Canadian Holy War: A Story of Clans, Tongs, Murder, and Bigotry

Ann Turner is the financial and budget manager of the University of
British Columbia Library.

Who killed Janet Smith? The search for the answer to that
mystery—still unsolved today—sparked such bitter distrust and
conflict between Vancouver’s Scottish and Chinese communities in the
1920s that one observer characterized it as a “holy war.” Before the
investigations were concluded, a prominent Chinese activist had been
murdered, the local police forces were in disarray, and the careers of
many local and provincial political figures had been altered forever.

Janet was a Scottish-born nursemaid serving in the home of the affluent
Shaughnessy family. On the morning of her death, only the Chinese
houseboy, Janet, and the baby were at home. A shot was fired, and Janet
lay dead on the laundry-room floor. The report of the subsequent
investigations and public outcry reads like a novel, but it is a
carefully researched account of the events drawn from archival records
and the newspapers of the time. Placing the events in their social,
economic, and political contexts gives new insight into a formative
period of British Columbia’s history, and the view is less than
flattering.