Henry Pering Pellew Crease

Henry Crease was the prosecutor in the case against Tshuanahusset, and also a member of the six-person Executive Council which confirmed the death sentence on Tshuanahusset.

Born in Cornwall England in 1825, Crease graduated from Cambridge University and studied law. He interrupted his studies and lived two years in Turkey under medical treatment for a pulmonary infection. After he was called to the bar in 1849 he moved to Toronto, Canada West and joined an expedition exploring a proposed ship canal between Lakes Huron and Superior. Returning to England in 1851, he became a mine manager in Cornwall and during this time married Sarah Lindley, daughter of the renowned British botanist, Dr. John Lindley. As a result of a financial scandal, of which he was later cleared of wrongdoing, in 1857 he returned to Toronto, and in 1858 came to Vancouver Island just as the gold rush was starting and litigation was everywhere.

Establishing himself as a lawyer, he sent for his wife and three daughters who arrived in Victoria in February 1860. His wife responded to his invitation: "...your proposition of Vancouver's Island was a little startling at first--from its great distance away--but I am quite ready dearest to consider that as our future home it pleases God to direct our steps hither...." He represented Victoria in the Legislative Assembly for Vancouver Island from 1860-62, and was appointed Attorney General of the neighbouring colony of British Columbia in April 1861, and moved to New Westminister in that Colony in 1862. As Attorney General he sat on the Executive Council. He served as Attorney General of British Columbia, continuing after that colony's unification with Vancouver Island, until 1870 when he was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. He was knighted in 1896 and died in 1905.

As Tina Loo described him, "Henry Crease was drawn from that very self-conscious English middle class who aspired to gentility and the everyday aesthetics that went along with it but who did not have the economic means to sustain their aspirations without migrating to the colonies." He sent his sons to private school in England and resisted British Columbia's 1871 Confederation with Canada, calling Canadians 'North American Chinamen.'"

Notes:

Unlike William Robinson or other participants, Henry Crease left a considerable paper trail. His personal legal records fill 2 metres of shelf space at the BC Archives and fill 14 boxes. There is a recent biography of his wife, Henry and Self, The Private Life of Sarah Crease, 1826-1922 by Kathryn Bridge, (Victoria: Sono Nis, 1996).

Sources: Tina Loo, "Sir Henry Pering Pellew Crease," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. XIII, (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1994) pp. 228-31; Bridge, Henry and Self; J.B. Kerr, Biographical Dictionary of Well Known British Columbians, (Vancouver: Kerr and Begg, 1890) p. 133.