page_title: Christ Church Cathedral (Victoria, British Columbia)
section_title: First church (1856–1869)
hierarchical_section_title: Christ Church Cathedral (Victoria, British Columbia) / History / First church (1856–1869)
caption_attribution_description: Image of George Hills (1816-1895), Anglican Bishop.
context_page_description: Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria, British Columbia is the cathedral church of the Diocese of British Columbia of the Anglican Church of Canada.
context_section_description: The Hudson's Bay Company hired Robert John Staines, graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, to teach the children of Fort Victoria, and offered him a further stipend to take Holy Orders and serve as chaplain to the fort as well. He arrived at the fort with his wife Emma and servants in 1849, none too impressed with the rustic conditions at this remote trading post. For their part, the small fort community became increasingly dissatisfied with his teaching skills and manner, such that he was discharged in 1854. He in turn set off for London to grieve the Company's land policies at the Colonial Office on behalf of fellow settlers.
  Staines had held Anglican services in the mess room of Fort Victoria and aboard visiting ships pending completion of a church. The Company appointed Edward Cridge, a college friend of Staines, as his replacement. Cridge and his new wife Mary arrived from England on April 1, 1855, via the new Panama Canal Railway. The 1855 census of Victoria reported "232 non-native persons". The company church, designed and supervised by J D Pemberton, Colonial Surveyor, was finally ready for use on August 31, 1856 and was initially known as the Victoria District Church.    
  Beginning in 1858, Victoria was overrun with gold seekers on their way to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Hundreds of makeshift structures went up and several years of intense growth ensued. December 12, 1859, Queen Victoria issued Royal Letters Patent creating the Bishopric of British Columbia. On January 12, 1859, Letters Patent  created the Diocese of British Columbia, endowed by The Baroness Burdett-Coutts. On February 24, 1859, the Rev. George Hills was consecrated in Westminster Abbey as its first Bishop.  After a summer of fundraising for the Columbia Mission Fund, Bishop Hills sailed for Victoria and arrived on January 6, 1860. Bishop Hills had engaged the clipper barque Athelstan to bring from England a pre-fabricated church building and furnishings, which arrived in February. It was erected on Block R, Douglas St., about half a mile north of Christ Church, and was consecrated as the Church of St. John the Divine, after his parish in Yarmouth.
  The Town of Victoria was incorporated in 1862 with 6000 people and 1500 buildings. Vancouver Island reverted from the Hudson's Bay Company to the Crown, and Fort Victoria was demolished. Hills had to choose which of the two churches to make the cathedral. St. John's could hold 600.  Christ Church had been built with a capacity of 400, but an apse and south aisle were added to it in 1862 and a north aisle in 1865. On December 7, 1865, opting for the better location of Christ Church, he consecrated Christ Church Cathedral and appointed Cridge as its first dean.
  On the night of September 30, 1869, the cathedral burned to the ground. The communion vessels and organ were rescued and the vestry books survived. The parish used a vacant Presbyterian church for several years while they rebuilt.
caption: Rev. George Hills was consecrated as the first Bishop of British Columbia in 1859
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