Henry Pering Pellew Crease
Sir Henry Pering Pellew Crease | |
---|---|
Supreme Court of British Columbia | |
In office 13 May 1870 – 20 January 1896 | |
Appointed by | Anthony Musgrave |
Attorney General of British Columbia | |
In office 15 October 1861 – 13 May 1870 | |
Appointed by | James Douglas |
Preceded by | George Hunter Cary |
Succeeded by | George Phillippo |
Personal details | |
Born | 20 August 1823 Ince Castle, Cornwall, UK |
Died | 27 November 1905 Victoria, British Columbia, Canada | (aged 82)
Spouse | Sarah Crease née Lindley |
Children | 6[1] |
Education | Mount Radford School |
Alma mater | Clare College, Cambridge |
Profession | lawyer |
Sir Henry Pering Pellew Crease (20 August 1823 – 27 November 1905) was a British-Canadian lawyer, judge, and politician, influential in the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. He was the first Attorney General of the united Colony of British Columbia, and sat on the Supreme Court of that province for 26 years.
Early life
Crease was born at Ince Castle, in Cornwall, the son of a Royal Navy captain. He attended Mount Radford School in Exeter, where he was a contemporary of Joseph Trutch.[2] He earned his BA from Clare College, Cambridge and then studied law at the Middle Temple.[3] Though called to the bar in June 1849, he did not immediately pursue his career in law. Instead he joined his parents in an unsuccessful canal building endeavour in Upper Canada. After only a short turn as a barrister on his return to England, he took a job in Cornwall managing a tin mine owned by Great Wheal Vor United Mines, which ended with his employer suing him.[4]
By the time Crease left again for Canada in April 1858, he had married
Lawyer and politician
Upon his arrival in Victoria, Crease was admitted as a barrister to the courts of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, becoming the first lawyer qualified to practice in both jurisdictions.
Politically, Crease presented himself as a foe of the
Even as a colonial pioneer, Crease clung to the aristocratic traditions of Britain. The Crease family's home in
When the colonies were joined in 1866 Crease became the first Attorney General of the united British Columbia. In 1868 the colonial capital was moved to Victoria, and the Creases moved with it. There they built a new home, Pentrelew, on Fort Street.[4]
In Victoria, as in New Westminster, Crease was active in many community organisations: the
At a time when British policy called for North American colonies to extinguish native title by means of treaties, the British Columbia government, including Crease, made no effort to negotiate treaties. Indeed, when the issue was raised in the legislature in 1870, Attorney General Crease objected to the mere discussion of the issue as potentially damaging, "for Indians do get word of what's going on." In response to the criticism that the government had no Indian policy, Crease stated simply that "our policy has been, let the Indians alone."[7]
BC Supreme Court judge
In 1870 he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia and retired from his government post. Crease was suspicious of both Confederation and responsible government, largely because they threatened greater government control over judges and central Canadian domination of patronage. Like many British Columbians, he was disappointed that London seemed to have given up on BC as an independent colony, abandoning either it to annexation to the United States or confederation with Canada. "I believe that England is sick of her Colonies," he wrote, "and to be a Colonist, whatever your POSITION & CHARACTER when at Home – is to lose Caste the moment you become a bona fide settler."[6]: 95 Regardless of his opposition to Confederation, Crease was chosen to prepare for it as the chair of the Royal Commission for the Revision of Laws of BC.
After BC became a Canadian province in 1871, Crease devoted the next few years to fighting for judicial independence—specifically the right of judges to live outside their districts. In 1881 the BC Supreme Court, including Crease, ruled in the Thrasher case that the province's attempts to regulate judges were unconstitutional. This decision was overturned two years later by the Supreme Court of Canada.[4]
In 1882, Crease presided over the trial of John Hall, who owned most of the land on
In 1884, Crease overturned the Chinese Population Regulation Bill, which imposed an annual tax of ten dollars on each Chinese over the age of ten. He ruled that the provincial government had acted beyond its constitutional authority in passing the act, which fell within federal powers of taxation.[11] The next year, as a member of the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration, Crease wrote that "The real fact is, and the more completely it is recognized the better, that we cannot do without a certain number of Chinese for manual labour and for domestic servants," but went on to warn that Chinese immigrants "will never assimilate with the Anglo-Saxon race, nor is it desirable that they should … They do not regard British Columbia as their home and when they die send their bones home to be buried in China."[12]
Sitting on several Royal commissions, the Exchequer Court of Canada, and the BC Supreme Court, Crease remained an influential figure long after his defeat in the Thrasher case. However, federal Justice Minister Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper was not impressed with Crease's judgment toward the end of his career and pushed for Crease's retirement in a letter to BC Supreme Court Chief Justice Theodore Davie.[4] Crease retired soon afterward in January 1896. On 23 January 1896 Crease was knighted.[13] He died in 1905 and was buried at Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria.
References
- ^ Description of Crease family fonds [1] at BC archives
- ISBN 1550390627– via Internet Archive.
- ^ "Crease, Henry Pering Pellew (CRS840HP)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Loo, Tina (2000). "Henry Pering Pellew Crease". Dictionary of Canadian Biography online. Retrieved 6 July 2007.
- ^ "Biography – LINDLEY, SARAH (Crease, Lady Crease) – Volume XV (1921-1930) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography". www.biographi.ca. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
- ^ ISBN 0-8020-7458-8.
- ISBN 0-8020-7151-1.
- ^ Judge Crease's bench notes of John Hall trial Archived 19 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine from Village of Belcarra's history site [2] Archived 9 December 2018 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Early Unauthorized Logging on Burrard Inlet Archived 19 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine from Village of Belcarra's history site [3] Archived 9 December 2018 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Newspaper accounts of John Hall Trial from Village of Belcarra's history site [4] Archived 9 December 2018 at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 0-7748-0373-8.
- ^ Mawani, Renisa (2003). "'The Island of the Unclean': Race, Colonialism and 'Chinese Leprosy' in British Columbia, 1891 – 1924". Law, Social Justice & Global Development Journal (1). Retrieved 8 July 2007.
- ISBN 0-8063-0443-X.
Sources
- J. B. Kerr, "Crease, Henry Pering Pellew"[1] in Biographical Dictionary of Well-known British Columbians: with a historical sketch (Vancouver: Kerr & Begg, 1890) p. 133
External links
- Meet the Crease family at British Columbia Archives
- ^ "Biographical dictionary of well-known British C... - Canadiana Online". www.canadiana.ca.