The purpose of this memorandum is to enter the dialogue between the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Parks Board as it pertains to the Stanley Park, Brockton Point playing fields and suggest the British Columbia Cricket Association and Brockton Point Cricket Grounds be added to the Stanley Park cultural and heritage asset list and the cricket grounds be managed and maintained by a trust.
In 1867, cricket was declared in Canada as the Dominions first national sport. British Columbia became the sixth province to enter Confederation, July 20, 1871. The first international cricket test match (of any kind), between Canada and the USA, took place in 1884 in Manhattan. April 6, 1886, the City of Vancouver was incorporated by Charter. At the City Council meeting May 12, 1886, Lochlan Alexander Hamilton, Land Commissioner for C.P. Rail and an Alderman, made the motion and council voted to petition the Canadian Government for the Coal Harbour peninsula (Stanley Park) to be conveyed to the City of Vancouver for a public park. Permission was granted June 5, 1887, by Federal Order in Council, on condition that Stanley Park, as we now know it, would revert to the Dominion if and when needed for defense purposes. In the same year Campbell Sweeney, Manager of the Vancouver branch of the Bank of Montral, incorporated the Vancouver Cricket Club. In 1888 the first recorded cricket match in Vancouver was played between Vancouver and Victoria at the Cambie Street Grounds on C.P Rail land. Al Larwell, who represented Vancouver in the cricket match also represented Vancouver at lacrosse, maintained the grounds and build a shed from whence he squatted and coached.
The first cricket match played by the newly formed Vancouver Cricket Club was an intra-club game between under- and over-30’s played on the fields beside George Black’s Tavern, in proximity to the Pacific National Exhibition grounds in East Vancouver, on March 30, 1889.
Construction crew incursions for the road to be built around Stanley Park began in earnest and were completed in 1888 after a wooden bridge was laid across the creek and tidal flats of Lost Lagoon, which at high tide cut off the peninsula (Brockton Point) from the city (Vancouver). Alderman and C.P. Rail Commissioner Lochlan Alexander Hamilton was instrumental in having the Lost Lagoon bridge built. Canadian Pacific Railway axemen did the actual work.
Once the bridge was built, cutting a playing field out of the Stanley Park forest primeval began by Jerry Rogers in 1890 and was completed by August 1892, when the first cricket match between a Vancouver side and a California side was played. The following year, the pavilion was erected and formally opened on July 1, 1893, with a Victoria XI opposing a Vancouver XI on the Brockton Point Athletic Club cricket playground, which had to be accessed by ferry. Reputedly, the 1893 contest attracted 3,000 spectators who paid an admission of $0.25 to view the cricket contest: $0.15 return and $0.10 one way to ride the Union Starship ferry from downtown Vancouver to the ferry dock at Brockton Point. From the outset, accommodating the federal government and hosting a variety of representative sporting and athletic events for gentlemen was the bill of fare served by Campbell Sweeney and the vice-presidents (directors) representing the sporting groups that comprised the membership of the Brockton Point Athletic Club. The undertaking was immense. “Go big or go home.” Cricket, a 9-hole golf course that wound itself around the cricket pitch, rugby, soccer, grass hockey, lacrosse, polo, bicycle racing, lawn tennis, track and field, and lest we forget archery, graced the Brockton Point green.
