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. 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.
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.
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.
Dorothy Blakey Smith, The Journal of Arthur Thomas Bushby, 1858-1859, BCHQ 21, (1957-58): 170-71; Gordon R.Elliott, Henry P. Pellew Crease: Confederation or No Confederation, BC Studies 12 (Winter 1971-72): 63-74.See also J. B. Kerr, Biographical Dictionary of Well-Known British Columbians (Vancouver: Kerr and Begg, 1890), p. 133, and the Victoria Times, 27 February 1905. BCCOR 255.1, Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966-) 13.