Accession Number

2014.007

Description

Hand addressed, print cardstock invitation to the Burleith Tennis Club's first dance, Feb 17, 1911. A pink tennis racket is printed behind the text. Addressed to Mr. Mercer.

Narrative

This is an invitation to Mr. Mercer to attend the First Club Dance of the newly incorporated Burleith Tennis Club on Friday, February 17, 1911.

The invitation was issued soon after the dance was announced in The Daily Colonist, February 2, 1911 pg. 5. Dave Unwin, a historian with the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame noted in correspondence with Craigdarroch’s Curator in January 2014:

“Quite a number of these smaller tennis groups had formed during Victoria land boom times of the early 1900’s…the Burleith club began in 1910 with two grass courts on the Gorge and also held their first annual dance Ball in 1911.

At a club meeting prior to the start of their 1912 season they decided on a move to a larger location due to their expanding membership. It seems the Burleith property had been subdivided and listed in 1909 and that Dr. F. Hall purchased the large house. The tennis enthusiasts likely rented or leased the two courts for their use, possibly for two seasons before they moved to a new location near the corner of Rock Bay and Hillside roads in 1913 where they constructed four hard surface courts of clay and or cinders.

The club held its 3rd Annual Ball after the 1913 season and seemed to disappear in 1914 as WW 1 interrupted most of Victoria’s sporting activity”.

Unfortunately, no firm source for Unwin’s quote “two grass courts on the Gorge” has been identified. However, Unwin is reliable, and it is reasonable to assume that the courts in question were the ones formerly part of James and Laura Dunsmuir’s house and 18 acre property on the Gorge known as Burleith (see: 2012.007.001.011)

The Dr. F. Hall that Unwin refers to is obviously Dr. Frank Hall, who bought the lots within the Burleith subdivision on which sat the old Dunsmuir house, which, it seems, he renamed Burleith Lodge. In 1910, he was prepared to sell it to a group of businessmen who were trying to raise funds to create a private hotel/boarding house/club. Architect Samuel Maclure was engaged to prepare plans for extensive additions to the house. A prospectus was published in which it was explained that one of the objects of the Club was to operate “the business of a bathing establishment with laundries, dressing-rooms, reading, writing and newspaper rooms, libraries grounds and other places of amusement, recreation, sport, entertainment and instruction of all kinds” (see Prospectus. The Burleith Mansions. BC Archives NWP 971.INV D92613).

It appears that the deal never came to fruition. Curator Bruce Davies thinks that the tennis courts were not on Dr. Hall’s property, but rather, on someone else’s nearby lots (all of them part of the Burleith subdivision). None of the men named on the Tennis Club’s dance invitation are listed in the Prospectus, so Davies believes that the two initiatives were legally separate and distinct. But clearly, an association between Hall and the Club would have been mutually beneficial if things had happened differently.

This Burleith Tennis Club Dance Invitation is evidence of what happened to the Burleith property when James and Laura Dunsmuir decided to sell it in favour of building Hatley Park. It is a rare object – probably the only one in existence, and it is a useful tool in telling the story of an important Dunsmuir house that was once home to a British Columbia Premier and Lieutenant Governor.

History of Use

Unknown

Date

February 17 1911

Dimensions

8.9 x 11.5 cm

Material

Paper, cardstock

Inscription

Mr. Mercer