Southgate & Lascelles Building (Victoria)

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A white marble inset on the second storey's south side is inscribed: 'Southgate & Lascelles Building. Erected A.D. 1869'.
The ground floor was built in 1869 on land that had previously been part of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Victoria. The second floor was added in 1887 during an economic boom initiated by the building of the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway and the anticipated benefits from the Canadian Pacific Railway terminus at Vancouver then still a mill town on Burrard Inlet.

This building has association with James Johnson Southgate and Horace Douglas Lascelles, the commissioners of the building. Southgate was a retired ship’s master who came to Victoria from San Francisco in 1859, and went into business as a commission and general merchant. He was a prominent citizen as he founded the Masonic Lodg and was a member of the legislature for Salt Spring Island. He retired to England in 1865 and died in London in 1894. Southgate’s legacy is commemorated in numerous place names throughout British Columbia, such as Southgate River and Southgate Peak.

The site is also significant as an example of the work of two architects, Richard Lewis (1824-1875) who designed the original section, and John Teague who designed the additions. Lewis arrived in Victoria, via Chile and San Francisco, with the horde of miners in search of Fraser River gold. In the business and building boom of the early 1860s that followed the discovery of gold in the Cariboo district, Lewis designed all the buildings along the section of Wharf Street known as Commercial Row, then the business centre of town. All these were in the Italianate architectural style and all survive. Lewis played an active role in fraternal societies, such as the Pioneer Society and the Deluge Fire Company, and served as Mayor for part of 1872.

John Teague was Victoria’s most prolific architect of the nineteenth century. Born in Cornwall, Teague followed the lure of gold, first in California and then in the Fraser Valley. After some time in the gold fields, he settled in Victoria in 1860, where he lived and worked until his death. Teague served the city as councillor in 1885, and as mayor for two terms, 1892 and 1893. During his career Teague designed over 350 buildings mostly in Victoria including the City Hall.

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