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Robert Hubbard, Ample Mansions: The Vice-Regal Residences of the Canadian Provinces JUDITH TOMLIN

Robert Hubbard, Ample Mansions: The Vice-Regal tutional monarchy in Canada to produce an Residences of the Canadian Provinces. Ottawa: interesting look at the home and family side of University of Ottawa Press, 1989. 237 pp., 223 ill. vice-regal appointments. Dr. Hubbard has Cloth $34.95, ISBN 0-7766-0277-2. combed the federal and provincial archives as well as newspapers, museums and other his­ Dr. Robert Hubbard died on November 11, toric institutions and has come up with hun­ 1989, just a few months after publication of his dreds of photographs, prints, paintings, and latest book on the subject that had interested drawings. This abundance of photographs can him most in the latter part of his long career. occasionally work against a clear perception of Ample Mansions: The Vice-Regal Residence of each house, however distinctive its exterior. the Canadian Provinces is very much a follow-, Unfortunately, as most of the residences which up to his earlier work, Rideau Hall, in both still exist were haphazardly decorated by a organization and intent. combination of penny-pinching civil servants Like its predecessor, Ample Mansions is an and ever-changing occupants, there is a boring informative and entertaining memoir of those similarity to the interiors of the remaining re­ houses which became the official residences of sidences. A present-day illustration of the the lieutenant-governors of the provinces. The Drawing Room of Government House in term "Government House," as used by Halifax, for example, is strangely similar to Dr. Hubbard, refers specifically to those large more than one room at Rideau Hall, with the houses where the official family lives and same style of mirrors, the same mixture of shares working space with the administrative Victorian furniture with a few surviving pieces staff. The senior Government House is Rideau from earlier periods, and even the same Hall, the residence of the Governor General, mantels and cornices. where Dr. Hubbard spent many years as The ambivalent attitude that Canadians Cultural Advisor and, after his retirement, today evidence towards the provision of hous­ stayed on as Honourary Historian. ing at public expense for their leaders is, as Ample Mansions approaches the history of Dr. Hubbard illustrates, a historical tradition. the vice-regal mansions in chronological order Complaints over extravagance and the wasting of colonial settlement, proceeding from the of public funds are nothing new; as early as beginning of New France to present day 1831 a public inquiry was called in New­ Quebec and then to each province or region foundland into the construction and furni­ more or less in order of their entry into shing of the colony's new Government House. Confederation. The author provides an intro­ As a result of public carping and occa­ duction to the early political history of each sionally misplaced egalitarianism, some of the colony. Of necessity, this is very brief and vice-regal mansions have been closed as eco­ superficial, but it does help to place a confus­ nomy measures. New Brunswick was the first ing mass of events in proper sequence and to province to do so in 1893. Today that province introduce the author's true purpose, an exam­ houses its lieutenant-governor in a modest ination of the architectural and social history house while maintaining the original 1828 of each vice-regal residence. residence as the provincial headquarters of the In this book the author's interest in Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Ontario was architectural history combines with his even more ruthless in dealing with the ques­ obvious support for the role of the consti­ tion of an official residence. Canada's richest

Material History Bulletin 32 (Fall 1990) I Bulletin d'histoire de la culture matérielle 32 (automnel990) 73 province closed its last vice-regal residence in There is no confusion in the author's mind 1937 and demolished it in 1961. No other as to whether the closing or abandonment of residence has ever been provided. Alberta's the surviving mansions was wise. It may have Government House has become a conference been politically expedient at the time but and reception centre, and the Provincial Canada's architectural and cultural heritage Museum has been built on its grounds. could not help but be diminished. Current Government House in Regina has now been efforts in some provinces to restore the his­ restored to the style of the 1890s and is open to torical fabric of these mansions, such as the public. Three of the four Atlantic pro­ Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, and in the vinces, however, still maintain their original federal jurisdiction under the direction of the mansions, as does Manitoba. Quebec's vice­ Official Residences Council, tend to support regal residence from the 1860s, known as Dr. Hubbard's opinion. Ample Mansions is Spencer Wood or Bois-de-Coulonge, burned to certain to be as valuable a resource to those the ground in 1966 with the lieutenant- involved in the care and restoration of the governor himself perishing in the fire. British provincial residences, as was Rideau Hall to Columbia's residence also burned to the those involved in the long-term care of ground twice, but the province continued the Government House in Ottawa. tradition of an official residence after each fire.

Susan Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums During the Late Nineteenth Century VICTORIA DICKENSON

Susan Sheets-Pyenson. Cathedrals of Science: The between scientific activity in a metropolitan Development of Colonial Natural History Museums centre and in the hinterland. Sheets-Pyenson During the Late Nineteenth Century. Montreal: writes, "By looking at the development of McGill-Queens University Press, 1988. 144 pp., 20 ill. Cloth $24.95, ISBN 0-7735-0655-1. colonial natural history museums...and by examining the role of their early directors, it Susan Sheets-Pyenson has written a welcome becomes possible to delineate the nature of addition to the slender body of historical colonial science at close range" (p. 15). literature on museums. Though there are a fair The "hinterland" thesis is perhaps more number of institutional and personal familiar to Canadians in its economic form, so biographies (Edward Miller, That Noble well expounded by Harold Innes in his books Cabinet; Lovat Dickson, The Museum Makers; on the cod fisheries and the fur trade. Sheets- Gerald Killan, David Boyle; Edward Pyenson's version of this idea is that used by Alexander, Museum Masters), few recent the historians of science, particularly George books have dealt with the examination of the Basalla, who defined the idea of "colonial museum as a social institution. science." Basalla states that the colonial Sheets-Pyenson has two aims. The first is to scientist is educated abroad, depends on document a "remarkable development"—the European books, laboratory equipment and museum explosion of the last quarter of the scientific instruments, and like his coun­ nineteenth century, which as the author notes, terparts in other industries, is the supplier of has largely escaped the notice of historians of raw materials to his intellectual masters in the science and society (p. 3). Despite their metropolitan museums who act as the theorists enormous physical presence in cities and or gatekeepers of scientific knowledge. His small towns, most historians have failed to thesis has been further developed to explore study either the organization of the museum the relationship between imperialism and itself, or the role it plays within society. The science, and in Lucille Brockway's book, author's second aim is to examine the Science and Colonial Expansion, cited by development of colonial natural history Sheets-Pyenson, the Royal Botanic Gardens at museums as a case study in the relationship Kew are specifically seen as playing a key role

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