He sent his daughters to public schools rather than the private finishing schools that were regarded as the proper education for young middle-class Victorian girls. Richard Carr was a key influence on the young Emily: while proud of his English heritage, according to her, he desired a “Canadian education” for his family. It was a piece of land which he bought later when Canada had made Father and Mother love her, and at the end of fifty years, we still called that piece of ground “the new field. Just one of Father’s fields was left Canadian. There were hawthorn hedges, primrose banks and cow pastures with shrubberies…. It was as though Father had buried a tremendous homesickness in this new soil and it had rooted and sprung up English. Everything about it was extremely English. The house was large and well-built, of California redwood, the garden prim and carefully tended. About her father Carr writes,Īs far back as I can remember Father’s place was all made and in order. The city was an expatriate British settlement, home to the Songhees First Nation and a significant population of Chinese workers and merchants. Richard returned to England briefly with his wife, Emily Saunders, to enjoy the wealth he had accumulated as a merchant in California, before moving permanently to Victoria in 1863. Richard Carr had the family home built on Government Street in Victoria in 1864. The Carr family residence, with Richard, Emily (Saunders) Carr, and children assembled on the front porch, c. 1869. Studio portrait of Carr’s parents, Emily Carr (née Saunders) and Richard Carr, c. 1876.
Clockwise from left: Lizzie, Edith, Clara, Emily, and Alice.
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