Francis Mawson Rattenbury (11 October 1867 – 28 March 1935) was a British architect although most of his career was spent in British Columbia, Canada, where he designed the province's legislative building among other public commissions. Divorced amid scandal, he was murdered in England at the age of 67 by his second wife's lover.
Architectural career
Rattenbury was born in 1867 in Leeds, England. He began his architectural career with an apprenticeship in 1884 to the "Lockwood and Mawson Company" in England, where he worked until he left for Canada. In 1891, he arrived in Vancouver, in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
The province, anxious to show its growing economic, social and political status, was engaged in an architectural competition to build a new legislative building in Victoria. The new immigrant entered, signing his drawings with the pseudonym "A B.C. Architect," and won the competition. Despite many problems, including going over-budget by $400,000, the British Columbia Parliament Buildings were officially opened in 1898. The grand scale of its -long facade, central dome and two end pavilions, the richness of its white marble, and its use of the currently-popular Romanesque style contributed to its being seen as an impressive monument for the new province. Rattenbury's success in the competition garnered him many commissions in Victoria and other parts of the province, including additions to the Legislative Buildings in 1913–1915. In 1900 he was commissioned to design the 18 bedroom, three story Burns Manor in Calgary for his close friend Pat Burns.
He designed Paardeburg Gate (1901), a memorial to South African war soldiers opposite the Legislative Buildings, 1901.
Rattenbury worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway as their Western Division Architect. His best known work for the CPR was a Chateau-style hotel, The Empress, which was built in 1904–1908 in Victoria, with two wings added in 1909–1914. The architect, however, fell out with the CPR and then joined their competition, the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. He designed many hotels and stations for the GTP, but they were never completed because of the death of the president, Charles Melville Hays, in the sinking of the RMS Titanic and the company's subsequent bankruptcy. The largest of these would have been the Château Prince Rupert. The CPR allowed him to return, however, and he built the second CPR Steamship Terminal in Victoria in 1923–1924 in association with another architect, Percy James. Rattenbury and James also collaborated in the design of the Crystal Garden at the same time although they later had a public conflict over Rattenbury's refusal to give James credit and payment for his work on the Garden.
Just as quickly as he became popular, Rattenbury and his architecture fell out of favour. Perhaps a symptom of his waning popularity, he lost the competition to build the Saskatchewan Legislative Building, built 1908–1912 in Regina, to E. and W.S. Maxwell, two Montreal architects trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In contrast to the Maxwells, Rattenbury had no formal training in architecture, and with increasing professionalism, he was soon outpaced by better-trained and better-educated architects.
Personal life
At 25 years old Rattenbury moved to Vancouver and placed an ad in The Vancouver Daily World announcing his arrival along with the credentials of having been trained by the influential English architect Henry Francis Lockwood (1811-1878), although Lockwood had died when Rattenbury was just 11 years old.
Soon after winning the competition for the Legislative Buildings in Victoria, Rattenbury was involved in a series of financial ventures. He planned to supply meat and cattle to prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush and he ordered three steam trains to serve the Yukon Territory. The investments eventually became profitable. After World War I, however, his luck turned sour with the failure of some financial speculations, eventually leading to conflicts with his business partners.
His personal life also began to show strains at this time. In 1923, he left his wife Florence Eleanor Nunn, whom he had married in 1898, and his adult children, Frank and Mary, for the 27-year-old, twice-married Alma Pakenham. His maltreatment of Florence, which included having the heating and lights turned off in their home after he moved out and the public flaunting of his affair with Alma, led his former clients and associates to shun him, and the couple soon left Victoria.
