Additional Clubs & PCC (1905–1914)
In 1905, a second cricket club, Burrard, was incorporated. In 1906, Vancouver C.C. and Burrard C.C. joined forces to form the Pacific Coast Cricket Association. During the 1906 cricket season, representative cricket was arranged between the combined Vancouver club sides against Victoria, New Westminster, Seattle, Tacoma, Portland and Nanaimo. By 1913, the Pacific Coast Cricket Association had blossomed into a week of continuous cricket hosted in alternate years by Victoria and Vancouver. Vancouver Cricket Club won the BCMCL 1st Division championship trophy in the first year of the BCMCL’s existence in 1914, but a side from Vancouver Island, Cowichan, who had been incorporated in 1912, captured the prestigious Pacific Coast trophy, emblematic of West Coast cricket supremacy, home and away (Vancouver and Victoria), in 1913 and 1914. To a man, the Cowichan 1st XI enlisted when World War 1 was declared. The Cowichan club remains active to this day and continues the tradition of hosting a cricket week. Cowichan and the Victoria and District League have been a rock of stability over the 20th and into the 21st century.
Cowichan Cricket Club A Model of Sustainable Cricket Development
Cowichan Cricket Club is a corporation and owns the timbered land on which their cricket clubhouse and cricket playing field is located. Separately, the Cowichan community supports a lawn tennis club and courts and has maintained the grass tennis courts to this day. When the timber on the cricket club property was last harvested, the club donated a substantial portion of the proceeds to a Canadian Cricket Association trust managed by the Toronto Cricket Club. The Cambie Street Grounds, cricket ground(s) in proximity to George Black’s Tavern, and the Cowichan Cricket Club were examples of sustainable cricket projects funded by sweat equity and private enterprise. The Cowichan Cricket Club may have also been exempt from municipal zoning and property tax being levied on their playing fields and improvements.
An Act to Incorporate the Brockton Point Athletic Club (1889)
In 1889, an Act to Incorporate the Brockton Point Athletic Club was passed. The legislation created a corporation with rights to acquire land, build and borrow, and limit member and subscriber personal liability. Second, the legislation provided the means whereby a sinking fund was to be created for the City of Vancouver to fund both the clearing of the land and construction of improvements and allow the Athletic Club to repay the debt under a lease for a term. In the same year, an amendment was passed to the City of Vancouver Charter to create the Vancouver Parks Board with jurisdiction over City of Vancouver parks.
Early Clearing of Brockton Point & Memorandum of Understanding (1890)
Prior to the building of the bridge over Lost Lagoon in 1888, the initial clearing of the Brockton Point area of Stanley Park was begun by Captain Edward Stamp for the purpose of building a sawmill. The sawmill was never built. Fortuitously for amateur sport, into the breach stepped Mr. Sweeney, the branch manager of the Bank of Montreal, and his corporate vehicle, the Brockton Point Athletic Club. On April 21, 1890, a Memorandum of Understanding and lease was signed by the Athletic Club with the City of Vancouver to develop the Brockton Point Stanley Park lands, 10 acres more or less.