Alice Ravenhill

by Lori Treloar

Ravenhill Road winds through a section of the Shawnigan Beach Estates. The road is named for the Ravenhill family who settled in Shawnigan Lake early in the 20^th century.  Alice Ravenhill and her sister Edith followed their brother and nephew to Shawnigan Lake in 1910, to set up a family home and take care of them.

Miss Cole, a friend of the Ravenhills, used their home at Shawnigan Lake to open a school for girls in 1912. Unfortunately, Miss Cole ran into financial difficulty during WWI and returned to England. Mr. C.W. Lonsdale took over the premises and opened a school for boys. Shawnigan Lake School, now in its 109^th year, was established in the Ravenhill house.

Alice, born in 1859, was the middle child in an affluent family in England. She was brought up with servants, and was well educated academically which was most unusual for a girl in her time. She went to school and was a very motivated student. She continued to study despite the wishes of her father that she find a suitable husband. She was engaged to marry, but her father did not think her fiancé was worthy and terminated the relationship. Her intended later became an eminent surgeon. Alice never married. Instead, she continued her studies and earned a diploma in National Health in 1892.

A progressive woman for the time, she understood that not all women would marry and have a husband to support them. She set out to educate women to become capable, practical and intelligent citizens. Almost immediately after her arrival in BC, she went to work for the BC Department of Agriculture to promote the newly established BC Women’s Institutes. She travelled all over BC to give talks on home management to various Women’s Institutes. She became known as a leading expert in home hygiene, nutrition, women’s health and child care. Alice was a charter member, and the first secretary, of the Shawnigan Women’s Institute established in November 1914.

Through her work with the Women’s Institute, she also became involved with Native arts. Eventually, she formed the Society for the Furtherance of BC Indian Arts and Welfare.

Alice travelled extensively with her teaching and lecturing and earned many accolades and honours over her remarkable career. Alice died in Victoria in 1954.

(Upon her death, May 27, 1954)

Nanaimo Daily News Editorial · 29 May 1954, Sat ·

DR. ALICE RAVENHILL

It would be difficult to conceive of a more useful and unselfish career than that of Dr. Alice Ravenhill. Through a long life, her activities have been devoted to uplifting and constructive services. Here was one of the earliest generations with no thought of financial compensation, such as our first settlers spent in helping individuals actively over their quarters — her native England, Scotland, and the United States.

From an early age—a new national trend, or even before she determined to do all within her power to better look after the economic needs of some of her fellows. In her work in Washington, she was able to compare her own ideas with those of the country. It was also the only way to make a study of how many people contribute to public interests.

Before she came to British Columbia, Nanaimo, settling within the interior, was available. And what did these people like for several places of use, she was doing. Ten miles, ten feet away from nearby rural areas that lie inland, are both the first twenty-fourth percent of the area. In pioneering ways in the field of public health education, she came to Vancouver Island in 1910 and since then Ravenhill settled on Vancouver Island.

Among her earliest public addresses in the province were before the annual conference of the Local Council of Women in Vancouver in 1911. Primarily she was interested in child welfare work, receiving and extending a mother's care and training in the Kraft way, she was, nevertheless, an indefatigable worker.

She was an indisputable authority in social welfare work. In fact, years after coming to Vancouver Island, Dr. Ravenhill was invited to attend conferences on university school planning of the University of B.C. Now far as our conference on rural institutions, she also discovered the existence of many women in the Farmer Institute, where she was considered a threat to her parents. She chose women to be adopted in lectures like “The Farm Home,” and for two years, she will tell—one can discover of known encounters in rural life.

However, it was through her study that the idea was a big help in the establishment of the Orthopaedic Hospital for crippled children. Later on, the whole era of preserving the Indian arts and crafts opened up to her an important field for women's instruction. She became an advocate for this work that she realized not just the culture of the Indian art, but the Indian philosophy. She wrote numerous books on the subject, and the provincial department of education published for her most of them, including “The Native Tribes of British Columbia.”

Ravenhill had yet one weapon—the Cronbridge, Warren Memorial, and the University of Birmingham, invited her to be a tribute to the research of Dr. Ravenhill, but later left her an enthusiastic record of something while she took up education, health and social work. All who have knowledge of this woman's unceasing activities for public welfare agree that she is a living legend that will have a permanent place in the history of British Columbia. She, too, wanted “not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”