Nanaimo in the 1890s

The Middle Ward of Nanaimo was located between the North Ward and the South Ward, from Fitzwilliam and Bastion streets to Victoria Crescent and from the harbour to the city limits. According to the 3^rd decennial census of Canada (1891), the population of the ward was 1535. The overall population of Nanaimo was 4,586 and so about one third of Nanaimo residents lived in the Middle Ward in 1891.

Of the 1535 Middle Ward residents, 1056 people reported some type of employment. Of the 147 labourers in the Middle Ward, 101 were Chinese. The Middle Ward was home to 206 of the 866 miners who lived in Nanaimo. The Middle Ward also had a small number of professional men, such as doctors and lawyers, and white-collar workers, such as merchants and salesmen. Of the 528 females who lived in the Middle Ward, 210 women were enumerated as homemakers.

Click here to see to see a representational chart of the occupations and numbers of workers in each category.

Property Values

The property values in the Middle Ward increased dramatically between 1882 and 1892. Properties nearest to the railway station, which was built in Nanaimo in 1886, had some of the most significant increases in Nanaimo.

The map below shows several properties which surrounded the site of the station. Click the map to open it in full size. The full size map will allow you to click on individual properties and see the value increases, and in some instances, the property records will have links to information about the families who lived on the land.

Property values in Nanaimo were relatively low in the 1880s. One could purchase a city lot – with dimensions of 82’x 140’ – on Lubbock Square for the reasonable price of $100, but by the early 1890s the values had risen significantly. The same lot would cost $1,000. One major event between 1880 and 1890 was the completion of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway on 30 September 1886. In the ten year period between 1881 and 1891, property values in the Middle Ward of Nanaimo rose between five and ten times. It is likely that the rail link between Nanaimo and Victoria was largely responsible for the dramatic increase in property values.

Families and households

Tax assessment records provide information about property values. We can learn more about the people who owned property and resided in Middle Ward by looking at archival photos, census data and the city directory, and by consulting vital records – that is, records relating to birth, marriage, and death. With these records, it is possible to construct portraits of some of the families who lived in Nanaimo’s Middle Ward in the 1890s. Consider, for example, Henry Bolton and his family. The Bolton family story is interesting because it gives a sense of the social history of Nanaimo’s working class.

Henry Bolton was a miner who worked in the coal mine at Chase River. He and his family were enumerated in Nanaimo in 1881. In November of 1888 Bolton’s 28 year old son, Hugh, who was also a coal miner, married Mary Ellen Akenhead. Henry Bolton then died less than two weeks later at the age of fifty-one. The cause of death is unknown, but it may have been connected to his work as a coal miner. He left behind his wife, Jane, age 51 years, and eight children. Most of the children were adults, but some were relatively young. Emily was 13 years old and Martha was 14 years when their father died.

In 1890, Hugh Bolton’s wife, Mary Ellen, died in New Westminster at the age of twenty-six. It is unclear why she was in New Westminster, but perhaps she was visiting family or in need of medical attention after the birth of their daughter. Although there is no birth record of their daughter, Mary Ellen A Bolton, there is a death record. She died 17 September 1890, before reaching her first birthday. Hugh was now a widower who had outlived his child.

Times must have been tough for the Bolton family after these tragic deaths, and it may have been considered inappropriate that Hugh’s sister, Martha, did not postpone her wedding to William Barton – an event that took place less than a month after the death of Martha’s infant niece. Martha was 16 years old and William, a miner, was 20 years old at the time of their marriage.

Once they were married, William and Martha Barton came to live with Hugh Bolton and his family. Or perhaps the Boltons moved in with the recently-married Bartons. In the 1891 census, William Barton is identified as the head of the household. The census reveals that Jane Bolton – the widowed mother of Martha and Hugh, and William Barton’s mother-in-law – was part of the household. Martha Barton’s sister, 16 year old Emily Bolton, was also part of the household. According to the 1891 census, the family was living in a one-storey house that contained six rooms. Their house was built of wood.

Martha’s brothers – James (age 30) and Henry (age 19) – were living in a separate household in 1891. James had been enumerated as a miner in the 1881 census, but in the 1891 census he was listed as a Railway Engine Driver/Engineer. Perhaps he looked to his father’s death as a warning to change occupations. Unfortunately, James’ brother, Henry Bolton junior, did not make a career change, and died at the age of thirty-three in 1904. Although the cause of death is not recorded, he may have died from a mining-related accident or illness. Henry Bolton junior was living with his mother, Jane, when the 1901 census was taken and he may have been living with her at the time of his death.