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Colonial Schools
The schoolhouse displayIn the 1860s teachers used quill pens and the students wrote on a slate boards with a slate pencil.
Mike Scott Photograph, RBCM img4834.

When Vancouver Island was declared a Crown Colony in 1849, James Douglas, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, invited the Reverend Robert Staines, a Church of England minister to become both the Company Chaplain and schoolmaster.  Shortly after his arrival, the Oblate mission sent Father Honore Timothy Lampfrit to teach children of Roman Catholic parents.

Two school buildings of the early colonial period still exist, Craigflower School, started by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1851, and St. Ann's Schoolhouse from 1858.

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