Gaslight Chronicles
An informational podcast that dives into Victoria, British Columbia’s past when gas powered street lamps illuminated the city. Hosted by Megan Evans who shares an array of stories from Victoria’s infamous cult leader, to Chinatown and the Opium Trade, Ross Bay Cemetery, Point Ellice House/Point Ellice Bridge Disaster and many others.
Gaslight Chronicles
Episode Three: Point Ellice: Heritage House and Bridge Disaster
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In today's episode we'll explore the historic Point Ellice House alongside the significant but often overlooked Point Ellice Bridge disaster which resulted in 55 deaths.
Podcast links and further reading:
· Francis, Daniel, ed. (2000) [1999]. "Point Ellice Bridge Collapse". Encyclopedia of British Columbia. Harbour Publishing. p. 562. ISBN 1-55017-200-X.
· Ewert, Henry (1986). The Story of the B. C. Electric Railway Company. North Vancouver: Whitecap Books. ISBN 0-92062054-X.
· Looker, Janet (2000). "Point Ellice Bridge Collapse". Disaster Canada. Lynx Images. p. 241. ISBN 1-894073-13-4.
· "Twenty Nine Years of Public Service: British Columbia Electric Railway Limited". 1925. p. 11. Archived from the original on 2011-06-27. Retrieved 2010-01-30.
· "VICTORIA MOURNS HER DEAD". The Daily Colonist. May 27, 1896. p. 1. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
· "At the Place of Death. Scenes and Incidents of the Disaster and of the Work Rescue". The Daily Colonist. May 27, 1896. p. 8. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
· Peter O'Reilly's 1897 Diary. British Columbia Archives. pp. 22, 23 – via Vancouver Island Local History Society.
· Akrigg, G.P.V.; Akrigg, Helen B. (1986), British Columbia Place Names (3rd, 1997 ed.), Vancouver: UBC Press, ISBN 0-7748-0636-2
· Parker, Douglas V. (1981). No Horesecars in Paradise: A History of the Street Railways and Public Utilities in Victoria, British Columbia before 1897. Railfare Enterprises. ISBN 0-920620-29-9.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Ellice_House?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://nationaltrustcanada.ca/destinations/point-ellice-house-museum-gardens?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Ellice_Bridge_disaster?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.structuremag.org/article/the-point-ellice-bridge-failure/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://evelazarus.com/the-point-ellice-bridge-disaster-may-26-1896/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=12601&utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://vancouverislandbucketlist.com/experiences/point-ellice-house/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
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Welcome to episode three of the Gaslight Chronicles, where we’ll dive into Victoria, British Columbia’s past when gas-powered streetlamps illuminated the city. I’m your host Megan Evans and in today’s episode we’ll explore the historic Point Ellice House alongside the significant but often overlooked Point Ellice Bridge disaster which resulted in 55 deaths.
My first introduction to Point Ellice House was over thirty years ago (holy crap I’m getting old or is it just more seasoned?). It was during Be a Tourist in Your Own Hometown where you’d get a weekend pass to visit many of the tourist attractions in Victoria. Many of the places that were around are now gone like the Royal London Wax Museum which closed in 2010. I used to work in the government office the shared the same location, not many workplaces can boast that they have a torture chamber in the basement, only in the public service! Other places included the Pacific Undersea Gardens which closed in 2013 and the Crystal Gardens which closed in 2004. Let’s face it, some of the coolest places are gone, but luckily Point Ellice House remains. My second encounter of this historical site was a field trip during my Interior Design school days where we visited to marvel at the Italianate villa or British Picturesque style.
Point Ellis House was constructed between 1861 and 1862 and is one of Victoria’s oldest residences that overlooks two intertwined waterways. The first being the Selkirk Waterway, which is the section closest to the Selkirk Trestle bridge and the second being Gorge Waterway, which refers to the entire 6-kilometer inlet that stretches from the Inner Harbour to Portage Inlet. Yes, I had to look that up as I don’t know! A quote from the Point Ellis website: “The history of Point Ellice House reflects the fur trade and colonial eras, beginning with John Work, a Chief Factor for the Hudson’s Bay Company who acquired the land in the mid-1800s. Along with his wife Josette Legacé, of mixed ancestry (half French-Canadian, half Spokane or Nez Perce), John Work’s legacy is integral to the story of early British Columbia. Their daughter, Catherine Work, married Charles Wentworth Wallace, and they were the first owners to build the house that would later bear the name Point Ellice House.”
By 1866 however, Charles was bankrupt, which forced the family to leave to pay off debts. In December 1867, the three-generation legacy of the O’Reilly family began and would continue until 1975.
The First Generation included Peter and Caroline O'Reilly
The story begins with Peter O'Reilly, a prominent colonial official who served as Gold Commissioner, judge, and later Indian Reserve Commissioner, and his wife Caroline Trutch O'Reilly, sister of British Columbia's first Lieutenant-Governor. They purchased Point Ellice House in 1867 and transformed it from a modest villa into a fashionable estate through additions, landscaping, gardens, and social entertaining. Under Peter's ownership, the house became a gathering place for Victoria's colonial elite. The O’Reilly’s had a “lively and varied social calendar.” Entertaining was a way to reinforce their social, political and economic ties to ensure their privileged position would continue. They were so well connected that they even entertained Sir John A. Macdonld, Canada’s first prime minister and his wife on August 5, 1886.
It is important to note that as a colonial official, Peter O’Reilly played a role in the marginalization of Indigenous communities, imposing policies that disrupted traditional ways of life and dislocated many Indigenous peoples from their lands.
A brief look at how Peter O’Reilly’s Actions Contributed to Indigenous Marginalization:
· Peter O’Reilly generally allocated reserves that were much smaller than the territories Indigenous nations traditionally occupied and used.
· Although he didn’t create reserve policy himself, he became one of its chief executors in BC and prioritized securing land for settlers while minimizing Indigenous land claims.
· O’Reilly's brother-in-law was Joseph Trutch, a controversial figure who believed Indigenous peoples had no significant ownership rights to land, therefore O’Reilly's reserve decisions generally aligned with Trutch’s.
· And finally, many First Nations lost access to important fishing sites, agricultural land, transportation corridors, and resource-rich areas. These restrictions contributed to economic marginalization and limited opportunities for Indigenous self-determination. Many modern land claims and treaty negotiations in British Columbia stem directly from reserve decisions made during O’Reilly's tenure.
Therefore, Peter O’Reilly’s legacy is inseparable from Point Ellice House and the reserve system of British Columbia.
The Second Generation included The O'Reilly Children
The couple's children—Frank, Kathleen, Mary Augusta, and Jack—were raised at Point Ellice House and remained closely connected to it throughout their lives. Rather than modernizing the house as fashions changed, they preserved many furnishings, clothing, photographs, letters, and everyday possessions. This accidental preservation would become one of the home's greatest historical treasures.
Among them, Kathleen O'Reilly was particularly important. She meticulously saved family correspondence, souvenirs, household objects, and personal mementos, creating an extraordinary archive of Victorian and Edwardian life.
The Third Generation: Included the O’Reilly Grandchildren and an Era of Preservation
The third generation inherited both the house and the family's habit of keeping things. By the mid-20th century, Point Ellice House had become a virtual time capsule. Unlike many historic homes that were sold, renovated, or dispersed, the O'Reilly descendants left much of the house untouched. Family members John and Inez O'Reilly eventually opened the property as a private museum in the 1960s.
When the family sold Point Ellice House to the Province of British Columbia in 1975, they left behind nearly 16,000 artifacts—furniture, books, clothing, photographs, letters, toys, silverware, and household objects, right down to a Wedgewood cheese dish in the dining room. This collection is considered one of the finest and most intact collections of Victorian domestic artifacts in North America.
And now we’ll dive back into the past, exploring a significant but often overlooked tragedy, the Point Ellice Bridge Disaster.
It was a bright and sunny day, on May 26, 1896, clear skies as far as the eye could see and mild temperatures, the perfect weather to celebrate Queen Victoria’s 76th birthday, which was considered part of Victoria Day celebrations. Just as we treat statutory holidays today, it was treated as a day off with special events planned.
There was a civic ceremony with speeches by government and military officials, music from military bands, the flying of colors and public addresses. Beer gardens and food trucks were not a thing at this time, instead there were regattas, aka boat races, that could be watched from shore. Also, many families used the holiday for picnics, and seaside visits. Modes of transport included streetcars, boats, bicycles, carriages and walking.
The festival was a huge draw as it spanned two days, Monday and Tuesday, with a major planned attraction on Tuesday, May 26, which was a mock naval battle in the waters off Macaulay Point in Esquimalt. Being the highlight hundreds of attendees travelled from Victoria.
The Point Ellis Bridge connected the upper harbour of Victoria to Esquimalt and was first built as a wood pile bridge in 1861 and then was rebuilt in 1872. In 1885, it had an $11,000 replacement with iron trusses and a wood deck built by the San Francisco Bridge Company to accommodate more carriages, wagons, and pedestrian traffic. The Victoria Tramway Company wanted to test the strength of the structure to see if it could handle streetcars, however the San Francisco Bridge Company concluded that the bridge could not handle any more weight. So, despite the warning, an engineer from Victoria Tramway Company determined that the bridge was able to sustain streetcars.
Big industry wins and no precautions were taken. I think we all know where this is going. Ironically, one of the bridge crossbeams broke under the weight of streetcar 16 in 1893 and despite repairs, streetcar 16 would eventually collapse the bridge in 1896.
The maximum number of people that could be accommodated crossing the bridge was capped at 60. But on May 26, the Consolidated Electric Railway Company’s streetcar 16, was loaded with 143 passengers on its way to the mock naval battle in Esquimalt around 2pm. What ensued was not only a fail, but an epic fail. The Daily Times wrote: “An ominous sound was heard that told of something giving way and soon the middle span of the bridge, about 150 feet in length, swerved.”
Timber and iron collapsed into the harbor alongside the streetcar. Debris killed victims before they touched the water and panicked passengers tried to grab onto whatever they could. Some swam to safety, but others were trapped in the sinking streetcar and drowned. Locals and the fire department became rescue volunteers and those with boats helped to locate survivors and causalities. There was a total of 55 deceased including men, women, teenagers and children, making the Point Ellis Bridge Disaster one of the deadliest civil disasters in Canadian history.
Point Ellice House did play an important humanitarian role in the aftermath of the bridge disaster. The O’Reilly family opened their home as an emergency refuge, where survivors and injured victims went to receive medical care, shelter and organization when an emergency response plan did not currently exist. Point Ellice House also dubbed as a temporary morgue, where bodies were laid on the lawns (and on the lawns of neighboring houses) where families came to identify loved ones and officials attempted to compile a casualty list.
There was undoubtedly widespread outrage when an inquiry found that the bridge owners failed to maintain the structure and the streetcar company ignored safety limits. Also, no single party was held accountable, therefore victims’ families received little to no compensation. The disaster, however, did plunge Consolidated Electric Railway Company into receivership and it was later reformed as the British Columbia Electric Railway in 1897.
According to a diary entry written by Peter O'Reilly nearly one year after the bridge disaster he remarked on how he believed that his eldest daughter Kathleen was on the bridge when it collapsed. I turn now to my creative collaborator Gary O’Connor to read the following excerpt:
"Yesterday the Queen’s birthday was kept, but very quietly – no regatta, no racing, no nothing – I believe...Tomorrow the 26th a day never to be forgotten, when I believed for a while that I have lost my darling child but by gods' miracle she was spared."
The tragedy did lead to amendments in bridge safety, public infrastructure oversight and municipal responsibility for transit and maintenance. The disaster is remembered not only for the scale of loss, but also for how ordinary citizens—and the O’Reilly family—stepped in when institutions failed.
Designated a Provincial Historic Site in 1995, today’s Point Ellice House is a treasure trove of history that boasts one of North America’s most extensive Victorian-era collections. The gardens are two acres of important ecosystem. Home to native plants such as ocean spray, arbutus, red currant, and a sequoia tree planted by the O’Reilly family. Also, a sanctuary to migratory birds, mink, river otters, raccoons, deer, and raptors. Point Ellice House sounds amazing, it seems like it’s evolved so much since I was there over 20 years ago, I feel I should charge up my camera batteries as I’d love to do an excursion of the grounds.
In 2024, the Métis Nation British Columbia assumed management of the site with the goal to foster reconciliation through education, cultural understanding, and collaboration, transforming Point Ellice House into a space for meaningful dialogue about Victoria’s history and Métis heritage. The site has also introduced a new trading post which offers visitors a unique opportunity to purchase a variety of Métis-crafter goods, including traditional arts, crafts, and other cultural items. The aim is to provide a deeper understanding of Métis culture and heritage through these authentic products. The trading post’s introduction aligns Métis Nation British Columbia’s commitment to cultural preservation and education.
Point Ellice House is place of reflection, memory and community engagement, offering visitors an authentic glimpse into 19th-century life.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Gaslight Chronicles where we dove into the history of Point Ellice House and the Point Ellice Bridge disaster. We only really scratched the surface, so if you’d like to learn more about this chapter in Victoria’s history, links to materials can be found in the podcast notes. And if you enjoyed our exploration, consider rating and reviewing our podcast and subscribing for more hidden stories from Western Canada. Until next time, stay curious, Vancouver Island!
Gaslight Chronicles was written and narrated by Megan Evans. Produced and edited by Megan Evans. Executive producer Gary O’Connor. Additional voices by Gary O’Connor. Music included Sweat Peas by Arthur Benson and The Wicked Fable by Franz Gordon courtesy of Epidemic Sound. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you found us. Reviews are key to keeping Gaslight Chronicles on the charts so people can find the show. Thank you so much!
