Crease, Sir Henry Pering Pellew
b. 1823-08-20
d. 1905-11-27
Henry Pering Pellew Crease was born at Ince Castle, Cornwall, on 20 August 1823. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Clare College, Cambridge, in 1847, studied law in the Middle Temple, London, and was called to the bar in June 1849.1 He then went to Ontario, where he worked with a surveying and exploring party on Lake Superior. After losing money he and his family had invested in Canadian canals, he returned to England, only to return again to Ontario in 1858.2
In December of that year, he went to Vancouver Island to work as a barrister. In January 1860 he was elected a member of the House of Assembly of Vancouver Island for Victoria district but was criticized for leaning towards the HBC despite his speeches in favour of reform. On 14 October 1861, he was appointed attorney general of the mainland colony of British Columbia, settling with his family in New Westminster.3
When the capital of the colony moved from New Westminster to Victoria, Crease was obliged to move back to Victoria. He was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in May 1870. Crease aspired to the position of chief justice, but he was too old to take the post when Matthew Baillie Begbie died in 1894. Crease was knighted in 1896 and retired to his estate in Victoria, dying there in 1905.4
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