place on their prison grounds.

The Gallows at Saanich

Between 1871 and the abolition of the death penalty in 1976, 139 British Columbians
were sent to the gallows. Staff conducting historical research at Vancouver Island
Regional Correctional Centre (VIRCC) discovered that one of these hangings took

The condemned man was a 46-year-old Scotsman named Robert Suttie, a miner who
was employed on a road gang near Oyster River. He was an intemperate sort who was
described by his peers as “a friendly fellow unless he had been on the drink.” On the

morning of May 14, 1915, Suttie got into a heated argument with his foreman. Later,
while still under the influence of alcohol, he shot his supervisor dead.

Suttie was arrested and remanded in custody at the Old Victoria Gaol at Hillside until
the newly built Saanich Prison Farm (now VIRCC) opened that September. A jury at
the Nanaimo Supreme Court Assizes swiftly convicted Suttie of first-degree murder and
on November 17, Justice H.H. Murphy served him with the ultimate penalty.

A scaffold for the gallows was erected in the Saanich Prison yard behind the east wing of
the main building, Suttie took solace in the Bible and asserted to the last that the
shooting was an accident. However, the courts were undeterred. On January 5, 1916,
hangman Arthur Ellis finally sprang the trap and Robert Suttie fell to his demise in

front of a small gathering of judicial representatives and members of the press.

Twelve minutes later, Old Doc Helmcken pronounced him dead. His body was then
released to the Reverend Inkster for internment in a pauper’s grave at Ross Bay

Cemetery. The burial took place the following day.'

The provincial legislation to establish this
institution was the Industrial Home for Girls Act,
passed in 1911. The facility opened in the
spring of 1914 on a seven-acre site at 800
Cassiar Street in Vancouver. Space was
provided for gardening and outdoor exercise in
a home-like atmosphere.

Girls wete committed to the school mostly for
being runaways and incorrigible (according to
section 6 of the act). A small percentage was
committed for stealing. These girls were seen as
unmanageable, restless, and needing a regime of
discipline and punishment, which included
training, education and moral reclamation. As
with other facilities constructed at this time,
punishment was the guiding philosophy.

16 Philip Williams, “The Gallows at Saanich,“ CorrTech Quarterly, Corrections Branch, Fall 2000, p. 12.

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Corrections in British Columbia