Rattenbury

David E. Smith is a professor of political Studies at the University of
Saskatchewan. He is the author of Building a Province: A History of
Saskatchewan in Documents and The Invisible Crown and Republican Option
in Canada, Past and Present.

Best known as the architect of Victoria’s Empress Hotel and B.C.’s
Parliament Buildings, Frances Rattenbury was English-born (1867) and
trained, although not as expertly as he claimed on his arrival in Canada
in 1892. Eventually, most large communities boasted a school, library,
or court house of his design, as Rattenbury added an Edwardian face to
British Columbia. Ferociously energetic and ambitious, Rattenbury’s
commissions brought him into contact and conflict with politicians,
public servants, and professional colleagues.

Originally published in 1978 and now re-issued, this book is both a
biography and a chronicle of the province’s early modern history. It
is also a work of tragedy. Marriage to Alma Pakenham (she was his second
spouse, he her third) caused scandal and social exile back to England in
1930. There, Rattenbury entered a period of mental and physical decline,
and Alma began an affair with their slow-witted handyman. The result was
Rattenbury’s murder, a celebrated joint trial at the Old Bailey that
saw Alma’s lover sentenced to hang (later commuted), and that Alma,
although acquitted, committed suicide.

Memorialized in stone around Victoria’s Inner Harbour and on the
stage in Terrence Rattigan’s play Cause Célиbre, Rattenbury fares
less well in Reksten’s hands. Not “a particularly original
architect,” she concludes, because “he broke no new ground.”
Derivative and imitative, there was a lot of echo in his work, giving
substance, perhaps, to Victoria’s claim to be a little bit of England.