The collection consists mainly of photographs relating to Helmcken House, the opening of the Royal Jubilee Hospital, and the 15th Artillery Brigade CCF.
Helmcken, John Sebastian, Jr., b. 1896Depths shown by soundings, relief by form lines.
Shows depths by soundings and relief by hachures.
Shows Mayne Bay, Toquart Bay, Pipestem Inlet and Effingham Inlet. Depths shown by soundings, relief by form lines.
Series consists primarily of individual photographs taken of each Mayor and group photographs of the Mayor and Council members generally at the beginning of each term in office. Series also includes other photographs featuring Mayor and Council.
Victoria (B.C.). Mayor's OfficeSeries consists of invitations and miscellaneous correspondence inward and outward pertaining to protocol visits and ceremonies. Includes items from the British Columbia Rifle Association, the Lieutenant Governor, and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as a variety of greetings and congratulations pertaining to the City's 1962 centenary and a play called "The Victoria Story"
Victoria (B.C.). Mayor's OfficeFonds consists of records made or received by the City of Victoria's various departments and offices, including boards and agencies that report directly to the City.
Victoria (B.C.)Series consists of the minutes of City Council meetings. Primary access to these records is through microfilm copies in the Archives; minutes for the most recent years are also available on the City's web site ( www.victoria.ca ).
The series includes one volume of draft minutes from 1867-1870. It also contains one volume of minutes from Feb - Sep 1876 pertaining to committees, such as Committee of the Whole, Board of Health, Water Works, and Finance (due to the fact that there was no clear distinction between the meeting arrangements and recordkeeping of Council and its committees at this time). There is also a DVD of the City's 150 anniversary special Council meeting on August 2, 2012.
The Council minutes can be accessed in several manners: through the index to Council minutes (CR-0002), the topical indexes (CR-0015), and through a subject card index created by Archives staff covering the years 1862 to 1870.
A related series (CR-0048) consists of one volume of minutes of special and closed Council meetings from 1896 to 1900, which contains only 27 pages but includes, among other things, information relating to Council's actions regarding the collapse of the Point Ellice Bridge.
The minutes were handwritten until 1909.
Victoria (B.C.). City CouncilSeries consists of local laws and regulations passed by City Council to control, regulate, and administer affairs within its jurisdiction.
The original bylaws are not generally available for access, though bound duplicates of most of them are located in the Archives. While some of the originals are missing, many of those that are can be found among the bound versions. Only those bylaws located in the Archives are included in the file list.
Registered bylaws are those that have been signed and sealed as certified copies of the originals.
Victoria (B.C.). City CouncilThis 31 cm of correspondence is all that remains of the letters received by the City Clerk before 1940.
The correspondence covers a wide range of subjects, but there is no alphabetical subject index to it. A chronological item-level descriptive list, however, provides some access to correspondents and subjects for the existing letters. All correspondence inward from 1893 onwards, whether existing or not, is indexed chronologically in the communications received index (CR-0014).
For other series of letters received, see CR-0012 (1940-1974) and CR-0013 (special correspondence inward).
Series consists of an index to City bylaws.
Victoria (B.C.). City CouncilShows properties of James Tod and Samuel Norn adjacent to and encroaching upon the reserve.
Harvey family outside, L to R: Oliver, Rout, Juno the dog, Rout (Sr.), Annie George, Susan Jane (Mrs.), Jim, Henry.
Shows surveyed lots and prominent buildings. On edge of map: "The red lines designate the 20,000 feet of pipes to be laid down within a year from the passing of the Act. The promoters of the bill purpose [sic] laying the pipes through the whole of the streets of the city as required. [Illegible name], agent for the bill." These are evidently the lines of the Spring Ridge Water Works Company.
Shows surveyed lots and prominent buildings. Note in ms. (on original): "The city boundaries as defined in the "Victoria Incorporation Act, 1862" are shown in red. Mohun & Farwell, L.S., Victoria, V.I., 9th Augt. 1866."
Shows surveyed lots and prominent buildings.
Garbally House in the background, home of C.W. Wallace to the right (later Point Ellice House), and the Tyrwhitt-Drake home to the immediate right of that.
Fonds includes minutes, scrapbooks, financial records, reports, bylaws, photographs and publications.
Also included are minutes and cashbook of the British Columbia Board of Trade Building Association, an organization established in 1892 to fund construction of the Board of Trade building in Bastion Square.
Fonds consists of photographs of the Harvey home, family, servants, and First Nations burial cairns.
Harvey, George John, 1859-1937Shows city blocks, some surveyed lots and municipal boundaries.
Series consists of assessments on real property and improvements compiled for the purpose of determining taxes.
Information on the creation, structure, and composition of the Collector's roll is provided below in three sections: context of creation, structure, and data elements.
Context of Creation
The Colony of Vancouver Island was responsible for the assessment and collection of property taxes in Victoria from 1862 until 1866. From 1867 until the establishment of the British Columbia Assessment Authority in 1974, these functions were the responsibility of the City. Under the City's administration, the general procedure was as follows. Each year the Assessor drew up the assessment roll, sent out notices of assessment to relevant taxpayers, and then forwarded the roll to the City Clerk on behalf of Council. City Council, sitting as the Court of Revision, determined whether revisions to the returned assessment roll were required, made them if necessary, confirmed them, and authenticated the roll. Council then enacted a bylaw for setting yearly tax rates. Following this, the Clerk made out the Collector's roll and forwarded it to the Collector who gathered the taxes, returning his roll to the Clerk when finished, and forwarding the money collected to the Treasurer.
Structure
The assessment rolls provide information on what is to be assessed, how much it is assessed at, when the assessment is made, and to whom the assessment is to be charged. However, based on differences in format, titling, size, arrangement of entries, or status of the roll they can be divided into three chronological groups:
(1) 1864-1871
(2) 1872-1891
(3) 1892-1916
With regard to content, there are some differences within each of these groups. These differences relate to such things as omission of previously used data elements, inclusion of new data elements, alterations in the arrangement of the same data elements, and spelling of the same data elements. Each group provides summary information at end of the last volume within it concerning City of Victoria land holdings. What follows in an overall description of the three main groups listed above.
(1) 1864-1871 Lists assessments alphabetically by name of the assessee, rather than numerically by roll number. Some volumes are not titled, data elements are handwritten, and data elements are often located only on the first pages of each volume.
(2) 1872-1891 Titled "City of Victoria real estate assessment roll." (The single volume for 1872 and 1873 is transitional between the first group and this one, the numerical arrangement of entries placing it most logically in this group; but note that these assessments have no element for Court of Revision alterations; the title is "Real estate.")
(3) 1892-1916 Titled "City of Victoria land and improvement assessment roll." Bylaw 155 of 1892 resulted in the change of title, although both land and improvements were assessed from 1864.
Sample Data Elements:
Group 1: 1864-18711864-1865
Name of Owner
Place of Residence
No. of Lot
No. of Block
Street
Admeasurement
Assessed Value of
Land
Improvements
Revised Value
Land
Improvements
Total Value
Tax 1%
Additional 5%
Total Tax Payable
1867
Owner' Name
Residence
No. Lot
No. Block
Measure
Street
Assessed Value Land
Improvements
Total
Tax One per Cent
Tax on Rate 1/4 of One Per Cent
Group 2: 1872-1891
1872-1873
Lot
Block
Admeasurement
Street
Name
Assessed value land
[Assessed value] improvements
Total value
Rate
No.
No.
Amount paid
No.
Fire rate
1874-1891
Lot
Block
Admeasurement
Streets
Names
Per foot frontage or by acre [1891 only]
Land assessments
Improved assessments
Alterations by Court of Revision
Total
Arrears
Tax
Receipts
Amount paid
Arrears [1890-1891 only]
Remarks [handwritten: "notices sent"]
Group 3: 1892-1916 (overview)
Map no. [1915-1916 only]
Sub-lot [1912-1916 only; "Subdivision" for 1897-1911]
Lot
Block
Measurement
Street
Name
Address [for 1892, between "Amount paid" and "Notices sent"]
Price per foot frontage or acre
Assessment on land
Assessments on improvements
Total
Alteration by Court of Revision
Land [1897-1916 only]
Improvements [1897-1916 only]
Arrears of taxes [1893-1896 only]
Notices sent
Remarks
1892
Lot
Block
Measurement
Street
Name
Price per foot frontage or acre
Assessment on land
Assessments on improvements
Alteration by Court of Revision
Total
Arrears of taxes
Amount paid
Address
Notices sent
Remarks
1893-1896
Lot
Block
Measurement
Street
Name
Address
Price per foot frontage or acre
Assessment on land
Assessments on improvements
Alteration by Court of Revision
Total
Arrears of taxes
Notices sent
Remarks
1897-1911
Subdivision
Lot
Block
Measurement
Street
Name
Address
Price per foot frontage or acre
Assessment on land
Assessments on improvements
Total
Alteration by Court of Revision
Land
Improvements
Notices sent
Remarks
1912-1914
Sub-lot
Lot
Block
Measurement
Street
Name
Address
Price per foot frontage or acre
Assessment on land
Assessments on improvements
Total
Alteration by Court of Revision
Land
Improvements
Notices sent
Remarks
1915-1916
Map no.
Sub-lot
Lot
Block
Measurement
Street
Name
Address
Price per foot frontage or acre
Assessment on land
Assessments on improvements
Total
Alteration by Court of Revision
Land
Improvements
Notices sent
Remarks
Victoria (B.C.). Finance Department
Shows streets, roads, buildings, cultivated land, depths by soundings and relief by hachures. Includes 2 views of approaches to Esquimalt Harbour.
Shows roads, streetcar lines, buildings, cultivated land, depths by soundings and relief by hachures. Includes 4 views. Inset: Telegraph Cove / surveyed by J.T. Walbran, Dominion Govt. S.S. "Quadra", 1900. Scale 1:3670.
Shows resurvey of Section V, Victoria District.
Shows streets, roads, buildings, cultivated land, depths by soundings and relief by hachures. Includes 2 views of approaches to Esquimalt Harbour.
Fonds consists of a cash journal.
St. John the Divine Anglican Church (Victoria, B.C.)Fonds consists of administrative, financial, operational, and membership records, as well as officers' files.
Native Sons and Daughters of British ColumbiaSeries consists of lists of all eligible voters.
The lists were updated annually at first and later semi-annually. The only voters lists available before 1908 are those for 1865, 1885, and 1896.
Victoria (B.C.). City Clerk's OfficeFonds consists primarily of correspondence and photographs of three generations of the Helmcken family. The fonds also includes a scrapbook, certificates, family tree, and other material relating to the family’s private and professional activities.
Helmcken, John Sebastian, 1824-1920Fonds consists of family photographs of the Floyd and Johnston families.
Floyd, James Sterling, 1867-1922 (family)Series consists of a list of tax arrears owed to the City. Data elements include the legal description of the property, the owner's name, the overdue taxes for each year, and an annotation stating whether or not the taxes have been paid.
Victoria (B.C.). Finance DepartmentFonds consists of glass plate negatives of unidentified adults and children (presumably members of the extended Mulcahy family), William Mulcahy during his employment with the B.C. Electric Railway, streetcars, street scenes, and buildings. Also includes a scrapbook of clippings pertaining to the City of Victoria council that belonged to Frank Campbell, a tobacconist.
Mulcahy, William Andrew, 1883-1955Fonds consists of photographs, reminiscences, political files, certificates, and other material relating to the various activities of family members.
Henderson, Anton, Sr., 1853-1950