GORE, William Sinclair (1842-1919) of Victoria, B.C. held the government post of Surveyor-General for British Columbia from December 1878 to March 1891, and as provincial Deputy Minister of Lands & Works from April 1891 to October 1905. In his capacity as Surveyor General, he held responsibility for preparing designs for all provincial government buildings in British Columbia including schools, court houses, lock-ups, and provincial jails during the period from 1878 to 1891. He was a particularly skilled delineator and draftsman; many of his original architectural drawings have survived and are now held by the British Columbia Public Archives in Victoria. He was also responsible for writing the specifications and conditions for the international architectural competition for the B.C. Parliament Buildings in 1892 which elicited over 60 entries from Canada, the United States, and from England.
Gore was born in London, Ontario on 29 June 1842, son of William Gore, a civil engineer. He was sent to public school in Ireland, then returned to Ontario where he took courses in civil engineering at the University of Toronto, and later articled under C.G. Hanning, a land surveyor in Bowmanville. He obtained his commission as Provincial Land Surveyor in July 1864, and moved to Victoria, B.C. in 1875. In December of that year he was appointed chief draftsman in the Dept. of Lands & Works, and three years later was appointed Surveyor-General for the province. An examination of his original architectural drawings prepared during the period from 1879 to 1891 show designs which are invariably of wood frame construction, modest in size, and always symmetrical in plan and elevation. A notable exception is his substantial Romanesque Revival design for the Provincial Jail in Victoria (1885-86; demol.). In 1891 he was promoted to Deputy Chief Commissioner of Lands & Works, and the designs for provincial buildings appear to have then been delegated to others, with Gore taking on a supervisory role in the Department. He retired from this post in 1905.
Gore later died in Victoria on 11 April 1919 (obituary Victoria Daily Times, 12 April 1919, 7; Daily Colonist [Victoria], 12 April 1919, 7; biog. and port. in Annual Report of the Ontario Land Surveyors, 1922, 133-35; biog. & port. Donald Luxton, Building The West: The Early Architects of British Columbia, 2003, 82 & 502). An original photographic portrait of Gore taken c. 1900 is held at BCPA, Victoria. One of his sons, Thomas S. Gore (1869- ), was an architect who later lived and worked in Mexico City.
(works in British Columbia)
YALE, B.C., Provincial Court House, 1881; Lock-up building, 1882 (dwgs. at BCPA, Victoria)
RICHFIELD, CARIBOO REGION, B.C. [now a ghost town], Provincial Government Building, 1882 (dwgs. at BCPA, Victoria)
VICTORIA, B.C., public school, James Bay, 1883; demol. (dwgs. at BCPA, Victoria)
NANAIMO, B.C., public school, 1885 (dwgs. at BCPA, Victoria)
VICTORIA, B.C., Provincial Jail, Saanich Road, off Topaz Avenue 1885-86; demol.c. 1914 (Daily British Colonist [Victoria], 1 Aug. 1885, 3, descrip.; 3 March 1886, 3, detailed descrip.; Victoria Heritage Foundation, This Old House: Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods, Vol. 3, 2021, 80, illus. & descrip.)
VICTORIA, B.C., new Girl's School, on the lands of the Central School House, 1885-86 (Daily British Colonist [Victoria], 11 Feb. 1886, 3)
VANCOUVER, B.C., public school, 1886 (Daily British Colonist [Victoria], 28 Aug. 1886, 2, t.c.; dwgs. at BCPA, Victoria)
NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C., public school, c. 1886 (dwgs. at BCPA, Victoria)
VICTORIA, B.C., Cedar Hill Public School & Teacher's Residence, c. 1886; demol. and replaced by new school in 1912 (dwgs. at BCPA, Victoria)
DONALD, B.C., Gaol and lock-up, c. 1887 (dwgs. at BCPA, Victoria)
DUNCAN, B.C., Provincial Government Building, 1890 (dwgs. at BCPA, Victoria)
VICTORIA, B.C., Central School & High School, with Gymnasium, 1897 (C.A.B., xi, March 1898, illus. Plate, photo No. Five)