History of RPNs in BC: 1900 - 1949

B.C.'s first forensic psychiatric facility opens: the Provincial Mental Home for the Criminally Insane, at Colquitz (Saanich District) on Vancouver Island.

The Hospital for the Mind is officially opened, taking 300 of the most seriously ill patients (all male) from the Public House of the Insane. The building is renamed the Male Chronic Building and was renamed in 1950 to West Lawn. The Public Hospital for the Insane then served exclusively in the treatment of women until 1930.

John Davidson, Provincial Botanist, establishes western Canada's first botanical garden and arboretum on the Essondale grounds believing that the therapeutic effects of the garden will benefit the patients. The garden later moves to the new UB.C. campus in 1916 but the unique collections of trees remain. Colony Farm gains a reputation as the best farm in Western Canada, known for its abundant crops and productive dairy farm.

Construction begins on the new "Hospital for the Mind"; later to be called Essondale, in honour of Dr. Henry Esson Young, the provincial cabinet minister who advocated that the new hospital be built.

The Coquitlam site is cleared using mostly patient labour. Colony Farm, located down the hill from the new site (and now home to the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital), is established to grow food for the PHI.

B.C. government purchases Colony Farm and 1,000 acres in rural Coquitlam for the construction for a new psychiatric hospital, now known as Riverview Hospital.

The psychiatric literature lists the principle causes of insanity as heredity, intemperance, syphilis and masturbation.