Original print of city’s 1886 Great Fire photograph photo

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Original print of city’s 1886 Great Fire photograph turns up in Sun files
Vintage photo taken by J.A. Brock and H.D. Devine used to belong to the owner of the Vancouver World


One hundred and twenty-five years ago today, a wind whipped up a small fire in Yaletown. Forty-five minutes later, it had destroyed almost every building in the 10-week-old city of Vancouver, and killed eight to 21 people.

The next morning, photographers J.A. Brock and H.D. Devine cobbled together enough equipment from the ruins to take a photograph of the devastated city.

The ground is charred, there are a few dark stumps, and there is one prominent building left, the Regina Hotel. In the foreground is a white tent, which a pioneer named George Gordon later said was at Carrall and Cordova, that sheltered 17 men in the days after the fire.

The glass plate negative survives, and is now at the City of Vancouver Archives. The image has been reproduced countless times, but vintage prints of the Great Fire photo are exceptionally rare, because Brock left town in August 1886, and Devine gave up photography for real estate in 1889.

Archivist Carol Haber says the archives have three vintage albumen prints of the photo, which was probably taken by Devine. The Vancouver Public Library also has a vintage print. It’s unknown how many are in private hands.

Don Stewart of McLeod’s Books says Brock photos usually sell in the $300 to $500 range, but a Great Fire print might go for $750. Except he’s never had an original print to put up for sale.

I recently found one, tucked away in a Vancouver Sun file.

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The print has been mounted onto board, and is identified with three “J.A. Brock & Co., Photographers, Cordova St., Vancouver, B.C.,” stamps on the back. The original owner has written on the back “Property Mrs. A.H. Berry.”

Alice Helena Berry used to own The Vancouver World, one of Vancouver’s early newspapers. She was born in New Westminster in 1868, and her father, Jonathan Miller, was constable of Granville, Vancouver’s name pre-incorporation. He then became Vancouver’s first postmaster in 1886.

After her first husband Harry Berry died, she married the flamboyant L.D. Taylor, The World’s co-owner and a longtime Vancouver mayor. She died in 1919. The Sun bought The World in 1924, so the photos probably came with the purchase.

Alas, the Brock/Devine Great Fire photo was never all that clear; the edges look smoky from deterioration on the glass plate negative, perhaps because it had been damaged in the fire.

In the old days, art departments at newspapers often used to enhance photos to make them look sharper in the paper. Unfortunately, some unknown party decided to fix up The Sun’s copy of the Great Fire print.

“This photo has been overpainted to the point where there are no parts of the original left,” states Stewart of McLeod’s Books. “The fire scene has been done in black and sepia ink, the tent has been done in white, the sky has even been interfered with, the horizon, everything.”

Stewart thinks the “enhanced” print is now worth a fraction of the value of an untouched one.

“If the image was untouched it would be worth about $750 or $800,” he says. “This one, in this condition, no more than $200.”

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There is some good news. In the same Vancouver Fire Department historical photo file, there’s another famous Brock photo: realtor J.W. Horne and a posse of bearded, nattily clad businessmen advertising “Vancouver Lots for Sale” in front of a giant stump.

It’s been left as is, although the sides have been cropped. It was taken just before the Great Fire, and Stewart estimates its value at $600.

B.C.’s premier vintage photo expert, David Mattison, has a whole section on Brock and Devine in his book Eyes of a City, Early Vancouver Photography, 1868-1900 (published by the Vancouver Archives in 1986).

Mattison says Brock & Co. prints like this would have cost 50 to 75 cents in the day. He says it’s hard to say how many originals were sold, because they could have gone anywhere. “I’m sure Devine and Brock sold dozens of them, maybe even hundreds, to people who were looking for a souvenir of Vancouver after the fire.”

A tent used to shelter survivors is surrounded by smouldering debris on June 12, 1886 following a massive fire that destroyed much of Vancouver


A painted photo of the City of Vancouver, June 12, 1886. A massive fire destroyed much of the city the night before leaving some people to take shelter in tents.