James Bay, Greater Victoria
James Bay is a high density neighbourhood of Victoria, BC. It is the oldest residential neighbourhood on the West coast of North America that is north of San Francisco. James Bay occupies the south side of the Inner Harbour close to downtown. Access to the neighbourhood is along Belleville Street, Government Street, Douglas Street and Dallas Road.
The original inhabitants of James Bay were the Swenghwung people who were part of the Lekwungen people of the Coast Salish and whose descendants today are known as the Songhees First Nation. Even after the aboriginal inhabitants allegedly sold the land to the Hudson's Bay Company, remains of fortifications at Holland Point and of burial grounds at Laurel Point remained. The neighbourhood takes its name from the shallow inlet James Bay that forms part of Victoria's Inner Harbour, named for James Douglas. Settled early after the establishment of Fort Victoria in 1843, much of the present day neighbourhood was originally part of Ogden's Fields Farms, subsequently known as Dutnall's Farm and then Beckley Farm.
Residential development of James Bay began in 1859 when Governor Douglas decided to construct the colonial administration offices for the Colony of Vancouver Island across the harbour from Fort Victoria. Known as the Birdcages because of their somewhat fanciful design, the Birdcages were replaced in 1898 by Francis Mawson Rattenbury's Parliament Buildings, which still serve as the meeting place of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia.
Between the construction of the Birdcages in 1859 and the completion of the Parliament Buildings in , a considerable amount of residential development took place in James Bay. The family home of James and Amelia Douglas stood on the location of the present Royal British Columbia Museum, behind which is located the house of John Sebastian Helmcken, the colony's first doctor, speaker of the Assembly, and son-in-law of the governor. The Victorian Italianate childhood home of Canadian artist Emily Carr, built in 1863, stands on Government Street, formerly known as Carr Street, in an area of numerous mainly modest wooden homes that date to the later decades of the nineteenth century. Grander homes in James Bay include the Pendray residence on Belleville Street, built in the Queen Anne style in 1897 for William and Amelia Pendray who originally made a fortune in the Cariboo Gold Rush and later opened a soap factory at Laurel Point. and Pinehurst, another Queen Anne style residence built in 1890 on Battery Street for William James MacAulay, a retired American lumber baron and banker. The architect of Pinehurst and of many other residences in James Bay was Thomas Hooper, whose own modest residence stands at 243 Kingston Street. One of the largest estates in James Bay was Armadale built in 1877 for William Macdonald on 28 acres (110,000 m2). After its demolition in 1944, part of the grounds became Macdonald Park.
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