENGER LIST OF N.M. with caption “Part of the passenger list showing those “men, women and children engaged to go to Vancouver’s Isld with Mr K McKenzie, August 1852”]. They arrived in the harbour on January 21, 1853 and finally made their way to Craigflower Farm on Monday, 24 January, 1852. A temporary blacksmith’s shop was erected on March 4, 1852. 7
Life at Craigflower
However, life at the new farm did not run smoothly, and McKenzie notes that Bartleman was “left off work in consequence of refusing to do my orders” on June 24, 1853.8 The diary of another labourer, Robert Melrose [LINK TO MELROSE PAGE] notes on a number of occasions “Peter Bartleman stricken work.” 9 Three days later, Mr. Thomas Hall, the Victoria constable was summoned, and McKenzie paid $5.00 for 5 warrants to apprehend five escaped labourers, Bartleman included. 10 While at least two farm workers, William and John Weir made good their escapes for a short time before ending up in prison, neither Bartleman nor John Russel, the other blacksmith, were as fortunate, and both were immediately brought back to the farm. Two days later, Bartleman was once again hard at work [LINK TO BLURB ABOUT P.B. WORK: Bartleman’s duties appear to have been somewhat varied, given the fact that his official position on the farm was blacksmith. He made padlocks for Craigflower, as well as shoes (presumably horseshoes) for Mssrs Skinner, McAuby, Greib and McKenzie. On June 28, 1853, he received an order from Mr. McDonald for 2 soap plates, 2 cups and saucers, 2 knives and forks, 2 spoons, one tin teapot, one tin pan and one pitcher. In October of the same year, he received an order from Mrs. McKenzie for one tin pitcher. However, he was also recorded as having packed and carted biscuits. It is possible that he was needed for other tasks around the farm due to the difficulties incurred in retaining reliable labour. For his services, Bartleman received ₤7/10/- quarterly in 1853, and sometimes also accepted money in lieu of rations. At such times, he seems to have received an additional sum of ₤2/16/- per month.11]
Conflicts with Kenneth McKenzie
Almost a year and a half after arriving on the farm, Bartleman moved into Fort Victoria, for reasons which are also unclear. However, it may have been due to a personality conflict with Kenneth McKenzie, the bailiff of Craigflower. Bartleman seems to have frequently quarreled with the bailiff, having tried to escape to Sooke, in addition to setting up his own shop on Craigflower property and using McKenzie’s coal to fuel it. This resulted in McKenzie “attacking and destroying” the shop and taking him to court. 12 However, due to a number of technicalities in the case, McKenzie’s attempts to exert control over his worker were thwarted, and the end result was that Bartlemanm “set up on his own account upon Captain Cooper’s claim, laughing at us, our ‘contracts’ and the ‘Court of Justice.’” 13 Labour records [LINK TO IMAGE OF LABOUR BOOKS: Caption: “The page from Kenneth McKenzie’s labour books for the week of September 16-21 1861. Note the number of absences attributed to Peter Bartleman.”] reveal that Bartleman had a number of conspicuous absences during his time at Craigflower which went unexcused, and between the period 1852 and 1857, a fellow labourer frequently recorded in his diary “P. Bartleman, ¾ d[runk].” 14 It was not just McKenzie with whom Bartleman quarreled, but also with his fellow blacksmith, for on March 21, 1854, it is recorded that “John Russel & Peter Bartleman fought a battle. J. Russel ½ d[runk].” 15
The situation between Bartleman and the rest did not seem to have improved, and appears to have reached new heights on April 12, 1855, when he was sentenced to be sent home. 16 This, however, never came to pass, for a year later, Bartleman addressed a letter to Mr. Margery from Esquimalt, stating that “at the time [he] left Mr. McKenzie, there was a balance in my favour of ₤2/9/10, which you say is forfeited. I beg to say that I never received any money from Mrs. McKenzie and from what transpired, I do not see that I am liable for passage money. I am, sir, your ob[edient] servant, Peter Bartleman.”17 Bartleman must have succeeded in thwarting all attempts at curbing his behaviour and sending him home, for he can be found living in Saanich with his children in 1891 at the age of 65, still working as a blacksmith. He appears to have died at the respectable age of 82 in 1907 in Kamloops.
Epilogue (I couldn't think of a better term; if you can, please change it)
Like others on this site, Peter Bartleman represents the ordinary working man who helped to build the colony of Vancouver Island into what we know it today. Those who arrived on the Norman Morison with Kenneth McKenzie in 1852 represent a small but vital cross-section of settlers who were cogs in the machine of Empire during the nineteenth-century. These settlers arrived with both their aspirations and their personal flaws and helped to contribute to the establishment of a successful colony.
Notes
1. 1851 Census of Scotland, 1851 http://www.ancestry.com/ (March 30, 2007).
7. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose,” British Columbia Historical Quarterly VII, No. 2 (1943), 119-134.
8.British Columbia Archives (hereafter BCA), Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers, A-01392, Box 10, File 2, Day Book of Kenneth McKenzie, 24 June 1853.
9. Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose,” 119-134.
10. BCA, Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers, A-01392, Box 10, File 2, Day Book of Kenneth McKenzie, 29 June 1853.
11. BCA, Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers, A-01392, Box 10, File 2, Day Book of Kenneth McKenzie, 3 December 1853.
12.
13.
14. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” British Columbia Historical Quarterly VII, No. 3 (1943), 198-219.
15. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” 198-219.
16. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” 198-219.
17. BCA, Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers, A-01482, Box 18, File 1, Accounts, Receipts, Promissory Notes and Business Papers, 6 March 1856.
Text on Scottish agriculture to link to in the right window:
The agricultural situation in Scotland had always been poorer than that in England, and even as far back as the seventeenth century, England had worried about an influx of poor and ragged Scots migrating southwards. Whereas English labourers were generally relatively well-clothed, some Scottish labourers did not even have shoes, and their quality of life was generally lower. Matters did not much improve, and “by 1840, the agrarian revolution in Britain had reduced many farm servants to the status of labourers.” 2 Even by the early twentieth century, “the foot-plough and hand-winnowing [were] still…common” in some parts of Scotland, while more advanced farming techniques, requiring “heavy capitalization” were being utilized in England. 3 . In the later part of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, there had been a population increase that had created a “glut of agricultural labour in the south [of Scotland]. 4 . Therefore, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, labour was readily available to farmers, often at low cost. “Indeed, the problem became one of supporting through the Poor Law an increasing population of agricultural labourers many of whom were surplus to requirements even at the busy season.” 5. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that many men signed on to work with Kenneth McKenzie, as it offered them a way to escape the uncertainties that must have faced them in Scotland. Signing on with a company promised a term of stability and employment, as well as a place to live. Due to the hiring practices in Scotland, to be unemployed also often meant being homeless, as “cottages surplus to such requirements [on the farm] were pulled down and the building of new accommodation rigorously controlled.” 6.
Notes:
2. Alastair Orr, “Farm Servants and Farm Labour in the Forth Valley and South-East Lowlands,” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 30.
3. Kenneth O. Morgan, The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 477.
4. T.M. Devine, “Introduction: Scottish Farm Service in the Agricultural Revolution” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 3.
5. T.M. Devine, “Introduction”, 3.
6. T.M. Devine, “Introduction,” 6.
Here's the Bartleman info with footnotes. Dan - I can't find my notes right now with the thesis information for footnotes 12 & 13 (I think it got mixed up with my exam stuff, but I can't find it). Do you think you could put the info in for me? I've included some text at the end of this post to be included on the right hand side and I've footnoted it so that the footnotes follow those of the left hand side. (You'll see that the left hand footnotes go from 1 to 7, as the other ones are in the right hand text). I wasn't sure how you wanted to deal with the numbering.
Life in Scotland
Peter Bartleman was born in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, around 1823. In 1851, he was living with his mother, an agricultural labourer, and working as a blacksmith at Gifford Gate, Haddington. [LINK TO Haddington was the birthplace of John Knox, and had once been the fourth largest town in Scotland. At one time it was larger than Glasgow, but by 1851 numbered a mere 5,496 residents. 1] Although his reasons for leaving Scotland and joining Kenneth McKenzie [LINK TO KENNETH MCKENZIE’S PAGE] on Vancouver Island are unclear, it is likely that it was due to the poor economic situation in Scotland at the time, and perhaps Bartleman felt he would do better in Canada [LINK TO BLURB ABOUT AGRICULTURE IN SCOTLAND – TEXT AT END OF POST]. However, he was soon to discover that life in the small colony of Vancouver’s Island was not as rosy as he may have imagined.
Journey to Canada
After embarking on the Norman Morison on August 14, 1852 Bartleman and his new wife endured a difficult crossing, during which they survived a four-day hurricane with snow off of Cape Horn in November, and a number of adults and children died in the crossing.[LINK TO PASSENGER LIST OF N.M. with caption “Part of the passenger list showing those “men, women and children engaged to go to Vancouver’s Isld with Mr K McKenzie, August 1852”]. They arrived in the harbour on January 21, 1853 and finally made their way to Craigflower Farm on Monday, 24 January, 1852. A temporary blacksmith’s shop was erected on March 4, 1852. 7
Life at Craigflower
However, life at the new farm did not run smoothly, and McKenzie notes that Bartleman was “left off work in consequence of refusing to do my orders” on June 24, 1853.8 The diary of another labourer, Robert Melrose [LINK TO MELROSE PAGE] notes on a number of occasions “Peter Bartleman stricken work.” 9 Three days later, Mr. Thomas Hall, the Victoria constable was summoned, and McKenzie paid $5.00 for 5 warrants to apprehend five escaped labourers, Bartleman included. 10 While at least two farm workers, William and John Weir made good their escapes for a short time before ending up in prison, neither Bartleman nor John Russel, the other blacksmith, were as fortunate, and both were immediately brought back to the farm. Two days later, Bartleman was once again hard at work [LINK TO BLURB ABOUT P.B. WORK: Bartleman’s duties appear to have been somewhat varied, given the fact that his official position on the farm was blacksmith. He made padlocks for Craigflower, as well as shoes (presumably horseshoes) for Mssrs Skinner, McAuby, Greib and McKenzie. On June 28, 1853, he received an order from Mr. McDonald for 2 soap plates, 2 cups and saucers, 2 knives and forks, 2 spoons, one tin teapot, one tin pan and one pitcher. In October of the same year, he received an order from Mrs. McKenzie for one tin pitcher. However, he was also recorded as having packed and carted biscuits. It is possible that he was needed for other tasks around the farm due to the difficulties incurred in retaining reliable labour. For his services, Bartleman received ₤7/10/- quarterly in 1853, and sometimes also accepted money in lieu of rations. At such times, he seems to have received an additional sum of ₤2/16/- per month.11]
Conflicts with Kenneth McKenzie
Almost a year and a half after arriving on the farm, Bartleman moved into Fort Victoria, for reasons which are also unclear. However, it may have been due to a personality conflict with Kenneth McKenzie, the bailiff of Craigflower. Bartleman seems to have frequently quarreled with the bailiff, having tried to escape to Sooke, in addition to setting up his own shop on Craigflower property and using McKenzie’s coal to fuel it. This resulted in McKenzie “attacking and destroying” the shop and taking him to court. 12 However, due to a number of technicalities in the case, McKenzie’s attempts to exert control over his worker were thwarted, and the end result was that Bartlemanm “set up on his own account upon Captain Cooper’s claim, laughing at us, our ‘contracts’ and the ‘Court of Justice.’” 13 Labour records [LINK TO IMAGE OF LABOUR BOOKS: Caption: “The page from Kenneth McKenzie’s labour books for the week of September 16-21 1861. Note the number of absences attributed to Peter Bartleman.”] reveal that Bartleman had a number of conspicuous absences during his time at Craigflower which went unexcused, and between the period 1852 and 1857, a fellow labourer frequently recorded in his diary “P. Bartleman, ¾ d[runk].” 14 It was not just McKenzie with whom Bartleman quarreled, but also with his fellow blacksmith, for on March 21, 1854, it is recorded that “John Russel & Peter Bartleman fought a battle. J. Russel ½ d[runk].” 15
The situation between Bartleman and the rest did not seem to have improved, and appears to have reached new heights on April 12, 1855, when he was sentenced to be sent home. 16 This, however, never came to pass, for a year later, Bartleman addressed a letter to Mr. Margery from Esquimalt, stating that “at the time [he] left Mr. McKenzie, there was a balance in my favour of ₤2/9/10, which you say is forfeited. I beg to say that I never received any money from Mrs. McKenzie and from what transpired, I do not see that I am liable for passage money. I am, sir, your ob[edient] servant, Peter Bartleman.”17 Bartleman must have succeeded in thwarting all attempts at curbing his behaviour and sending him home, for he can be found living in Saanich with his children in 1891 at the age of 65, still working as a blacksmith. He appears to have died at the respectable age of 82 in 1907 in Kamloops.
Epilogue (I couldn't think of a better term; if you can, please change it)
Like others on this site, Peter Bartleman represents the ordinary working man who helped to build the colony of Vancouver Island into what we know it today. Those who arrived on the Norman Morison with Kenneth McKenzie in 1852 represent a small but vital cross-section of settlers who were cogs in the machine of Empire during the nineteenth-century. These settlers arrived with both their aspirations and their personal flaws and helped to contribute to the establishment of a successful colony.
Notes
1. 1851 Census of Scotland, 1851 http://www.ancestry.com/ (March 30, 2007).
7. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose,” British Columbia Historical Quarterly VII, No. 2 (1943), 119-134.
8.British Columbia Archives (hereafter BCA), Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers, A-01392, Box 10, File 2, Day Book of Kenneth McKenzie, 24 June 1853.
9. Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose,” 119-134.
10. BCA, Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers, A-01392, Box 10, File 2, Day Book of Kenneth McKenzie, 29 June 1853.
11. BCA, Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers, A-01392, Box 10, File 2, Day Book of Kenneth McKenzie, 3 December 1853.
12.
13.
14. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” British Columbia Historical Quarterly VII, No. 3 (1943), 198-219.
15. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” 198-219.
16. Robert Melrose, “The Diary of Robert Melrose: Part II,” 198-219.
17. BCA, Kenneth McKenzie, Family, Personal and Business Papers, A-01482, Box 18, File 1, Accounts, Receipts, Promissory Notes and Business Papers, 6 March 1856.
Text on Scottish agriculture to link to in the right window:
The agricultural situation in Scotland had always been poorer than that in England, and even as far back as the seventeenth century, England had worried about an influx of poor and ragged Scots migrating southwards. Whereas English labourers were generally relatively well-clothed, some Scottish labourers did not even have shoes, and their quality of life was generally lower. Matters did not much improve, and “by 1840, the agrarian revolution in Britain had reduced many farm servants to the status of labourers.” 2 Even by the early twentieth century, “the foot-plough and hand-winnowing [were] still…common” in some parts of Scotland, while more advanced farming techniques, requiring “heavy capitalization” were being utilized in England. 3 . In the later part of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, there had been a population increase that had created a “glut of agricultural labour in the south [of Scotland]. 4 . Therefore, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, labour was readily available to farmers, often at low cost. “Indeed, the problem became one of supporting through the Poor Law an increasing population of agricultural labourers many of whom were surplus to requirements even at the busy season.” 5. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that many men signed on to work with Kenneth McKenzie, as it offered them a way to escape the uncertainties that must have faced them in Scotland. Signing on with a company promised a term of stability and employment, as well as a place to live. Due to the hiring practices in Scotland, to be unemployed also often meant being homeless, as “cottages surplus to such requirements [on the farm] were pulled down and the building of new accommodation rigorously controlled.” 6.
Notes:
2. Alastair Orr, “Farm Servants and Farm Labour in the Forth Valley and South-East Lowlands,” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 30.
3. Kenneth O. Morgan, The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 477.
4. T.M. Devine, “Introduction: Scottish Farm Service in the Agricultural Revolution” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 3.
5. T.M. Devine, “Introduction”, 3.
6. T.M. Devine, “Introduction,” 6.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Intro text
Before I sign off for the night, I thought I'd post the intro text here even though I emailed it out the other day...just in case.
SM
Welcome to Craigflower Connections.
This website details the lives of five people living in and around what is now Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in the 1850s and 1860s. All of these people were somehow connected to Craigflower Farm, an operation run by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, which was a subsidiary of the famed Hudson's Bay Company. Each person represents a theme or institution which we consider key to understanding the processes by which the British Empire was built.
How to Navigate:
Craigflower Connections uses an 'image map' navigation system. By clicking on the 'Explore the Farm' [LINK] button, which will remain at the top of the screen, you will open a window which shows a portrait of our five subjects superimposed on a painting of Craigflower Farm. Simply click on the image of the person whose life you wish to find out more about. The pages are also accessible through the more conventional navigation bar along the bottom of the window.
Twice the Windows, Twice the Understanding [sorry this is really corny, but I couldn't resist - you can change it if you want]:
Craigflower Connections' pages are configured to use two different windows. Our guiding manifesto for the use of these two windows has been simple: 'Story on the left; History on the right.' Therefore, in the left window, you will find what we hope to be a highly readable, smoothly flowing account of the life of the character. In the right window, we present supporting materials: images, historical documents, and sometimes technical/academic writing which would interrupt the flow of the story were it placed in the left window. When you see underlined text on the left, just click it to open up the related materials on the right - try it now! [LINK TO BELOW TEXT CONCERNING THE RIGHT WINDOW]
RIGHT WINDOW: Congratulations - you have just opened your first right window link! Our goal is for you, if you should so desire, to be able to read through the entire site without ever opening anything in the right window - though we certainly think that it enhances the experience to take advantage of everything that we are offering you! In any case, you can experience as much or as little of these materials as you feel is enjoyable or useful.
Character selection:
Our five 'characters' were carefully chosen - click here to find out how.
[LINK TO BELOW TEXT ON RIGHT]
RIGHT WINDOW: These five people have been chosen for two reasons. Firstly, each of them seems to represent and illustrate well particular ideas, themes, or institutions which was key to the construction of the British Empire in Victoria and perhaps around the world as well. Secondly, we must of course admit that, as in all historical work, the boundaries of our project were also delineated by the availability of sources. Therefore, these five people were chosen too because the existence and availability of sources on them allowed us to present a sufficiently informative, illuminating, and entertaining webpage about them. In constructing a website, the visual element comes to the fore, and we were lucky enough to find a fair number of images (we have good images of all but one of our characters) and historical documents related to our characters from which, thanks largely to the kindness of the British Columbia Archives, we have been able to reproduce images. We hope this adds to the visual appeal of the site.
Historical Approach:
This website's theme is based on the Historical concept known as Microhistory, a diverse field which, generally speaking, rejects a conception of History as based on the pseudo-scientific analysis of large-scale societal trends based on statistical data. Microhistorians seek to reconstruct the experiences and interactions of individual people (and especially 'average' people, that is to say, those not within the powerful elite at a given time) and, by 'reading between the lines' of what they have left behind, hopefully find out something more about not only what their lives were like (including how they conceived of their own existence), but also about the basis of larger societal phenomena at the level of everyday life.
If you're curious to find out more about Microhistory and the philosophy behind this website, click here. [LINK TO TEXT ON MICROHISTORY BELOW]
RIGHT WINDOW:
MICROHISTORY AND CRAIGFLOWER CONNECTIONS
Microhistory has been defined by Edward Muir as "a genre...devoted to social relationships and interactions among historical persons who, in contrast to analytic categories, actually existed and who experienced life as a series of events."1 In order to distil evidence of this type into the deepest possible insights about the past, care should be taken to construct as fully as possible the intellectual outlook of historical figures at the time they lived with little to no reference to the outlook of the author's time.2 In this process, writes prominent microhistorian Carlo Ginzburg, we should not be deterred by the so-called lack of objectivity of a source - he reminds us that a historian should be skilled enough to glean useful insights about a past person's intellectual world from documents left by them which show their process of evaluating the world from their unique point of view.3 We should add here that it is the Italian school of microhistory, of which Ginzburg is probably the most prominent representative, whose ideas are most salient in this website. Also notable is the microhistorical approach to what we should consider a 'typical' person or incident in the past, and even whether or not typicality is required of a particular subject in order to be useful. In fact, some microhistorians argue, we can often learn much about a 'normal' or 'average' experience by examining that which is considered abnormal, and asking why it was so.4 On this website, for example, we might posit that the unruly behaviour of blacksmith Peter Bartleman illuminates clearly that the typical HBC servant was expected to be obedient and to do as the company dictated; Bartleman reveals this expectation not by embodying it, but rather by shunning it, and leaving us with the evidence of how his abnormal behaviour was perceived and dealt with.
In any case, the fact that microhistory concentrates on individuals, and even 'atypical' individuals, does not mean that it has nothing to say about the wider world. A microhistorian may discover much that he believes can be applied to past societies as a whole from his explorations of a few individuals. Microhistory simply argues that there must be an exchange between the wider scene and the world of the individual, and that the stories of individuals should not be buried under a mountain of hypotheses and statistics about societal trends.5 Furthermore, microhistorians also stress that in looking at small-scale data, we often reveal ruptures in history between settings and times - indeed, this difficulty in generalization based on masses of data was partly responsible for Microhistory's emergence!6 Our website follows this philosophy - we hope that our characters demonstrate ideas and institutions that were important and widespread elements of the British Empire during its heyday, but at the same time we emphasize that the study of the lives of our characters as individuals generates useful data, in its own right, about the experience of living during the 1850s and 1860s - regardless of what they may or may not tell us about Imperial processes in a wider sense.
Notes:
1. Edward Muir, "Introduction: Observing Trifles," in Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe, eds. E. Muir & G. Ruggiero, translated by Eden Branch (Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), ix.
2. Muir, "Introduction: Observing Trifles," xii.
3. Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, translated by John and Anne Tedseschi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1992), xvii-xviii.
4. Muir, "Introduction: Observing Trifles," xv-xvi; Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, xxi.
5. Georg G. Iggers, "From Macro- to Microhistory: The History of Everyday Life," in Historiography in the twentieth century : from scientific objectivity to the postmodern challenge (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press, 1997), 104.
6. Iggers, "From Macro- to Microhistory," 112.
About Us:
Craigflower Connections was researched, written, and constructed by three undergraduate students at the University of Victoria - click here to learn more about us and how you can get in touch. [LINK TO APPROPRIATE STUFF]
SM
Welcome to Craigflower Connections.
This website details the lives of five people living in and around what is now Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in the 1850s and 1860s. All of these people were somehow connected to Craigflower Farm, an operation run by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, which was a subsidiary of the famed Hudson's Bay Company. Each person represents a theme or institution which we consider key to understanding the processes by which the British Empire was built.
How to Navigate:
Craigflower Connections uses an 'image map' navigation system. By clicking on the 'Explore the Farm' [LINK] button, which will remain at the top of the screen, you will open a window which shows a portrait of our five subjects superimposed on a painting of Craigflower Farm. Simply click on the image of the person whose life you wish to find out more about. The pages are also accessible through the more conventional navigation bar along the bottom of the window.
Twice the Windows, Twice the Understanding [sorry this is really corny, but I couldn't resist - you can change it if you want]:
Craigflower Connections' pages are configured to use two different windows. Our guiding manifesto for the use of these two windows has been simple: 'Story on the left; History on the right.' Therefore, in the left window, you will find what we hope to be a highly readable, smoothly flowing account of the life of the character. In the right window, we present supporting materials: images, historical documents, and sometimes technical/academic writing which would interrupt the flow of the story were it placed in the left window. When you see underlined text on the left, just click it to open up the related materials on the right - try it now! [LINK TO BELOW TEXT CONCERNING THE RIGHT WINDOW]
RIGHT WINDOW: Congratulations - you have just opened your first right window link! Our goal is for you, if you should so desire, to be able to read through the entire site without ever opening anything in the right window - though we certainly think that it enhances the experience to take advantage of everything that we are offering you! In any case, you can experience as much or as little of these materials as you feel is enjoyable or useful.
Character selection:
Our five 'characters' were carefully chosen - click here to find out how.
[LINK TO BELOW TEXT ON RIGHT]
RIGHT WINDOW: These five people have been chosen for two reasons. Firstly, each of them seems to represent and illustrate well particular ideas, themes, or institutions which was key to the construction of the British Empire in Victoria and perhaps around the world as well. Secondly, we must of course admit that, as in all historical work, the boundaries of our project were also delineated by the availability of sources. Therefore, these five people were chosen too because the existence and availability of sources on them allowed us to present a sufficiently informative, illuminating, and entertaining webpage about them. In constructing a website, the visual element comes to the fore, and we were lucky enough to find a fair number of images (we have good images of all but one of our characters) and historical documents related to our characters from which, thanks largely to the kindness of the British Columbia Archives, we have been able to reproduce images. We hope this adds to the visual appeal of the site.
Historical Approach:
This website's theme is based on the Historical concept known as Microhistory, a diverse field which, generally speaking, rejects a conception of History as based on the pseudo-scientific analysis of large-scale societal trends based on statistical data. Microhistorians seek to reconstruct the experiences and interactions of individual people (and especially 'average' people, that is to say, those not within the powerful elite at a given time) and, by 'reading between the lines' of what they have left behind, hopefully find out something more about not only what their lives were like (including how they conceived of their own existence), but also about the basis of larger societal phenomena at the level of everyday life.
If you're curious to find out more about Microhistory and the philosophy behind this website, click here. [LINK TO TEXT ON MICROHISTORY BELOW]
RIGHT WINDOW:
MICROHISTORY AND CRAIGFLOWER CONNECTIONS
Microhistory has been defined by Edward Muir as "a genre...devoted to social relationships and interactions among historical persons who, in contrast to analytic categories, actually existed and who experienced life as a series of events."1 In order to distil evidence of this type into the deepest possible insights about the past, care should be taken to construct as fully as possible the intellectual outlook of historical figures at the time they lived with little to no reference to the outlook of the author's time.2 In this process, writes prominent microhistorian Carlo Ginzburg, we should not be deterred by the so-called lack of objectivity of a source - he reminds us that a historian should be skilled enough to glean useful insights about a past person's intellectual world from documents left by them which show their process of evaluating the world from their unique point of view.3 We should add here that it is the Italian school of microhistory, of which Ginzburg is probably the most prominent representative, whose ideas are most salient in this website. Also notable is the microhistorical approach to what we should consider a 'typical' person or incident in the past, and even whether or not typicality is required of a particular subject in order to be useful. In fact, some microhistorians argue, we can often learn much about a 'normal' or 'average' experience by examining that which is considered abnormal, and asking why it was so.4 On this website, for example, we might posit that the unruly behaviour of blacksmith Peter Bartleman illuminates clearly that the typical HBC servant was expected to be obedient and to do as the company dictated; Bartleman reveals this expectation not by embodying it, but rather by shunning it, and leaving us with the evidence of how his abnormal behaviour was perceived and dealt with.
In any case, the fact that microhistory concentrates on individuals, and even 'atypical' individuals, does not mean that it has nothing to say about the wider world. A microhistorian may discover much that he believes can be applied to past societies as a whole from his explorations of a few individuals. Microhistory simply argues that there must be an exchange between the wider scene and the world of the individual, and that the stories of individuals should not be buried under a mountain of hypotheses and statistics about societal trends.5 Furthermore, microhistorians also stress that in looking at small-scale data, we often reveal ruptures in history between settings and times - indeed, this difficulty in generalization based on masses of data was partly responsible for Microhistory's emergence!6 Our website follows this philosophy - we hope that our characters demonstrate ideas and institutions that were important and widespread elements of the British Empire during its heyday, but at the same time we emphasize that the study of the lives of our characters as individuals generates useful data, in its own right, about the experience of living during the 1850s and 1860s - regardless of what they may or may not tell us about Imperial processes in a wider sense.
Notes:
1. Edward Muir, "Introduction: Observing Trifles," in Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe, eds. E. Muir & G. Ruggiero, translated by Eden Branch (Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), ix.
2. Muir, "Introduction: Observing Trifles," xii.
3. Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, translated by John and Anne Tedseschi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1992), xvii-xviii.
4. Muir, "Introduction: Observing Trifles," xv-xvi; Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, xxi.
5. Georg G. Iggers, "From Macro- to Microhistory: The History of Everyday Life," in Historiography in the twentieth century : from scientific objectivity to the postmodern challenge (Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press, 1997), 104.
6. Iggers, "From Macro- to Microhistory," 112.
About Us:
Craigflower Connections was researched, written, and constructed by three undergraduate students at the University of Victoria - click here to learn more about us and how you can get in touch. [LINK TO APPROPRIATE STUFF]
Verney Redux
Same format as the Irvine materials I posted earlier. Notes of changes are in red capitals - compare with previous version. I have also, as with Irvine, completely re-written the last paragraph of the left window. If the web-link citations don't show up, as has been happening, I will send them in an email.
THE CAPTAIN:
CORRECT SPELLING: Lieutenant Edmund Hope Verney, RN brings civilization
FROM THE LAP OF LUXURY
Edmund Verney was born into privilege in 1838. His family's grand estate at Claydon House [LINK TO CLAYDON HOUSE MATERIALS], which was to be his one day, was a typical English aristocratic country home at the time, encompassing villages and farms from whose rents the family gained their comfortable income. Edmund's father Sir Harry Verney was, however, a staunch Liberal MP (MOVED1.5 SENTENCES FROM HERE TO RIGHT WINDOW) - [LINK TO #2 IN RIGHT WINDOW ON HARRY VERNEY]. It is due to regular correspondence between Edmund and Sir Harry [LINK TO TEXT ON PRITCHARD] that today we enjoy such highly detailed knowledge about Verney's time on Vancouver Island SHORTENED AND REWORDED THIS SENTENCE.
TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
When Edmund Verney came to Vancouver Island to command HMS Grappler [LINK TO GRAPPLER PIC AND INFO], he was to display the same tendencies as his father, involving himself heavily in organizations and causes which he believed REMOVED 'TO BE' progressive enough to be worthy of his attention. No doubt this great activity was responsible for the many friends he made on Vancouver Island, CHANGED WORDING HERE among whom the McKenzies of Craigflower are especially notable.
The Royal Navy had used Esquimalt as a base since 1848, but only in the four years before Verney's arrival in 1862 had it developed [LINK TO INFO ON ESQUIMALT] a complete naval infrastructure CHANGED WORDING. The Grappler's duties during its assignment to the twin colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island were certainly what we might expect from Imperial duty of a small ship at a far-flung post: assisting and ferrying settlers, patrolling for smugglers, and participating in police actions, especially against First Nations peoples suspected of crimes or harassment of European settlers.1
BUILDING A MORAL EMPIRE
Verney's liberal sentiments do seem to have influenced him while carrying out these tasks. Despite a somewhat incongruous distaste for the local First Nations (an attitude which seems to have waned during his time on the coast, even leading him to criticize the government for failing to honour promises to them), he does not seem to have ever fired his ship's guns in action and indeed was thankful to have missed the bombardment of a First Nations village on Kuper Island in the Gulf Islands SHORTENED THIS SENTENCE.2 Later in life, he became critical of aspects of the British imperial project and apparently attended an anti-flogging meeting in Portsmouth in 1879, an activity over which the Admiralty was most displeased.3
In Victoria, Verney was involved with organizations as diverse as the Immigration Board (and particularly the Female Immigration Committee, an enterprise in which capacity he was assisted by his father), the Lighthouse Board, and the Vancouver Island Bible Society. He was also appointed as a magistrate and was a key force in the establishment of ADDED 'THE' the Mechanics Literary Institute, Victoria's first public library. Verney gave speeches at many events [ADD RIGHT WINDOW LINK RE VERNEY'S FATHER'S WARNINGS], presumably seen as an appropriate representative of imperial sentiments in Britain.4 When Verney departed Victoria in 1865, a farewell dinner was thrown at the French Hotel and included an address signed by 75 of the city's (admittedly self-described) "most respectable citizens."5
REMOVED PARAGRAPH HERE - MOVED TO RIGHT WINDOW AS PER ABOVE NOTE
AN UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIP
It seems that Verney's first encounter with the McKenzie family was when Kenneth rented Verney his first cottage at Esquimalt at a rate of 25 pounds per year. Verney's first Christmas (1862) at Craigflower was particularly memorable for him, and during that evening "the cement of friendship was run in." [LINK TO LONGER DESCRIPTION] In February 1863, he noted that he had spent every Sunday with the McKenzies since his arrival the previous May, with the exception of days when the Grappler was not in port. The young officer apparently took an interest, not surprising given his many connections in the community, in helping his farming friends increase their station in REMOVED 'COLONIAL' life - Verney wrote that he was delighted to see, at a picnic one afternoon, McKenzie engaged in a long conversation with the governor.6
Verney's close relationship with the McKenzies continued after he left the colony, and in November 1865, soon after arriving at his family home, he sent a package and letter back to Craigflower. The affection between the two parties is clear in the jocular and comfortable tone of the letter. [LINK TO VERNEY LETTER] Finally, in 1909, 44 years after he left Victoria and one year before his death, Verney received a postcard from 'Goodie' McKenzie, showing Esquimalt Harbour as it then looked.7
THE OLD WORLD MEETS THE NEW [THIS SECTION COMPLETELY REWRITTEN]
Edmund Verney's friendship with the McKenzie family exemplifies the social possibilities of a distant colony. It is difficult to imagine an English country gentleman eating Christmas dinner with a Scottish farming family at home in Britain. Indeed, given Verney's criticism of the ruling circle of Governor Douglas and his associates, and his desire to see them replaced by a more 'civilized' (i.e. English) administration, Verney's relationship with the McKenzies seems even more unlikely.8
Considering Verney's participation in institutions which he believed would civilize the colony alongside his friendship with the McKenzies, it seems that he embodies two apparently antithetical imperial processes: the escape from the social strictures of Britain and the attempt by the ruling classes to impose English civilization on the growing colonial societies. Acknowledging the negotiation which took place between these two processes offers valuable insight into the development of North American colonial societies.
Notes: THERE HAVE BEEN SOME CHANGES HERE
1 Allan Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 1862-65 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1996), 23-24.
2 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 38-39, 43, and 132
3 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 43 and Peter Davis, "Lieutenant Edmund Hope Verney RN," William Loney RN - Victorian Naval Surgeon.
4 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 28-31.
5 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 32.
6 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 202.
7 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 52.
8 Allan Pritchard, "Letters of a Victorian Naval Officer: Edmund Verney in British Columbia, 1862-65," in BC Studies 86 (Summer 1990): 39-41.
VERNEY RIGHT WINDOW LINKS
Image in right window when page opens: verney.gif
#1:
image - claydonhouse.jpg
text - Claydon House as it appears today, preserved by Britain's National Trust. Verney is partly responsible for their statement that the house has "Fascinating associations with...the Crimean War." Florence Nightingale, whose sister was Verney's stepmother, would no doubt also be responsible for some of these fascinations.
Source: The National Trust, Claydon House
#2:
image - harryverney.jpg
text - Sir Harry Verney sat in the House of Commons for the Liberal party for 52 years, from 1832 to 1885. He dedicated himself to many of the progressive reforms which are now seen as the benchmarks of Britain's development into a modern society during the Victorian period: combating slave trading, extending the franchise, and improving conditions in the country's booming industrial towns and factories.
Source: Allan Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 1862-65 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1996), 9 and reproduction of an illustration following page 120.
#3:
text - The authors wish to include a special thanks to Allan Pritchard, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Toronto (now living in British Columbia), who unearthed and discovered Verney's British Columbia letters to his father in the archives at Claydon House and published them in 1996 along with a most helpful, thorough and concise introduction. Without Pritchard's work, Verney would likely have remained too inaccessible to us to include in this site, despite his representation of a most interesting Imperial relationship.
#4:
image - grapplerpainting.jpg
Source: National Maritime Museum, "HMS Grappler," Prints and Drawings INCLUDE LINK
text - Verney's Grappler. The ship had both sail and steam power and was about 160 feet in length with a 22-foot beam.
Source: Allan Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 1862-65 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1996), 22.
#5:
image - esquimalt1858.gif
image - esquimalt1870.gif
text - Esquimalt in 1858 and 1870, showing the development from a somewhat jumbled mass of small buildings to a cluster of solid-looking permanent naval establishments. Note also the large fleet at anchor in 1870 - this might be a 'flying squadron' which visited on a Pacific tour in May of that year. Verney arrived at a particularly crucial time in the Esquimalt bases's history. Between 1858 and 1862, a barracks, a coal depot, a magazine, and the Fisgard lighthouse were all added, creating a permanent base for the British Empire's key instrument. With this work complete, the headquarters of the Navy's Pacific Squadron was moved to Esquimalt from far-off Valparaiso, Chile in 1862, the same year that Verney arrived to assume his new command.
Source: Government of Canada, "The Royal Navy Patrols the West Coast," Canadian Military Heritage (20 June 2004).
# 6:
POLITICS IN THE COLONIES
text - Verney was warned by his father not to be too engaged in activities which might be seen as improperly political for a naval officer - and which might endanger his future as a country gentleman and political figure once he was home in England.# Presumably for this reason, Verney kept quiet - except to his father - about his strong belief that Governor James Douglas, the old HBC man whose circle of family and friends had a tight grip on the colony's administration, had to be removed as soon as possible and replaced by a leader who could better bring English civilization to the colony.#
Source: Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 31 and 34-35.
#7:
CHRISTMAS AT CRAIGFLOWER
text - From Verney's letter of December 26, 1862: "At 5 P.M. I went up to dine with the McKenzies of Craig Flower: here was assembled a large party; dinner was followed by toasts, not forgetting 'absent friends', toasts were followed by songs, songs by tea, tea by charades, charades, by dancing, dancing by blind-man's-bluff, and blind-man's-bluff was the entertainment followed by all. The amusements of the evening were sprinkled with negus, and the crannies were stopped with Scotch cake and bun: then being warmed with hospitality and genial heartiness, a cement of friendship was run in, which at once took a natural polish. The first yawn was observed on the countenance of the smallest child at about 12.25., and at 1.15. I was in bed on board the 'Grappler': there were no signs of breaking up when I left, and for all I know, the may be dancing yet."
Source: Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 110-111.
#8:
image - verneyletterfront.jpg
image - verneyletterback.jpg
text - The first paragraph of Verney's letter to the McKenzies, preserved in the BC Archives, reads: "Herewith I send numerous little Christmas and New Year remembrances to some of my friends. If any of them feel offended or insulted at my sending such trumpery things from England, as I am too far off to be kicked, ask them to do it by proxy: Kenneth will act for me."
THE CAPTAIN:
CORRECT SPELLING: Lieutenant Edmund Hope Verney, RN brings civilization
FROM THE LAP OF LUXURY
Edmund Verney was born into privilege in 1838. His family's grand estate at Claydon House [LINK TO CLAYDON HOUSE MATERIALS], which was to be his one day, was a typical English aristocratic country home at the time, encompassing villages and farms from whose rents the family gained their comfortable income. Edmund's father Sir Harry Verney was, however, a staunch Liberal MP (MOVED1.5 SENTENCES FROM HERE TO RIGHT WINDOW) - [LINK TO #2 IN RIGHT WINDOW ON HARRY VERNEY]. It is due to regular correspondence between Edmund and Sir Harry [LINK TO TEXT ON PRITCHARD] that today we enjoy such highly detailed knowledge about Verney's time on Vancouver Island SHORTENED AND REWORDED THIS SENTENCE.
TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
When Edmund Verney came to Vancouver Island to command HMS Grappler [LINK TO GRAPPLER PIC AND INFO], he was to display the same tendencies as his father, involving himself heavily in organizations and causes which he believed REMOVED 'TO BE' progressive enough to be worthy of his attention. No doubt this great activity was responsible for the many friends he made on Vancouver Island, CHANGED WORDING HERE among whom the McKenzies of Craigflower are especially notable.
The Royal Navy had used Esquimalt as a base since 1848, but only in the four years before Verney's arrival in 1862 had it developed [LINK TO INFO ON ESQUIMALT] a complete naval infrastructure CHANGED WORDING. The Grappler's duties during its assignment to the twin colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island were certainly what we might expect from Imperial duty of a small ship at a far-flung post: assisting and ferrying settlers, patrolling for smugglers, and participating in police actions, especially against First Nations peoples suspected of crimes or harassment of European settlers.1
BUILDING A MORAL EMPIRE
Verney's liberal sentiments do seem to have influenced him while carrying out these tasks. Despite a somewhat incongruous distaste for the local First Nations (an attitude which seems to have waned during his time on the coast, even leading him to criticize the government for failing to honour promises to them), he does not seem to have ever fired his ship's guns in action and indeed was thankful to have missed the bombardment of a First Nations village on Kuper Island in the Gulf Islands SHORTENED THIS SENTENCE.2 Later in life, he became critical of aspects of the British imperial project and apparently attended an anti-flogging meeting in Portsmouth in 1879, an activity over which the Admiralty was most displeased.3
In Victoria, Verney was involved with organizations as diverse as the Immigration Board (and particularly the Female Immigration Committee, an enterprise in which capacity he was assisted by his father), the Lighthouse Board, and the Vancouver Island Bible Society. He was also appointed as a magistrate and was a key force in the establishment of ADDED 'THE' the Mechanics Literary Institute, Victoria's first public library. Verney gave speeches at many events [ADD RIGHT WINDOW LINK RE VERNEY'S FATHER'S WARNINGS], presumably seen as an appropriate representative of imperial sentiments in Britain.4 When Verney departed Victoria in 1865, a farewell dinner was thrown at the French Hotel and included an address signed by 75 of the city's (admittedly self-described) "most respectable citizens."5
REMOVED PARAGRAPH HERE - MOVED TO RIGHT WINDOW AS PER ABOVE NOTE
AN UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIP
It seems that Verney's first encounter with the McKenzie family was when Kenneth rented Verney his first cottage at Esquimalt at a rate of 25 pounds per year. Verney's first Christmas (1862) at Craigflower was particularly memorable for him, and during that evening "the cement of friendship was run in." [LINK TO LONGER DESCRIPTION] In February 1863, he noted that he had spent every Sunday with the McKenzies since his arrival the previous May, with the exception of days when the Grappler was not in port. The young officer apparently took an interest, not surprising given his many connections in the community, in helping his farming friends increase their station in REMOVED 'COLONIAL' life - Verney wrote that he was delighted to see, at a picnic one afternoon, McKenzie engaged in a long conversation with the governor.6
Verney's close relationship with the McKenzies continued after he left the colony, and in November 1865, soon after arriving at his family home, he sent a package and letter back to Craigflower. The affection between the two parties is clear in the jocular and comfortable tone of the letter. [LINK TO VERNEY LETTER] Finally, in 1909, 44 years after he left Victoria and one year before his death, Verney received a postcard from 'Goodie' McKenzie, showing Esquimalt Harbour as it then looked.7
THE OLD WORLD MEETS THE NEW [THIS SECTION COMPLETELY REWRITTEN]
Edmund Verney's friendship with the McKenzie family exemplifies the social possibilities of a distant colony. It is difficult to imagine an English country gentleman eating Christmas dinner with a Scottish farming family at home in Britain. Indeed, given Verney's criticism of the ruling circle of Governor Douglas and his associates, and his desire to see them replaced by a more 'civilized' (i.e. English) administration, Verney's relationship with the McKenzies seems even more unlikely.8
Considering Verney's participation in institutions which he believed would civilize the colony alongside his friendship with the McKenzies, it seems that he embodies two apparently antithetical imperial processes: the escape from the social strictures of Britain and the attempt by the ruling classes to impose English civilization on the growing colonial societies. Acknowledging the negotiation which took place between these two processes offers valuable insight into the development of North American colonial societies.
Notes: THERE HAVE BEEN SOME CHANGES HERE
1 Allan Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 1862-65 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1996), 23-24.
2 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 38-39, 43, and 132
3 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 43 and Peter Davis, "Lieutenant Edmund Hope Verney RN," William Loney RN - Victorian Naval Surgeon
4 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 28-31.
5 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 32.
6 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 202.
7 Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 52.
8 Allan Pritchard, "Letters of a Victorian Naval Officer: Edmund Verney in British Columbia, 1862-65," in BC Studies 86 (Summer 1990): 39-41.
VERNEY RIGHT WINDOW LINKS
Image in right window when page opens: verney.gif
#1:
image - claydonhouse.jpg
text - Claydon House as it appears today, preserved by Britain's National Trust. Verney is partly responsible for their statement that the house has "Fascinating associations with...the Crimean War." Florence Nightingale, whose sister was Verney's stepmother, would no doubt also be responsible for some of these fascinations.
Source: The National Trust, Claydon House
#2:
image - harryverney.jpg
text - Sir Harry Verney sat in the House of Commons for the Liberal party for 52 years, from 1832 to 1885. He dedicated himself to many of the progressive reforms which are now seen as the benchmarks of Britain's development into a modern society during the Victorian period: combating slave trading, extending the franchise, and improving conditions in the country's booming industrial towns and factories.
Source: Allan Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 1862-65 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1996), 9 and reproduction of an illustration following page 120.
#3:
text - The authors wish to include a special thanks to Allan Pritchard, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Toronto (now living in British Columbia), who unearthed and discovered Verney's British Columbia letters to his father in the archives at Claydon House and published them in 1996 along with a most helpful, thorough and concise introduction. Without Pritchard's work, Verney would likely have remained too inaccessible to us to include in this site, despite his representation of a most interesting Imperial relationship.
#4:
image - grapplerpainting.jpg
Source: National Maritime Museum, "HMS Grappler," Prints and Drawings
text - Verney's Grappler. The ship had both sail and steam power and was about 160 feet in length with a 22-foot beam.
Source: Allan Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 1862-65 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1996), 22.
#5:
image - esquimalt1858.gif
image - esquimalt1870.gif
text - Esquimalt in 1858 and 1870, showing the development from a somewhat jumbled mass of small buildings to a cluster of solid-looking permanent naval establishments. Note also the large fleet at anchor in 1870 - this might be a 'flying squadron' which visited on a Pacific tour in May of that year. Verney arrived at a particularly crucial time in the Esquimalt bases's history. Between 1858 and 1862, a barracks, a coal depot, a magazine, and the Fisgard lighthouse were all added, creating a permanent base for the British Empire's key instrument. With this work complete, the headquarters of the Navy's Pacific Squadron was moved to Esquimalt from far-off Valparaiso, Chile in 1862, the same year that Verney arrived to assume his new command.
Source: Government of Canada, "The Royal Navy Patrols the West Coast," Canadian Military Heritage
# 6:
POLITICS IN THE COLONIES
text - Verney was warned by his father not to be too engaged in activities which might be seen as improperly political for a naval officer - and which might endanger his future as a country gentleman and political figure once he was home in England.# Presumably for this reason, Verney kept quiet - except to his father - about his strong belief that Governor James Douglas, the old HBC man whose circle of family and friends had a tight grip on the colony's administration, had to be removed as soon as possible and replaced by a leader who could better bring English civilization to the colony.#
Source: Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 31 and 34-35.
#7:
CHRISTMAS AT CRAIGFLOWER
text - From Verney's letter of December 26, 1862: "At 5 P.M. I went up to dine with the McKenzies of Craig Flower: here was assembled a large party; dinner was followed by toasts, not forgetting 'absent friends', toasts were followed by songs, songs by tea, tea by charades, charades, by dancing, dancing by blind-man's-bluff, and blind-man's-bluff was the entertainment followed by all. The amusements of the evening were sprinkled with negus, and the crannies were stopped with Scotch cake and bun: then being warmed with hospitality and genial heartiness, a cement of friendship was run in, which at once took a natural polish. The first yawn was observed on the countenance of the smallest child at about 12.25., and at 1.15. I was in bed on board the 'Grappler': there were no signs of breaking up when I left, and for all I know, the may be dancing yet."
Source: Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 110-111.
#8:
image - verneyletterfront.jpg
image - verneyletterback.jpg
text - The first paragraph of Verney's letter to the McKenzies, preserved in the BC Archives, reads: "Herewith I send numerous little Christmas and New Year remembrances to some of my friends. If any of them feel offended or insulted at my sending such trumpery things from England, as I am too far off to be kicked, ask them to do it by proxy: Kenneth will act for me."
Irvines Redux
Ok, here are my revisions of the Irvines page. Same format as before - first the left window, then the right. Dan - I've drawn your attention to where I've made changes, which you'll see by comparing with the previous version, by noting them in red capital letters, since I thought it would probably be easier for you in some cases to just go through and make the individual changes rather than redoing the whole page with the links and everything. I did add one completely new right window link - also in red. The exception is probably the last paragraph of the left window, which I completely rewrote and has no links, so you can just cut and paste that. Anyway, here we go...
LEFT WINDOW:
THE INDEPENDENT FARMER:
John Irvine Sr. from servant to landowner
FROM A REMOTE ISLAND
REWORDED THIS PARAGRAPH SLIGHTLY The Irvine family came from the Scottish Orkney Islands. When he boarded the steamer to London to join there the Hudson's Bay Company barque Tory [LINK TO IMAGE OF TORY AND PASSENGER LIST], John and his wife Jessie may have been dreaming of owning their own piece of the new world. It was to be about a decade before, half a world away, the Irvine family, by then consisting of John, Jessie and their six children (with one more still to come) were settled at their Rose Bank Farm.
TO A MORE REMOTE ISLAND
MOVED THIS SENTENCE HERE FROM ABOVE In November 1850, John inked his first contract with the HBC, signing his labour over to them for a five-year term, to be served out at Fort Victoria on Vancouver Island. Details on the Irvines' early days in Victoria are somewhat uncertain, but it seems that John and his family worked and lived just outside Fort Victoria and at the nearby Church Hill and Gonzales farms. In September of 1851 their second son, William [LINK TO PICTURE OF WILLIAM IRVINE], was born MOVED SENTENCE ABOUT WILLIAM TO HIS RIGHT-WINDOW LINK. In 1852, they played a crucial role in the establishment of Craigflower farm REMOVED LAST PART OF THIS SENTENCE. John worked as grain miller at the farm and, in the early days, no doubt helped with REMOVED 'GENERAL' construction and other work. Much of REMOVED 'THE YEAR' 1852 was spent preparing the site of Craigflower for the arrival of its manager (or 'bailiff') Kenneth McKenzie [LINK TO THE MCKENZIE PAGE? JUST AN IDEA - AT YOUR DISCRETION, DAN] in January 1853.1
A DREAM REALIZED?
REMOVED FIRST SENTENCE John was paid a salary of 20 pounds per year by the Hudson's Bay Company, and he seems to have saved as much as he could towards the purchase of land. REWORDED THIS SENTENCE SLIGHTLY AT THE END: In 1855, with not enough collected to achieve this goal, John signed on for another five year term of servitude at Craigflower Farm. By 1857, however, REPLACED 'THE IRVINES' WITH 'HE' he had saved enough to make the first payment on about 130 acres in the area north of Victoria known as Cedar Plains [LINK TO SAANICH ARCHIVES RECORD OF INITIAL PURCHASE - RETYPED BY SCOTT], along the route of Cedar Hill Road between Mount Douglas (Cedar Hill) and Fort Victoria. There was so much work to be done making the place liveable, it seems, that they may not have been able to move there until five years later in 1862. This may not be so surprising when we consider that John REMOVED BRACKETED SPECULATION ABOUT ROBERT was still working 6 long days each week at Craigflower.2
REMOVED 1.5 SENTENCES HERE It is unclear exactly when they first moved in - perhaps the process was gradual - but it seems to have been sometime between 1860 and spring 1862 [LINK TO SCOTT'S TEXT ON UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THEIR MOVE-IN DATE]. Jessie named it Rose Bank for the REMOVED 'MANY' wild roses growing around their home site.3 The place was wooded and rocky and remote, but it must have suited the Irvines - perhaps reminding them of home in the distant Orkney islands - because John and Jessie lived there for the rest of their lives REMOVED DEATH DATES IN BRACKETS; [ADD LINK TO RIGHT WINDOW - #4]. REMOVED SENTENCE HERE
The Irvines' kitchen was the first home to the Anglican congregation of the area (despite the Irvines being Presbyterians) before it moved into St. Luke's church, whose modern incarnation rests at the corner of Cedar Hill and Cedar Hill Cross roads.4 ADDED FOOTNOTE #4 HERE
OWNERSHIP
Life at Rose Bank was not easy. John Irvine Jr. (known as 'Long Gun' Jack) [LINK TO SELECTIONS FROM LONG GUN'S BOOK, PICTURES OF LONG GUN, AND IMAGE OF HIS BOOK COVER], born in October of 1861, records that by the time he was nine, he had a full roster of chores on the farm and was expected to "be a man." At that age, he caught his hand in a piece of equipment and had to be taken to the doctor with two of his fingers "like sausage meat." Long Gun also mentions the family having cows and sheep at this time, and we know that 34 of their sheep were killed by wildlife one night in 1868 [LINK TO SCOTT'S TRANSCRIPTION OF COLONIST ARTICLE] - which shows how REMOVED 'TRULY' wild the area was REMOVED 'AT THAT TIME'. Similarly, Long Gun discusses his great skill at hunting with a flintlock rifle when he was 12 years old; he brought home many varieties of birds and sometimes one of the wild pigs which so aggravated the area's farmers. John Jr. also spent much of his childhood playing with local First Nations children, and writes that he "could talk Chinook like [he] belonged to the tribe."
We do know, however, that basic education for the children in the area was established fairly quickly, at first in the kitchen of the neighbouring King family, and by 1872, in the new REMOVED A FEW WORDS HERE Cedar Hill school. Christina Irvine's workbook provides a glimpse into the world of a child of 1875 [LINK TO TRANSCRIPTIONS AND IMAGES OF NOTEBOOK] - and reveals that in the mind of a child, that world was not so different from our own. REMOVED 'AFTER ALL'.
The Irvine family [LINK TO PAGE WITH TWO PICTURES OF IRVINES - PORTRAIT WITH THE ANNOYING FREDDY TOD AND THE ONE IN THE FIELD] established itself firmly as one of Victoria's key pioneering clans. A family reunion in the city in 1992 saw about 150 attendees.5
A NEW WORLD
REWROTE THIS ENTIRE PARAGRAPH The Irvine family achieved the fulfillment of an idea which, perhaps ironically, drove the consolidation of the British Empire: the dream of independence. John Irvine's chances of ever owning land - and certainly of owning so much land - in his native Scotland were tiny. On Vancouver Island, however, a decade of hard work turned this dream into reality. Whatever the British Empire has meant to the world, its owes its great impact in large part to people like the Irvines. By taking advantage of the opportunity offered by an imperial institution such as the HBC and moulding it into a life not possible in their homeland, the Irvines participated in the creation of what we know as the Western world.
NOTES: THESE HAVE CHANGED A LITTLE
1 William John Irvine et al., Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851 (Victoria: William John Irvine, 1996), 10, 20, and 33-34.
2 W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 35-37.
3W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 37-38.
4 W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 38.
5 Patrick Murphy, "Great clan grows in Victoria from Scottish family of three" Victoria Times Colonist, 22 July 1992, C9.
RIGHT WINDOW:
When page first opens, picture in right-hand window is: irvine.gif
Link #1:
- image - tory.jpg
MOVED THIS HERE FROM LEFT WINDOW - text - The approximately 18,020 kilometre voyage from London to Fort Victoria took the Irvines from November 9, 1850 to May 10, 1851. This time was spent aboard a sailing ship just of just 130 feet in length and 25 in beam and carrying between 120 and 140 passengers.
Source: THIS CHANGED SLIGHTLY William John Irvine et al., Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851 (Victoria: William John Irvine, 1996), 9-10 and 32.
- image - torypaxlist.jpg
- text - The passenger list of the Tory indicates only the male family heads and not the women and children who were also on board. The most recognizable name on the list is John Work (not to be confused with the curiously similar John Wark, also apparently on board - we suspect that this may be the same person), a prominent farmer and legislator. Also aboard was Martha Cheney, whose diary is an excellent source on early Victoria.
Source: W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 11 and 22.
#2:
- image - williamirvine.gif
MOVED THIS TEXT HERE FROM LEFT WINDOW - text - William Irvine, the Irvines' second child, was the first known child born of European parents of Vancouver Island.
#3:
- text of initial land purchase in a format something like the following (you can play with it to make it look better as you may think necessary):
Land District: Victoria
Section: 41
Original Owner: John Irving [a common misspelling which appears often in various records - not changed to Irvine in these land records until 1900]
Number of acres: 130.54
Price: 579.46 dollars, or 120*8*4 pounds
Date of Purchase: April 20, 1857
Date of Final Payment: December 2, 1861
Source: Saanich Archives [Dan - I may get in touch with Caroline to see if there's a better citation for this!]
#4 [THIS IS THE NEW ONE CONCERNING THE IRVINES' DEATHS]
text - From the Colonist, March 21, 1907 – “Pioneer resident mourned by many – Funeral of the late Mrs Irvine attended by host of sorrowing friends”
The longest funeral cortege that has been seen in this city for many years followed the body of Mrs. Jessie Irvine of Cedar Hill to the Ross Bay cemetery yesterday afternoon.
The late Mrs. Irvine was one of the oldest residents of the city, having come here twenty years before British Columbia joined the confederation and when there was but one other white woman in town. She lived at Cedar Hill for 47 years and was known to everybody in the district. She was immensely popular, being known far and wide for the god old-fashioned hospitality which was always the rule at her house. Her death was felt as a personal loss by all residents of the Cedar Hill district and by many people in this city."
text - From the Colonist, February 21 1906 – “Pioneer’s Funeral"
One of the largest funerals that has taken place for some time was that of the late John Irvine, whose remains were laid to rest yesterday afternoon in the family plot in Ross Bay cemetery.
Source: Clippings from Victoria Colonist available in British Columbia Archives (hereafter BCA), Irvine Family Fonds, MS-322.
#5:
- text:
ADDED TITLE: The Move to Rose Bank
There is some confusion over exactly when the Irvines moved to Rose Bank from Craigflower; we are positing that it may have been a gradual process. The issue arises because Bill Irvine, the family's current pseudo-official historian, notes that the move was planned for 1861, but a harsh winter forced a delay until spring 1862. However, many other sources refer to events at Rose Bank taking place before 1862, particularly in reference to the Anglican congregation using the Irvines' buildings for services. Danda Humphreys, in her popular Times-Colonist column "On the street where you live" writes that the first Sunday service was held at Rose Bank in 1860, and on subsequent Sundays had to move to the barn from the kitchen due to overcrowding. On the St. Luke's parish website, Geoffrey Castle writes that the first church was constructed in 1862 after a total of 29 services at the Irvine property. One possible explanation is that as John Irvine was preparing his farm (recall he acquired the land in 1857) for his family to move in, he allowed the empty buildings to be used for services by his soon-to-be neighbours, but that he and Jessie decided that their new home was not quite fit to move their young family in yet.
Sources: W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 37; Danda Humphreys, "The house where Long Gun Jack lived" Victoria Times Colonist, 26 April 1998, Islander 3; Geoffrey Castle, St. Luke's Built When Saanich Was For Missionaries (2003). ADD IN LINK HERE
#6:
- image - longguncover.jpg
- image - longgunpage.jpg
- text - The cover and first page of Jack "Long Gun" Irvine's charming memoir of his life in pioneer Victoria. Source: BCA, Irvine Family Fonds, MSS-322, Early Victoria, Jack 'Long Gun' Irvine. CHANGED CITATION SLIGHTLY HERE SINCE I AM NOW CITING THE ARCHIVES IN AN EARLIER WINDOW
#7:
text:
Victoria Colonist, Sunday, March 29, 1908 – FORTY YEARS AGO
"The British Colonist, Monday, March 30, 1868
Wholesale Slaughter – On Saturday morning Mr. Irvine, a farmer in Victoria district, found 34 heal of his sheep lying dead in the field. The bodies bore evidence of having been torn by Panthers. A hunt will be organized. Where are the paper hunters?" [ The authors would appreciate any insight on what this last phrase might mean!]
Source: "Forty Years Ago" Victoria Colonist, 29 March 1908.
#8:
- image - cnotebook2.jpg
- image - cnotebook1.jpg
- text - Christina Irvine's notebook. The inside cover reads: "Christina Irvine. Jan 1875. Cedar Hill. This book is my private property and I defy any person to prove otherwise."
Source: BCA, Irvine Family Fonds, MSS-322.
#9:
- image - irvinesgarden.gif
- text - The Irvines in 1892. From left to right: Ethel Irvine, her father Jack Irvine, and his niece Irene Alice; Margaret Isabelle; John Irvine Sr.; Alice Irvine and daughter Mabel; Marie White; Margaret Irvine; Mary Ann Laing (nee Irvine); Jessie Irvine; Freddy Tod (a neighbour). Thanks to W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 45 for identification.
- image - 1892irvines.gif
- text - Perhaps from the same day; the Irvines in front of part of Rose Bank farm.
LEFT WINDOW:
THE INDEPENDENT FARMER:
John Irvine Sr. from servant to landowner
FROM A REMOTE ISLAND
REWORDED THIS PARAGRAPH SLIGHTLY The Irvine family came from the Scottish Orkney Islands. When he boarded the steamer to London to join there the Hudson's Bay Company barque Tory [LINK TO IMAGE OF TORY AND PASSENGER LIST], John and his wife Jessie may have been dreaming of owning their own piece of the new world. It was to be about a decade before, half a world away, the Irvine family, by then consisting of John, Jessie and their six children (with one more still to come) were settled at their Rose Bank Farm.
TO A MORE REMOTE ISLAND
MOVED THIS SENTENCE HERE FROM ABOVE In November 1850, John inked his first contract with the HBC, signing his labour over to them for a five-year term, to be served out at Fort Victoria on Vancouver Island. Details on the Irvines' early days in Victoria are somewhat uncertain, but it seems that John and his family worked and lived just outside Fort Victoria and at the nearby Church Hill and Gonzales farms. In September of 1851 their second son, William [LINK TO PICTURE OF WILLIAM IRVINE], was born MOVED SENTENCE ABOUT WILLIAM TO HIS RIGHT-WINDOW LINK. In 1852, they played a crucial role in the establishment of Craigflower farm REMOVED LAST PART OF THIS SENTENCE. John worked as grain miller at the farm and, in the early days, no doubt helped with REMOVED 'GENERAL' construction and other work. Much of REMOVED 'THE YEAR' 1852 was spent preparing the site of Craigflower for the arrival of its manager (or 'bailiff') Kenneth McKenzie [LINK TO THE MCKENZIE PAGE? JUST AN IDEA - AT YOUR DISCRETION, DAN] in January 1853.1
A DREAM REALIZED?
REMOVED FIRST SENTENCE John was paid a salary of 20 pounds per year by the Hudson's Bay Company, and he seems to have saved as much as he could towards the purchase of land. REWORDED THIS SENTENCE SLIGHTLY AT THE END: In 1855, with not enough collected to achieve this goal, John signed on for another five year term of servitude at Craigflower Farm. By 1857, however, REPLACED 'THE IRVINES' WITH 'HE' he had saved enough to make the first payment on about 130 acres in the area north of Victoria known as Cedar Plains [LINK TO SAANICH ARCHIVES RECORD OF INITIAL PURCHASE - RETYPED BY SCOTT], along the route of Cedar Hill Road between Mount Douglas (Cedar Hill) and Fort Victoria. There was so much work to be done making the place liveable, it seems, that they may not have been able to move there until five years later in 1862. This may not be so surprising when we consider that John REMOVED BRACKETED SPECULATION ABOUT ROBERT was still working 6 long days each week at Craigflower.2
REMOVED 1.5 SENTENCES HERE It is unclear exactly when they first moved in - perhaps the process was gradual - but it seems to have been sometime between 1860 and spring 1862 [LINK TO SCOTT'S TEXT ON UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THEIR MOVE-IN DATE]. Jessie named it Rose Bank for the REMOVED 'MANY' wild roses growing around their home site.3 The place was wooded and rocky and remote, but it must have suited the Irvines - perhaps reminding them of home in the distant Orkney islands - because John and Jessie lived there for the rest of their lives REMOVED DEATH DATES IN BRACKETS; [ADD LINK TO RIGHT WINDOW - #4]. REMOVED SENTENCE HERE
The Irvines' kitchen was the first home to the Anglican congregation of the area (despite the Irvines being Presbyterians) before it moved into St. Luke's church, whose modern incarnation rests at the corner of Cedar Hill and Cedar Hill Cross roads.4 ADDED FOOTNOTE #4 HERE
OWNERSHIP
Life at Rose Bank was not easy. John Irvine Jr. (known as 'Long Gun' Jack) [LINK TO SELECTIONS FROM LONG GUN'S BOOK, PICTURES OF LONG GUN, AND IMAGE OF HIS BOOK COVER], born in October of 1861, records that by the time he was nine, he had a full roster of chores on the farm and was expected to "be a man." At that age, he caught his hand in a piece of equipment and had to be taken to the doctor with two of his fingers "like sausage meat." Long Gun also mentions the family having cows and sheep at this time, and we know that 34 of their sheep were killed by wildlife one night in 1868 [LINK TO SCOTT'S TRANSCRIPTION OF COLONIST ARTICLE] - which shows how REMOVED 'TRULY' wild the area was REMOVED 'AT THAT TIME'. Similarly, Long Gun discusses his great skill at hunting with a flintlock rifle when he was 12 years old; he brought home many varieties of birds and sometimes one of the wild pigs which so aggravated the area's farmers. John Jr. also spent much of his childhood playing with local First Nations children, and writes that he "could talk Chinook like [he] belonged to the tribe."
We do know, however, that basic education for the children in the area was established fairly quickly, at first in the kitchen of the neighbouring King family, and by 1872, in the new REMOVED A FEW WORDS HERE Cedar Hill school. Christina Irvine's workbook provides a glimpse into the world of a child of 1875 [LINK TO TRANSCRIPTIONS AND IMAGES OF NOTEBOOK] - and reveals that in the mind of a child, that world was not so different from our own. REMOVED 'AFTER ALL'.
The Irvine family [LINK TO PAGE WITH TWO PICTURES OF IRVINES - PORTRAIT WITH THE ANNOYING FREDDY TOD AND THE ONE IN THE FIELD] established itself firmly as one of Victoria's key pioneering clans. A family reunion in the city in 1992 saw about 150 attendees.5
A NEW WORLD
REWROTE THIS ENTIRE PARAGRAPH The Irvine family achieved the fulfillment of an idea which, perhaps ironically, drove the consolidation of the British Empire: the dream of independence. John Irvine's chances of ever owning land - and certainly of owning so much land - in his native Scotland were tiny. On Vancouver Island, however, a decade of hard work turned this dream into reality. Whatever the British Empire has meant to the world, its owes its great impact in large part to people like the Irvines. By taking advantage of the opportunity offered by an imperial institution such as the HBC and moulding it into a life not possible in their homeland, the Irvines participated in the creation of what we know as the Western world.
NOTES: THESE HAVE CHANGED A LITTLE
1 William John Irvine et al., Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851 (Victoria: William John Irvine, 1996), 10, 20, and 33-34.
2 W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 35-37.
3W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 37-38.
4 W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 38.
5 Patrick Murphy, "Great clan grows in Victoria from Scottish family of three" Victoria Times Colonist, 22 July 1992, C9.
RIGHT WINDOW:
When page first opens, picture in right-hand window is: irvine.gif
Link #1:
- image - tory.jpg
MOVED THIS HERE FROM LEFT WINDOW - text - The approximately 18,020 kilometre voyage from London to Fort Victoria took the Irvines from November 9, 1850 to May 10, 1851. This time was spent aboard a sailing ship just of just 130 feet in length and 25 in beam and carrying between 120 and 140 passengers.
Source: THIS CHANGED SLIGHTLY William John Irvine et al., Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851 (Victoria: William John Irvine, 1996), 9-10 and 32.
- image - torypaxlist.jpg
- text - The passenger list of the Tory indicates only the male family heads and not the women and children who were also on board. The most recognizable name on the list is John Work (not to be confused with the curiously similar John Wark, also apparently on board - we suspect that this may be the same person), a prominent farmer and legislator. Also aboard was Martha Cheney, whose diary is an excellent source on early Victoria.
Source: W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 11 and 22.
#2:
- image - williamirvine.gif
MOVED THIS TEXT HERE FROM LEFT WINDOW - text - William Irvine, the Irvines' second child, was the first known child born of European parents of Vancouver Island.
#3:
- text of initial land purchase in a format something like the following (you can play with it to make it look better as you may think necessary):
Land District: Victoria
Section: 41
Original Owner: John Irving [a common misspelling which appears often in various records - not changed to Irvine in these land records until 1900]
Number of acres: 130.54
Price: 579.46 dollars, or 120*8*4 pounds
Date of Purchase: April 20, 1857
Date of Final Payment: December 2, 1861
Source: Saanich Archives [Dan - I may get in touch with Caroline to see if there's a better citation for this!]
#4 [THIS IS THE NEW ONE CONCERNING THE IRVINES' DEATHS]
text - From the Colonist, March 21, 1907 – “Pioneer resident mourned by many – Funeral of the late Mrs Irvine attended by host of sorrowing friends”
The longest funeral cortege that has been seen in this city for many years followed the body of Mrs. Jessie Irvine of Cedar Hill to the Ross Bay cemetery yesterday afternoon.
The late Mrs. Irvine was one of the oldest residents of the city, having come here twenty years before British Columbia joined the confederation and when there was but one other white woman in town. She lived at Cedar Hill for 47 years and was known to everybody in the district. She was immensely popular, being known far and wide for the god old-fashioned hospitality which was always the rule at her house. Her death was felt as a personal loss by all residents of the Cedar Hill district and by many people in this city."
text - From the Colonist, February 21 1906 – “Pioneer’s Funeral"
One of the largest funerals that has taken place for some time was that of the late John Irvine, whose remains were laid to rest yesterday afternoon in the family plot in Ross Bay cemetery.
Source: Clippings from Victoria Colonist available in British Columbia Archives (hereafter BCA), Irvine Family Fonds, MS-322.
#5:
- text:
ADDED TITLE: The Move to Rose Bank
There is some confusion over exactly when the Irvines moved to Rose Bank from Craigflower; we are positing that it may have been a gradual process. The issue arises because Bill Irvine, the family's current pseudo-official historian, notes that the move was planned for 1861, but a harsh winter forced a delay until spring 1862. However, many other sources refer to events at Rose Bank taking place before 1862, particularly in reference to the Anglican congregation using the Irvines' buildings for services. Danda Humphreys, in her popular Times-Colonist column "On the street where you live" writes that the first Sunday service was held at Rose Bank in 1860, and on subsequent Sundays had to move to the barn from the kitchen due to overcrowding. On the St. Luke's parish website, Geoffrey Castle writes that the first church was constructed in 1862 after a total of 29 services at the Irvine property. One possible explanation is that as John Irvine was preparing his farm (recall he acquired the land in 1857) for his family to move in, he allowed the empty buildings to be used for services by his soon-to-be neighbours, but that he and Jessie decided that their new home was not quite fit to move their young family in yet.
Sources: W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 37; Danda Humphreys, "The house where Long Gun Jack lived" Victoria Times Colonist, 26 April 1998, Islander 3; Geoffrey Castle, St. Luke's Built When Saanich Was For Missionaries
#6:
- image - longguncover.jpg
- image - longgunpage.jpg
- text - The cover and first page of Jack "Long Gun" Irvine's charming memoir of his life in pioneer Victoria. Source: BCA, Irvine Family Fonds, MSS-322, Early Victoria, Jack 'Long Gun' Irvine. CHANGED CITATION SLIGHTLY HERE SINCE I AM NOW CITING THE ARCHIVES IN AN EARLIER WINDOW
#7:
text:
Victoria Colonist, Sunday, March 29, 1908 – FORTY YEARS AGO
"The British Colonist, Monday, March 30, 1868
Wholesale Slaughter – On Saturday morning Mr. Irvine, a farmer in Victoria district, found 34 heal of his sheep lying dead in the field. The bodies bore evidence of having been torn by Panthers. A hunt will be organized. Where are the paper hunters?" [ The authors would appreciate any insight on what this last phrase might mean!]
Source: "Forty Years Ago" Victoria Colonist, 29 March 1908.
#8:
- image - cnotebook2.jpg
- image - cnotebook1.jpg
- text - Christina Irvine's notebook. The inside cover reads: "Christina Irvine. Jan 1875. Cedar Hill. This book is my private property and I defy any person to prove otherwise."
Source: BCA, Irvine Family Fonds, MSS-322.
#9:
- image - irvinesgarden.gif
- text - The Irvines in 1892. From left to right: Ethel Irvine, her father Jack Irvine, and his niece Irene Alice; Margaret Isabelle; John Irvine Sr.; Alice Irvine and daughter Mabel; Marie White; Margaret Irvine; Mary Ann Laing (nee Irvine); Jessie Irvine; Freddy Tod (a neighbour). Thanks to W.J. Irvine, Irvines in Victoria BC since 1851, 45 for identification.
- image - 1892irvines.gif
- text - Perhaps from the same day; the Irvines in front of part of Rose Bank farm.
Agriculture
Here's something on Scottish agriculture... I think this would probably be good to have linked to from Bartleman's page, as I had mentioned that his reasons for joining McKenzie were unclear, but the situation wasn't all that great in Scotland at the time.
The agricultural situation in Scotland had always been poorer than that in England, and even as far back as the seventeenth century, England had worried about an influx of poor and ragged Scots migrating southwards. Whereas English labourers were generally relatively well-clothed, some Scottish labourers did not even have shoes, and their quality of life was generally lower. Matters did not much improve, and “by 1840, the agrarian revolution in Britain had reduced many farm servants to the status of labourers.” 1 Even by the early twentieth century, “the foot-plough and hand-winnowing [were] still…common” in some parts of Scotland, while more advanced farming techniques, requiring “heavy capitalization” were being utilized in England. 2 . In the later part of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, there had been a population increase that had created a “glut of agricultural labour in the south [of Scotland]. 3 . Therefore, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, labour was readily available to farmers, often at low cost. “Indeed, the problem became one of supporting through the Poor Law an increasing population of agricultural labourers many of whom were surplus to requirements even at the busy season.” 4. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that many men signed on to work with Kenneth McKenzie, as it offered them a way to escape the uncertainties that must have faced them in Scotland. Signing on with a company promised a term of stability and employment, as well as a place to live. Due to the hiring practices in Scotland, to be unemployed also often meant being homeless, as “cottages surplus to such requirements [on the farm] were pulled down and the building of new accommodation rigorously controlled.” 5.
Notes:
1. Alastair Orr, “Farm Servants and Farm Labour in the Forth Valley and South-East Lowlands,” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 30.
2. Kenneth O. Morgan, The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 477.
3. T.M. Devine, “Introduction: Scottish Farm Service in the Agricultural Revolution” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 3.
4. T.M. Devine, “Introduction”, 3.
5. T.M. Devine, “Introduction,” 6.
I think this would probably be good to have on Melrose's page, as I mentioned a bit about his duties on the farm.
It has been noted that the lives of Scottish labourers were quite different than those of their English counterparts, and in northern England and Scotland, labourers were involved in "stock-rearing, fattening and cropping", wherein labourers were involved in "weeding, dunging, singling and intensive ploughing." 1 Scottish labourers were generally hired long-term and boarded on the farm, and the average day for a Scottish labourer was ten hours long with a two-hour rest. 2 As at Craigflower, it appears that most Scottish labourers generally were paid at least partially in kind rather than in money, and this system did not seriously decline in Scotland until the late nineteenth century. 3 Due to the fact that a number of Scottish farms were often located far from villages, it was impractical to pay labourers solely in cash.4
Notes:
1. T.M. Devine, “Introduction: Scottish Farm Service in the Agricultural Revolution” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 4.
2. Devine, "Introduction", 4.
3. Devine, "Introduction", 4.
4. Devine, "Introduction", 6.
I am currently working on either shaving down the Melrose/Bartleman stuff or at the very least, dividing it into sections, with headings such as "Early Life", "Life at Craigflower", etc.
The agricultural situation in Scotland had always been poorer than that in England, and even as far back as the seventeenth century, England had worried about an influx of poor and ragged Scots migrating southwards. Whereas English labourers were generally relatively well-clothed, some Scottish labourers did not even have shoes, and their quality of life was generally lower. Matters did not much improve, and “by 1840, the agrarian revolution in Britain had reduced many farm servants to the status of labourers.” 1 Even by the early twentieth century, “the foot-plough and hand-winnowing [were] still…common” in some parts of Scotland, while more advanced farming techniques, requiring “heavy capitalization” were being utilized in England. 2 . In the later part of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, there had been a population increase that had created a “glut of agricultural labour in the south [of Scotland]. 3 . Therefore, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, labour was readily available to farmers, often at low cost. “Indeed, the problem became one of supporting through the Poor Law an increasing population of agricultural labourers many of whom were surplus to requirements even at the busy season.” 4. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that many men signed on to work with Kenneth McKenzie, as it offered them a way to escape the uncertainties that must have faced them in Scotland. Signing on with a company promised a term of stability and employment, as well as a place to live. Due to the hiring practices in Scotland, to be unemployed also often meant being homeless, as “cottages surplus to such requirements [on the farm] were pulled down and the building of new accommodation rigorously controlled.” 5.
Notes:
1. Alastair Orr, “Farm Servants and Farm Labour in the Forth Valley and South-East Lowlands,” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 30.
2. Kenneth O. Morgan, The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 477.
3. T.M. Devine, “Introduction: Scottish Farm Service in the Agricultural Revolution” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 3.
4. T.M. Devine, “Introduction”, 3.
5. T.M. Devine, “Introduction,” 6.
I think this would probably be good to have on Melrose's page, as I mentioned a bit about his duties on the farm.
It has been noted that the lives of Scottish labourers were quite different than those of their English counterparts, and in northern England and Scotland, labourers were involved in "stock-rearing, fattening and cropping", wherein labourers were involved in "weeding, dunging, singling and intensive ploughing." 1 Scottish labourers were generally hired long-term and boarded on the farm, and the average day for a Scottish labourer was ten hours long with a two-hour rest. 2 As at Craigflower, it appears that most Scottish labourers generally were paid at least partially in kind rather than in money, and this system did not seriously decline in Scotland until the late nineteenth century. 3 Due to the fact that a number of Scottish farms were often located far from villages, it was impractical to pay labourers solely in cash.4
Notes:
1. T.M. Devine, “Introduction: Scottish Farm Service in the Agricultural Revolution” in Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, ed. T.M. Devine (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1984), 4.
2. Devine, "Introduction", 4.
3. Devine, "Introduction", 4.
4. Devine, "Introduction", 6.
I am currently working on either shaving down the Melrose/Bartleman stuff or at the very least, dividing it into sections, with headings such as "Early Life", "Life at Craigflower", etc.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Considerations on content...
Hey guys... in the process of writing the McKenzie article I have come to the realization that perhaps I won't ahve anything on Goodie McKenzie herself, as all her material is going into accounts of her father and the farm itself.
I'm not sure what you guys might think about this, but it would cut down our character list to 5. There is an advantage, however, in that what I've been writing also covers a great deal about the workings of the farm, the Wakefield system, labour, indians, etc. This would allow for less time spent trying to write a separate article on the farm itself, and the introduction can really be simply that, an introduction with basic information.
Let me know what you guys think: I'm quite sure a small side bar on goodie will be enough, as she does have something of a memoir that is interesting to add to the McKenzie story as a sidebar, but nothing much of herself.
-Dan
I'm not sure what you guys might think about this, but it would cut down our character list to 5. There is an advantage, however, in that what I've been writing also covers a great deal about the workings of the farm, the Wakefield system, labour, indians, etc. This would allow for less time spent trying to write a separate article on the farm itself, and the introduction can really be simply that, an introduction with basic information.
Let me know what you guys think: I'm quite sure a small side bar on goodie will be enough, as she does have something of a memoir that is interesting to add to the McKenzie story as a sidebar, but nothing much of herself.
-Dan
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Taryn - I would be very much interested in possibly linking to any side-article you might write about the agricultural situation in the UK; in writing the McKenzie section I've referred to it without much certainty, as it seems like something of a general theme. If we had a few words describing the trends and climate etc, we could effectively link it to any article we needed to.
And I think you're right, we definitely need to pare down these main articles, and push more into the side bar. I am slowly becoming very pressed for time as my Saturday exam approaches--and in the back of my mind is demanding more and more hours of study--followed by another on Monday night. I don't doubt that I will have enough time to do get the site work done, but I want to ensure that I use my time as best as possible so I'd like it if you guys can let me know when you think you might have your final versions ready for posting.
Also, I really like the idea that you both did in your write-ups regarding linking the articles in the text, not just physically, as in hyperlinks, but also in using commonalities like the Norman Morrison, etc. I plan to include as much mention of the other 'characters' as warranted in both my write-ups, which for now is mostly just Verney, but should include Bartleman and Melrose as well. Perhaps I'll write something on the labour problems on the island that we can link to the necessary articles, as sort of a counterpart to the labour/agricultural problems in the UK.
Have we come to any agreement on the introduction/farm page? I have some information from the dissertation appendix excerpted from a "Descriptive Account of the Craigflower Farm" in 1858 citing land use, buildings, animals, etc, as well as some other stuff, but I'm not sure I have the time to write it.
-dan
And I think you're right, we definitely need to pare down these main articles, and push more into the side bar. I am slowly becoming very pressed for time as my Saturday exam approaches--and in the back of my mind is demanding more and more hours of study--followed by another on Monday night. I don't doubt that I will have enough time to do get the site work done, but I want to ensure that I use my time as best as possible so I'd like it if you guys can let me know when you think you might have your final versions ready for posting.
Also, I really like the idea that you both did in your write-ups regarding linking the articles in the text, not just physically, as in hyperlinks, but also in using commonalities like the Norman Morrison, etc. I plan to include as much mention of the other 'characters' as warranted in both my write-ups, which for now is mostly just Verney, but should include Bartleman and Melrose as well. Perhaps I'll write something on the labour problems on the island that we can link to the necessary articles, as sort of a counterpart to the labour/agricultural problems in the UK.
Have we come to any agreement on the introduction/farm page? I have some information from the dissertation appendix excerpted from a "Descriptive Account of the Craigflower Farm" in 1858 citing land use, buildings, animals, etc, as well as some other stuff, but I'm not sure I have the time to write it.
-dan
Hey guys!
I will be refinining my pages in a couple of days and will send you the new versions asap. I'm just trying to get past my forensics exam tonight and then I can concentrate on this a bit better. I'll try to shift some stuff to the right side or cut it out altogether if it seems superfluous, as well as write something short about the general 19th-century agricultural situation in the UK.
Personally, I agree with you guys re: the nav bar. I don't find the idea of having it at the top that attractive.
-T.
I will be refinining my pages in a couple of days and will send you the new versions asap. I'm just trying to get past my forensics exam tonight and then I can concentrate on this a bit better. I'll try to shift some stuff to the right side or cut it out altogether if it seems superfluous, as well as write something short about the general 19th-century agricultural situation in the UK.
Personally, I agree with you guys re: the nav bar. I don't find the idea of having it at the top that attractive.
-T.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
And we're blogging again! I guess we were thinking alike again today, Dan-o...I just came by the blog as I was about to start working seriously on our intro page text in terms of introducing our project so people understand where we're coming from - this would also include a 'right-window link' to some stuff on microhistory (which I will probably ask for some input from you guys on as well). I'm also of course going to work on refining my Irvine and Verney pages. Is there anything else that needs to be done?
I agree with all the comments you made in response to John's ideas. Don't have much to add to that, so from my perspective, I think you should go ahead with everything you mentioned. I'll make sure to include some obvious text to link to the image map as I work on the intro text. One thing that just occurred to me - if you don't want to go to the trouble of editing the image nav page, you could instead just change the bottom links from nicknames to the actual names - probably easier to change those than redoing your image nav! We will then still have the nicknames/roles at the top of the actual page about the character.
SM
I agree with all the comments you made in response to John's ideas. Don't have much to add to that, so from my perspective, I think you should go ahead with everything you mentioned. I'll make sure to include some obvious text to link to the image map as I work on the intro text. One thing that just occurred to me - if you don't want to go to the trouble of editing the image nav page, you could instead just change the bottom links from nicknames to the actual names - probably easier to change those than redoing your image nav! We will then still have the nicknames/roles at the top of the actual page about the character.
SM
Ok kids, time to get back to it
So what's going on here? Do we know what still has to be done? I plan to get my writing done this week, hopefully by Wednesday, but I'm all set to get your updates posted whenever they come in. That's if I can get the site to actually work.
Did you guys get the list of suggestions from John? If not, here it is with some thoughts:
-Do you want to have your navigation bar larger and on top? **Not really; I think we should make the buttons at the bottom bigger as suggested, but a menu at the top will divert users from the image map. I would like to make the "explore the farm" button more attractive.
- this just occurs to me - one possible structure is to have the home page "Craigflower" which leads you to "Craigflower Connections" - Dan's great graphical interface **I think this will be the intro page--which we have yet to write--with details about the farm, the project, etc, and I do like the idea of having another link within that page to the image map, perhaps in the navigation instructions or something
- indicate the "nickname" as well as name of person in your images Bartleman
The Blacksmith ***Sounds good, I'll see how easy it is to edit the image map
- some space around edge of text, perhaps larger text ***Right-o
- some about us section ***In the works, right? I'll add something about myself along the lines of yours
- do you want to have a page that describes the PSAC? ***Will be on the McKenzie page
Also, John did send a bigger copy of the background image from the map, which looks pretty good, but I'm not too sure how we can incorporate it. It does have some nice colours, so I might see about using it as a background or something.
I don't know what you guys are up to, or what other ideas you have, so let me know and let's get this thing done :)
I am really hoping to get the site working online, but if it looks like it's going to take some fiddling I might leave it for awhile as I make the bigger changes to save on the amount of times I have to mess with it. If this happens I'll make sure to give you plenty of time to look over things.
-Dan
Did you guys get the list of suggestions from John? If not, here it is with some thoughts:
-Do you want to have your navigation bar larger and on top? **Not really; I think we should make the buttons at the bottom bigger as suggested, but a menu at the top will divert users from the image map. I would like to make the "explore the farm" button more attractive.
- this just occurs to me - one possible structure is to have the home page "Craigflower" which leads you to "Craigflower Connections" - Dan's great graphical interface **I think this will be the intro page--which we have yet to write--with details about the farm, the project, etc, and I do like the idea of having another link within that page to the image map, perhaps in the navigation instructions or something
- indicate the "nickname" as well as name of person in your images Bartleman
The Blacksmith ***Sounds good, I'll see how easy it is to edit the image map
- some space around edge of text, perhaps larger text ***Right-o
- some about us section ***In the works, right? I'll add something about myself along the lines of yours
- do you want to have a page that describes the PSAC? ***Will be on the McKenzie page
Also, John did send a bigger copy of the background image from the map, which looks pretty good, but I'm not too sure how we can incorporate it. It does have some nice colours, so I might see about using it as a background or something.
I don't know what you guys are up to, or what other ideas you have, so let me know and let's get this thing done :)
I am really hoping to get the site working online, but if it looks like it's going to take some fiddling I might leave it for awhile as I make the bigger changes to save on the amount of times I have to mess with it. If this happens I'll make sure to give you plenty of time to look over things.
-Dan
Monday, April 2, 2007
Image mark-up
I'm sure that this is a totally irrelevant point now, but I received an email from John this morning saying that individual mark-ups are fine.
If you guys need to get a hold of me, I'll have my phone with me all day (884-3083). I've got a class from 11:30-1:00...it usually ends around 12:40. Other than that I'm free all day until our class.
If you guys need to get a hold of me, I'll have my phone with me all day (884-3083). I've got a class from 11:30-1:00...it usually ends around 12:40. Other than that I'm free all day until our class.
Blurb
Hey guys
Oh no, Dan, that doesn't sound too good....thanks for working that long on it. I'm sure it will work out today.
Scott - both you and I have submitted pages, bringing it up to a total of 4 of the 6. Mine are essentially finished, although I have a couple of small things I'd like to add later. I think we'll be ok. If Dan doesn't have his pages done, we'll just steer clear of those in the presentation.
My blurb:
Taryn Jones is in her fourth year at the University of Victoria and is pursuing a BA in History, and a minor in anthropology. She plans on returning after graduation to pursue a musuem studies diploma. Her other interests include genealogy and traveling, and she is currently planning a trip to Russia and Ukraine for summer 2007. She works as a data entry operator with the Canadian Century Research Infrastructure project in the History Department and can be reached at taryn@uvic.ca.
Oh no, Dan, that doesn't sound too good....thanks for working that long on it. I'm sure it will work out today.
Scott - both you and I have submitted pages, bringing it up to a total of 4 of the 6. Mine are essentially finished, although I have a couple of small things I'd like to add later. I think we'll be ok. If Dan doesn't have his pages done, we'll just steer clear of those in the presentation.
My blurb:
Taryn Jones is in her fourth year at the University of Victoria and is pursuing a BA in History, and a minor in anthropology. She plans on returning after graduation to pursue a musuem studies diploma. Her other interests include genealogy and traveling, and she is currently planning a trip to Russia and Ukraine for summer 2007. She works as a data entry operator with the Canadian Century Research Infrastructure project in the History Department and can be reached at taryn@uvic.ca.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
I guess it couldn't ALL go smoothly...
I have all the sections up, and everything appears to be working very well, but I can't seem to get filezilla to let me set the permissions right, so nothing on the site at http://web.uvic.ca/~dbaart/cf/
seems to be working for me.
It might work on your computers, but I doubt it. I think it might have something to with my using Javascript. I'm sure we can get it worked out tomorrow.
I'm beat.
-Dan
seems to be working for me.
It might work on your computers, but I doubt it. I think it might have something to with my using Javascript. I'm sure we can get it worked out tomorrow.
I'm beat.
-Dan
My personal info
So I was just looking at the course outline and it looks like essentially the presentation tomorrow is worth about 10% of the website mark, since the 20% presentation mark is split between this version and the final version. Do you think we'll have enough to get a decent grade on this 10%?
To that end, if you get a chance to get the main page somewhat established, here's a personal blurb about me, and hopefully you can get similar ones from you and Taryn up as well.
Scott's blurb:
F. Scott Murray graduated from the University of Victoria in June 2006 with a BA in History (Honours). He plans to pursue graduate studies in BC History. Scott's other interests include singing and listening to great music, cooking and eating great food, writing and reading great literature, and being a great boyfriend and spending time with his great girlfriend. Scott likes to experience all aspects of life from both the production and consumption perspectives. Scott works at Prince of Whales Whale Watching as an office supervisor and marketing assistant. He can be reached at fscottmurray@gmail.com
To that end, if you get a chance to get the main page somewhat established, here's a personal blurb about me, and hopefully you can get similar ones from you and Taryn up as well.
Scott's blurb:
F. Scott Murray graduated from the University of Victoria in June 2006 with a BA in History (Honours). He plans to pursue graduate studies in BC History. Scott's other interests include singing and listening to great music, cooking and eating great food, writing and reading great literature, and being a great boyfriend and spending time with his great girlfriend. Scott likes to experience all aspects of life from both the production and consumption perspectives. Scott works at Prince of Whales Whale Watching as an office supervisor and marketing assistant. He can be reached at fscottmurray@gmail.com
Hi again Taryn - we're really blogging now! How about taking a satellite image/map of Victoria and just marking in the different locations that we're concerned with? I think those would probably be Esquimalt Harbour, Fort Victoria, Craigflower farm, and the Irvine farm...and anything else we can think of. That would be pretty easy and would at least have a rough connection to our project so that if sometime in the next couple weeks we decide to try and incorporate it into the site it might be useful. What do you think?
SM
SM
hmmm....I'll take a quick look now for something. Do you have any random group photos of yourself? Not exactly historical, but I think he just wants something marked up. If not, I've got a photo of about 8 random people, a building and some food on a table that I took in summer 2005 if we can't think of anything. If you did want to use something like that, I could mark it up since I know who and what everything is, and I've got the photo on my computer.
It's all in progress.
Not to worry, it's all coming together and looking pretty good. I would love to upload it for you guys to see, but that will take time, and I think I'd rather wait until I'm done.
I've finished Irvine, and I'm much of the way into Bartleman. Irvine took about 2 hours, but I expect Bartleman to be faster as I'm getting into the groove :)
I've finished Irvine, and I'm much of the way into Bartleman. Irvine took about 2 hours, but I expect Bartleman to be faster as I'm getting into the groove :)
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