The Mayors of Vancouver: A lively history

{This excellent John Mackie piece is background to my column today on Vancouver’s many ‘Scottish’ mayors, and the city’s growing Asian population.}

The mayors of Vancouver: A rich history of leadership:

When Larry Campbell takes office as Vancouver’s mayor on Monday, he will be the 37th man to put his stamp on the city. Today, John Mackie takes a look back at the leaders of the last 116 years, and the colourful campaigns that brought them to office.

Vancouver Sun ARCHIVES
Saturday, Nov. 30, 2002
Byline: John Mackie

1886 to 1887

Malcolm MacLean

Vancouver’s first election on May 3, 1886, was a wild affair, rife with labour unrest and racism. The favourite going into the election was Hastings Sawmill manager Richard Alexander, of Alexander Street fame. But a strike at Hastings Sawmill divided the community, particularly after Alexander announced he would hire Chinese workers to replace the white strikers. The strikers talked real estate salesman Malcolm MacLean (b. 1844, Tiree, Scotland, d. 1895) into running against Alexander. MacLean won in a squeaker, 242 votes to Alexander’s 225.

1888 to 1891

David Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer (b. 1832, Bleiskastel, Germany, d. 1897) was one of early Vancouver’s biggest landowners and businessmen. He was elected by acclamation for two of his four one-year terms. During Oppenheimer’s tenure, the city’s first water main was laid from the North Shore, a streetcar system was established, and electric streetlights were introduced. He also helped persuade the Canadian Pacific Railway to move its terminus to Vancouver, and helped secure Stanley Park for the city from the federal government.

1892 to 1893

Fred Cope

The election of Fred Cope (b. 1860, d. 1897) in 1892 was the closest in Vancouver’s history, with a winning margin of 11 votes over his rival Dr. J.T. Carroll. Cope was also the youngest mayor in Vancouver history, only 32 when elected. Before becoming mayor, Cope was the president of the British Columbia Building Association. A full-on newspaper war erupted during the election campaign when the Vancouver News Advertiser claimed Cope was a puppet of Oppenheimer, and the Vancouver World championed him.


Robert Alexander Anderson

Anderson (b. 1858 Belfast, P.E.I., d. 1916) was a realtor who had been chairman of finance on city council; The World hailed him as “one of our most enterprising citizens” who had “accumulated property by fair means.” The election had a nasty side, with allegations that mayoral candidate Henry Collins tried to bribe another candidate to drop out of the race. Anderson managed to stay above the fray. “Can anyone point to a blot of his personal or political honour? We think not,” said the World.

1895 to 1896

Henry Collins

After losing to Anderson in the 1894 election, Collins (b. 1844, d. 1904) walloped John McDowell 686 to 299 in 1895 to become mayor. Collins had an accident shortly before the election which prevented him campaigning, but won nonetheless. A big election issue was a bill put forward in the B.C. legislature by then-premier Alexander Edmund Davie that would have limited the powers of municipal government. Collins was elected for two terms; in 1896, he was the first candidate to poll more than 1,000 votes in a civic election.


William Templeton

William Templeton’s second try for the mayor’s seat (he had lost to Oppenheimer in 1890) was successful. Templeton (b. 1853, Belleville, Ont., d. 1898) was in favour of building a smelter in the city, extending voting hours so that more working men could make it to the polls, and removing the provision that candidates for civic office own property in Vancouver. Templeton died three days after losing his bid for re-election in 1898; he is believed to have committed suicide.

1898 to 1900

James Ford Garden

The 1898 election was fought in the middle of the Klondike Gold Rush. Supporters of James Ford Garden (b. 1847, Upper Woodstock, N.B., d. 1914) argued that mayor William Templeton had failed to capitalize on the opportunities afforded by gold fever, while Templeton’s supporters retorted Garden would run a “wide open town” with a music hall “that would injure the morals of the young men growing up amongst us.” As mayor, Garden personally led a force that stopped lumber baron Thomas Ludgate from logging Deadman’s Island in Stanley Park.


Thomas O. Townley

Thomas Townley (b. 1862, Newmarket, Ont., d. 1935) was a lawyer and land registrar who campaigned on building up Vancouver’s shipbuilding and manufacturing industries, as well as building a new railroad to the Kootenays. A big issue was whether the city’s numerous saloons should have earlier closing hours. Townley was supported by the saloon owners’ “Licenced Victualers Association,” and won a decisive victory. Paradoxically, electors also voted for earlier saloon closing hours in a plebiscite. There was a tremendous snowstorm on election day which reduced the voter turnout.

1902 to 1903

Thomas F. Neelands

Thomas Neelands (b. 1862, Carleton, Ont., d. 1944) swept into office in a wave of voter discontent with Thomas Townley, who the World cast as the candidate of “saloons and gambling and kindred matters.” Two days after Neelands’ election, the chief of police announced Vancouver’s days as a wide-open town were over: there would be no gambling except in clubs, and no more saloon openings on Sunday. “No drinking on Sunday unless a private bottle is taken home,” became the new rule.


William J. McGuigan

William McGuigan (b. 1853, Stratford, Ont., d. 1908) is the only Vancouver mayor to hold degrees in both law and medicine. McGuigan believed in public works; he supported the extension of English Bay beach, building a new Vancouver General Hospital in Mount Pleasant, and wanted to extend the sewer system to the suburbs. He also wanted to bring more railways to the city to break the Canadian Pacific Railway monopoly, and in office laid the groundwork for the draining of the False Creek flats for railway yards.

1905 to 1906

Frederick Buscombe

Vancouver was booming in the early 1900s, but the business elite wasn’t always happy with the way city hall was run. Business found a champion in Frederick Buscombe (b. 1862, Bodmin, England, d. 1938), a glass merchant who had been president of the board of trade before he was elected mayor. McGuigan’s personal popularity proved no match to Buscombe’s pledge to implement sound financial management to city affairs, which earned him the support of the business class and all three daily newspapers.

1907 to 1908

Alexander Bethune

The 1907 civic election was fought under the shadow of a provincial election. Alexander Bethune (b. 1852, Peterborough, Ont., d. 1947) was a shoe merchant and long-serving alderman who headed the Electoral Union slate, which swept most civic offices. The big election issue was whether to allow the new Vancouver Westminster and Yukon Railway access to the city. The Liberal World’s banner headline “Civic Elections Presage Big Liberal Victory” proved optimistic, because the Conservatives handily won the provincial election three weeks later.


Charles Stanford Douglas

The 1909 election attracted an unprecedented number of candidates for mayor: five. A wide variety of issues were aired during the campaign: nationalization of the port, the eight-hour working day, a new Vancouver Exhibition at Hastings Park, the construction of a new Second Narrows Bridge, and reform of the city
thevancouversunistration. Realtor Charles Douglas (b. 1852, Madison, Wis., d. 1917) won in a three way-race with Vancouver World owner Louis D. Taylor and Edward Odlum, a well-known local academic. Taylor won a rematch in 1910.

1910-11, 1915, 1925-28, 1931-34

Louis D. Taylor

Louis Denison Taylor (b. 1857, Ann Arbour, Mich., d. 1946) was a fixture in civic politics for three decades, running for mayor 20 times and winning eight elections between 1910 and 1934. A self-styled champion of the working man, Taylor claimed he lost the 1923 election because a woodpecker had flown into a transformer, shutting down the streetcar lines and keeping Taylor’s working class followers from the polls. Taylor shamelessly promoted his candidacy through his World newspaper, and built the landmark World Tower, now the Sun Tower, in 1912.


James Findlay

James Findlay (b. 1954, Montreal, d. 1924) upset two-time-mayor Taylor in a lively 1912 race. Through his ownership of the World, Taylor railed that Findlay was against women’s suffrage, but was for putting stray dogs to death. Taylor campaigned on raising the minimum wage to $3 per day, purchasing the False Creek tidal flats for railroad lands, and building a new city hall; Findlay was a businessman whose ads said he wanted to “shape the city’s affairs wisely.” Findlay won by 1,314 votes.

1913 to 1914

Truman Smith Baxter

Truman Baxter (b. 1867 Carlington, Ont., d. 1956) was elected by acclamation in 1913, just as a dizzying boom ended and a slump set in. He fought two mayoral battles with L.D. Taylor, winning in 1914 and losing in 1915. Baxter ran on his strengths as a business thevancouversunistrator, arguing that he had pulled the city’s finances together out of the “financial chaos” caused by previous thevancouversunistrations. Baxter was said to be favoured by women voters, Taylor by working men. Baxter won in 1914 by 2,091 votes, Taylor won in 1915 by 686.

1916 to 1917

Malcolm McBeath

The 1916 election was fought in the midst of First World War, and public morality was at the forefront. Malcolm McBeath (b. 1880, d. 1957) charged that his opponent Thomas Kirkpatrick was a shill for the “King Booze” crowd, who would call in favours after the election. McBeath argued that he alone would fight for the “moral welfare of the city.” McBeath also introduced a nasty racial undertone to the election by noting that Kirkpatrick owned a shingle mill where he employed Chinese labourers.

1918 to 1921

Robert Henry Gale

With prohibition imminent, mayor McBeath again tried to cast his opponent as a front for the “forces of the liquor traffic and the underworld.” Robert Gale (b. 1878, d. 1950) retorted with newspaper ads proclaiming that he had contributed $25 to the People’s Prohibition Movement. The election ended with a sensational scandal, when a female friend of McBeath’s fell ill at a meeting, went to McBeath’s room and ordered a glass of whiskey as medicine. Gale slaughtered McBeath by 3,300 votes, the biggest majority given a mayor to date.

1922 to 1923

Charles Edward Tisdal

The 1922 election was fought under a somewhat bizarre “proportional representation” voting system. Voters ticked off their first and second choice for mayor; the winner would be whoever received a majority. Until a majority was reached, the candidates on the bottom of the ballot were eliminated, and their second choice votes divided up among the remaining candidates. It took four counts to elect former Conservative MLA Charles Tisdal (b. 1866 Birmingham, England, d. 1936), who ran on a business-friendly platform of “economy with efficiency.”


William Reid Owen

The proportional representation system was rescinded by the voters in 1923 and William Owen (b. 1864, Ontario, d. 1949) won a close 1924 election over the irrepressible L.D. Taylor by 53 votes. Owen, a hardware store owner from Mt. Pleasant, ran on his “clean record” of 14 years on council and park board. His platforms were reduced property taxes, encouragement of new industries and better management of city finances (his slogan was “I stand for necessities before fads and frills”). Taylor won a 1925 rematch by 640 votes.

1929 to 1930

William Malkin

On Jan. 1, 1929, Vancouver amalgamated with Point Grey and South Vancouver (which had been separate municipalities) to form a mega-city of 251,498 people. The first mayor of the new expanded city was William Malkin (b. 1868, Staffordshire, England, d. 1959), a Vancouver pioneer whose wholesale grocery business grew from a wagon and two horses to a multi-million-dollar enterprise. Malkin beat Taylor with a platform of “law and order, civic morality and fairness to labour.” He spent much of his tenure cleaning up corruption at city hall.

1935-36, 1947

Gerald Gratton McGeer

With the city slumping because of the Great Depression, Gerry McGeer (b. 1888, Winnipeg, d. 1947) swept L.D. Taylor out of office on a reform platform. McGeer pledged to end decades of dilly-dallying and build a new city hall, promised to have a “crimeless city” within three months of his election and argued for constitutional reforms that would alleviate the crippling cost to municipalities of providing social services. He won by a record 25,000 votes. In 1947 he won the mayoralty again, but died in office.

1937 to 1938

George Clark Miller

Gerry McGeer left the mayor’s chair to enter parliament in Ottawa, which opened the door for veteran alderman George Miller (b. 1882 Huron County, Ont., d. 1968), who said he would carry on McGeer’s reforms. Like McGeer, Miller wanted to lower interest rates and provide employment through civic works. The election was the first to feature Non-Partisan Association candidates, but was overshadowed by the tortured saga of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson — the King abdicated on Dec. 10, 1936, the day after the election.

1939 to 1940

James Lyle Telford

Dr. James Telford (b. 1889, Valens, Ont., d. 1960) was a fiery Cooperative Commonwealth Federation MLA who topped the earnest but dull Miller by 2,000 votes. The biggest controversy of the election was Telford’s charge in the provincial legislature that there had been financial hanky-panky between Duff Pattullo’s provincial Liberal government and the builders of the Pattullo Bridge. Former Medicine Hat mayor Nelson Spencer split the right-wing vote with a campaign to depose “the invisible government at the city hall.”

1941 to 1946

‘Jack’ Jonathan Cornett

Telford’s penchant for controversy undermined his popularity, and he was upset by shoe salesman Jack Cornett (b. 1883, Lansdowne, Ont., d. 1973) in the 1941 election. The Second World War was raging overseas, and Cornett ran as a patriot, “wholeheartedly for the interests of the British Empire in our hour of need.” Cornett pulled no punches in his ads. One read: “Citizens! End the false and reckless charges, costly investigations, harmful ballyhoo, the noise, the fuss and futility of two years!”


Charles Jones

Longtime alderman Charles Jones (b. Whitby, England, 1881, d. 1948) became mayor when Gerry McGeer dropped dead in office. Unfortunately the 67-year-old Jones also died in office on Sept. 1, 1948, 13 months after McGeer. Former mayor George Miller filled in the rest of Jones’ term. The big surprise of the 1947 election was the showing of the left-leaning Effie Jones, who campaigned for cheaper streetcar fares and drew an astounding 19,218 votes. One of Charles Jones’ election platforms was to fill in False Creek for industrial development. Honest.

1949 to 1950

Charles E. Thompson

Car dealer Charles Thompson (b 1890, Grey County, Ont., d. 1966) wanted to “make a gr
eat city greater” with a 10-year plan to build new roads and sewers, solve parking problems, build a new Granville Street bridge, and rebuild Main and Hastings streets. This was the height of the Red Scare, and The Sun cautioned the apathetic electorate that socialist and even communist supporters might take city hall if they didn’t come out and vote. One of CCF candidate Tom Alsbury’s planks was anti-communism.

1951 to 1958

Frederick Hume

Fred Hume (b. New Westminster, 1893, d. 1967) is the only person to be elected mayor of both Vancouver (1951-58) and New Westminster (1933-42). He is also the only person to be elected Vancouver mayor while living in West Vancouver. In his first Vancouver election, Hume advocated revising the provincial sales tax, establishing a Lower Mainland-wide police force, and filling in False Creek for development, which would eliminate the need for a new Granville Bridge. The bridge was built instead.

1959 to 1962

A. Thomas Alsbury

Everyone agreed Fred Hume was a good guy, but after nearly a decade in power, people began to question his leadership. Former teacher Tom Alsbury (b. 1904, Edinburgh, d. 1990) let his CCF membership lapse to run as an independent, and topped Hume by 11,000 votes. Alsbury promised “swift action” on unemployment, polluted beaches, sewage disposal and slum clearance. The construction of a tunnel under the First Narrows from the West End to West Vancouver was promoted by numerous candidates.

1963 to 1966

William George Rathie

Seventy-six years after the city of Vancouver was born, it finally got a Vancouver-born mayor in Bill Rathie (b. 1914, d. 1994). After Tom Alsbury decided to accept a job at the University of British Columbia rather than run for a second term, Rathie and the Non-Partisan Association slate swept all civic offices. Rathie’s main electoral plank was to wrestle more cash for the city out of Socred premier W.A.C. Bennett. In a plebiscite, voters finally voted in favour of allowing movies to be shown on Sunday.

1967 to 1972

Tom Campbell

Fiery alderman, lawyer and developer Tom Campbell (b. 1927, Vancouver) stunned Bill Rathie and the NPA by taking the mayor’s chair in the 1967 vote. Campbell promised to build a new Georgia Street viaduct and expand the city’s park space at Jericho Beach and First and Rupert streets. He also said he would fill in parts of False Creek, and hoped to stage a world’s fair on the reclaimed land. As mayor “Tom Terrific” was loved by developers, but was viewed as Public Enemy No. 1 by hippies.

1973 to 1976

Art Phillips

Investment analyst and alderman Art Phillips (b. 1930, Montreal) led a TEAM (The Electors Action Movement) landslide in the 1973 election. Phillips was more or less anointed mayor after the NPA candidate withdrew following a conflict of interest scandal — he beat his closest contender by 52,000 votes. TEAM campaigned for a more democratic city government, more power to the neighbourhoods and a ward system. They also pledged to overhaul the civic thevancouversunistration, make better use of city-owned property and to stop a controversial Chinatown firehall.

1977 to 1980

Jack Volrich

Jack Volrich (b. 1928, Anyox, B.C.) picked up the TEAM torch from Phillips and won an easy victory over the NPA’s Ed Sweeney. The campaign was fairly lacklustre — Volrich’s reputation for being “very tight with a dollar” gave the NPA no big issue to fight on. Volrich promised action on getting a rapid transit system for Vancouver, argued that the province should turn the University Endowment Lands into parkland, and pledged to get a better deal for civic taxpayers from Bill Bennett’s Socred government in Victoria.

1980 to 1986

Michael Harcourt

Former TEAM alderman and future NDP premier Mike Harcourt (b. 1943, Edmonton) ran as an independent and upset Volrich by 3,000 votes to become mayor. Harcourt railed against the way the NPA had failed to press the ward system after it was backed by a plebiscite. He also questioned the viability and location of Transpo 86 in False Creek, vowed to start immediately on a rapid transit system and to get more housing for low-income people. Although he was one of Expo 86’s earliest critics, he was mayor during the fair.

1986 to 1993

Gordon Campbell

After Mike Harcourt moved to provincial politics, youthful developer Gordon Campbell (b. 1948, Vancouver) topped longtime alderman Harry Rankin in a classic left versus right battle. Rankin ran on the traditional left issues of social housing, civic works and job creation; Campbell ran on free-enterprise planks like extending shopping hours and new industrial zoning. Although Rankin had regularly finished at or near the top of council polls, Campbell won by almost 20,000 votes, and ushered in a new golden era for the NPA.

1993 to 2002

Philip Owen

Longtime NPA alderman Philip Owen (b. 1933, Vancouver) handily beat Committee of Progressive Electors candidate Libby Davies in the somewhat dull 1993 election. Detractors mocked Owen’s slow, methodical approach, but voters elected Owen mayor three times, making him one of the longest-serving mayors in Vancouver history. Initially seen as pro-business, by the end of his tenure he was hailed by the left for his championing of a different approach to the Downtown Eastside’s drug and social problems.

{2011 update: Owen’s term was followed by Larry Campbell, Sam Sullivan and the current mayor, Gregor Robertson.}

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