BELL-IRVING, Henry Ogle (1856-1931) is best known as a civil engineer and as a prominent industrialist of Vancouver, B.C., but soon after his arrival in Canada from England in 1882 he practiced as an architect for four years from 1885 to 1889, and was '....responsible for designing some of the first residences' in that city. Born in Milkbank, Dumfrieshire, Scotland on 25 June 1856, he was educated at Edinburgh, in Germany, and in Switzerland. He began a career as a civil engineer in England in 1878, and emigrated to western Canada in 1882 where he was appointed engineer in the construction of the C.P.R. After his brief career as an architect he launched his own salmon canning business in 1889 and was still its president at the time of his death on 19 February 1931 (obituary in Vancouver Sun, 19 Feb. 1931, 1-2; biography in Who's Who in Western Canada, i, 1911, 106; D. Luxton, Building the West: The Early Architects of British Columbia, 2003, 120-21, 492). A detailed biography of Henry O. Bell-Irving has recently been published in The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 16, 1931-40 (available online)
(works in Vancouver)
SEATON STREET, at Pender Street, residence and stables for J.M. Spinks, 1888; demol. (Vancouver Daily World, 29 Sept. 1888, 3; and 31 Dec. 1888, 4)
PENDER STREET, residence for Capt. R.G. Tatlow, 1888; demol. (Vancouver Daily World, 29 Sept. 1888, 3; and 31 Dec. 1888, 4)
BELL-IRVING BLOCK, Cordova Street near Richards Street, 1888; demol. 1932 (Vancouver Daily World, 29 Sept. 1888, 2, descrip.)
HARWOOD STREET, 'The Strands', a residence for the architect, 1907; demol. (D. Luxton, Building the West: The Early Architects of British Columbia, 2003, 492)