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Section Summary:
Note: Both Wesleyan and Reformed Episcopal were later opened for
general use.
(Courtesy of Old Cemetery Society of Victoria)
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Unfortunately because not all of the mausoleums were open to view we didn't get information on all the families nor were we able to see if each monument fell into the two functional types of mausoleums described by H.C. Mytum, one being favoured by Mediterranean families (bodies above ground) the other favoured by Northern European elites (bodies buried below ground) (Mytum 2004, pg. 72)
On the Old Cemetery Society Website for Ross Bay cemetery our group found a map which divided the cemetery into sections based on religious affiliation. For the most part the families appeared to have been buried in areas which corresponded to their religious beliefs with a few exceptions. These exceptions were found by searching British Columbia (specifically Victoria) census information from 1881, 1891 and 1901. Unfortunately some of the individuals buried in the mausoleums were not in the census, probably due to either being born later or not living in Victoria at the time. The exceptions were Harry Dallas Helmcken (census said Reformed Episcopal, buried in the Anglican section), Byron L. Johnson (census said Lutheran, buried in the Anglican section) and Charles Chislett (census said Methodist, buried in the Wesleyan section, which was later opened to other religions). Other families were buried in the General section of the cemetery but had various religious beliefs, for example the Hawkins family were in the census as Congregational.
Most likely the map demonstrates how the cemetery was originally divided but over time these divisions could have changed due to necessity (spots only being available in a certain area) or a certain division of Christianity lost popularity and thus the cemetery chose to open the area to those of different affiliations.
Thanks to the Old Cemetery Society who gave my group the link to a website called Victoria’s Victoria, we were able to use both the Census information and information from old newspapers to gain some background knowledge on most of the families buried in the mausoleums. For the most part these families were prominent members who were involved in the community as businessmen, politicians, lawyers and the like. Some families like the Rithets had connections with the Helmckens (Harry Dallas Helmcken seconded R. P. Rithet for mayor in 1896) and to the Wilson family (Mrs. R. P. Rithet nee. Elizabeth Munro was the the sister of Mrs. J. Keith Wilson nee. Mary Munro).
Due to more background information found on the Rithet family through the BC Archives, we established that out of all the families they were the most prominent in Victoria. This can be clearly seen in the grandness of their mausoleum in comparison to the other mausoleums. In the files I looked at in the BC Archives R. P. Rithet had personal correspondence with the premier over the British Pacific Railway, an invitation to a ball in Seattle with Mrs. Vanderbilt (one of the wealthiest families in the U.S) as a patroness and various other indicators of his high status in British Columbia.
Overall the mausoleums were not limited to a specific group of people because of the diversity of professions, but were definitely favoured by individuals with more wealth and statues in the community. Essentially people who had the necessary means and status to afford to build such large scale monuments.
View Ross Bay Cemetery Mausoleums in a larger map
Sources of Information:
Council for Scottish Archaeology. (2006)."An Introduction to Graveyard Recording".
Leona Taylor and Dorothy Mindenhall, “Index of Historical Victoria Newspapers,” Victoria’s Victoria, http://www.victoriasvictoria.ca/, 2007.
Old Cemetery Society of Victoria. (2012). Ross Bay Cemetery . Available: http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb.htm. Last accessed February 16, 2012.
Russ, T. 2006, "Mortuary monuments and burial grounds of the historic period", Historical archaeology, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 103-104.
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