Ross Bay Cemetery

Ross Bay Cemetery, located at 1516 Fairfield Road in Victoria, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island, Canada was opened in 1873. The 27.5 acre (111,000 m²) cemetery is part of a public park and its south side faces Ross Bay on the Pacific Ocean. In 1911, a sea wall had to be constructed because of the severe erosion that occurred as a result of the relentless pounding of the ocean's waves. During the 1930s, the City began planting a large number of trees and today the cemetery is quite different from the original that was mainly barren ground.

The Victorian-style Ross Bay Cemetery, contains numerous elaborate mausoleums and tall pillars from the early elite. Because the city of Victoria is the capital of the province of British Columbia, until the second quarter of the 20th century when improved ferry service and air travel made mobility to and from the island much easier, most senior politicians made Victoria their permanent home. As such, Ross Bay Cemetery is the burial site for many of the province's premiers.

Some of the notable personalities among the more than 27,000 interred here are:
*Billy Barker (1819-1894), frontiersman, prospector
*Sir Frank Stillman Barnard (1856-1936), statesman
*Robert Beaven (1836-1920), statesman, Premier of British Columbia
*Sir Matthew Begbie (1819-1894), First Chief Justice of British Columbia
*Harlan Carey Brewster (1870-1918), statesman, Premier of British Columbia
*Emily Carr (1871-1945), painter
*Nellie Cashman (1845-1925), nurse and gold prospector
*Sir Henry Pering Pellew Crease (1823-1905) First BC Barrister and early Supreme Court Justice
*Sarah Lindley Crease (1826-1922), artist
*Alexander Edmund Batson Davie (1847-1889), statesman, Premier of British Columbia
*Theodore Davie (1852-1898), jurist, statesman, Premier of British Columbia
*Amor De Cosmos (1825-1897), statesman, Premier of British Columbia
*Sir James Douglas (1803-1877), Hudson's Bay Co. executive, 1st Governor of British Columbia and 2nd Governor of Vancouver Island
*James Dunsmuir (1851-1920), businessman, statesman, Premier of British Columbia
*Andrew Charles Elliott (1828-1889), statesman, Premier of British Columbia
*Roderick Finlayson (1818-1892), considered the "Father of Victoria."
*John Hamilton Gray (1814-1889), pre-Confederation Premier of PEI, a Father of Confederation and a BC Supreme Court Justice.
*Byron Ingemar Johnson (1890-1964), statesman, Premier of British Columbia
*Sir Richard McBride (1870-1917), statesman, Premier of British Columbia
*Joseph Despard Pemberton (1821-1893), Surveyor-General of Vancouver Island
*Sophie Pemberton (1869-1959), painter
*Edward Gawler Prior (1853-1920), statesman, Premier of British Columbia
*John Robson (1824-1892), statesman, Premier of British Columbia
*George Anthony Walkem (1834-1908) statesman, Premier of British Columbia

Although the Ross Bay Cemetery had long been considered full,the City of Victoria discovered approximately 270 unused plots in the cemetery in the late 1990s. Through a lottery process the City of Victoria sold seven of these plots in April 2004, [cite web
url=http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/pressroom_rel_040226.shtml
title=New Plot Opportunity at Ross Bay Cemetery
date=2004|publisher=City of Victoria|accessdate=2008-07-21] and an additional 65 plots in February 2007. [cite journal
last=Heiman|first=Carolyn
date=2007-02-16
title=Lottery brings burial with a view
journal=Times Colonist|location=Victoria BC
url=http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=48bf3dff-bce2-4f96-a01c-9e792cc101f1&k=0] The money raised through the plot sales was used to fund refurbishment work at the Ross Bay Cemetery.

Ross Bay Cemetery was also the alleged site of satanic rituals as described in Michelle Remembers.

References

ee also

*List of cemeteries

External links

* [http://www.google.ca/maps?li=lmr&hl=en&q=ross+bay+cemetery+loc:+victoria,+BC&num=10&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&ll=48.42804,-123.356467&spn=0.17578125,0.2278067000253685 Ross Bay Cemetery on Google Maps]
* [http://collections.ic.gc.ca/tombstone/index.html Old Cemeteries Society, Victoria Tombstone Tales of Ross Bay Cemetery]
* [http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb.htm Ross Bay Cemetery - Victoria BC]
* [http://139.142.65.54/archives/rosssearch.asp Search for grave locations] City of Victoria Archives