He arrived at the fort with his wife Emma and servants in 1849, none too impressed with the rustic conditions at this remote trading post.

For their part, the small fort community became increasingly dissatisfied with his teaching skills and manner, such that he was discharged in 1854.

He in turn set off for London to grieve the Company's land policies at the Colonial Office on behalf of fellow settlers.

Staines had held Anglican services in the mess room of Fort Victoria and aboard visiting ships pending completion of a church.

December 12, 1859, Queen Victoria issued Royal Letters Patent creating the Bishopric of British Columbia.

On January 12, 1859, Letters Patent created the Diocese of British Columbia, endowed by The Baroness Burdett-Coutts.

After a summer of fundraising for the Columbia Mission Fund, Hills sailed for Victoria and arrived on January 6, 1860.

Hills had engaged the clipper barque Athelstan to bring from England a pre-fabricated church building and furnishings, which arrived in February.

Vancouver Island reverted from the Hudson's Bay Company to the Crown, and Fort Victoria was demolished.

As a low churchman, Cridge had little use for church hierarchy and authority; not for obedience to his bishop, and certainly not for formal liturgies.

Things simmered privately between Cridge and Hills until evensong on December 5, 1872, the day of services for the consecration of the new cathedral, when guest preacher William S. Reece, Archdeacon of Vancouver (i.e. Vancouver Island), gave what Cridge interpreted as a rousing endorsement of ritualism.

Rather than announcing the following hymn, Cridge hotly took issue with the homily, in breach of canon law which prohibited public disagreement among clergy.

The trial was held in the vacant Presbyterian church, was open to the public and received attentive press coverage.

It fell to their mutual friend Supreme Court Chief Justice Matthew Baillie Begbie to adjudicate.

In his judgment of October 24, 1874, granting an injunction forbidding Cridge to act as a priest of the diocese, Chief Justice Begbie observed, His [Hills'] reluctance to use his power may however, obviously be imputed to motives of the most christian forbearance … But if the defendant had been at once in December, 1872, excluded from the pulpit of Christ Church until due submission, I should not now have had the most painful duty of attending to this distressing case, and probably much correspondence of a most disagreeable nature would have been avoided.

Charles Schofield, elected bishop in 1916, had the judgement, tact, courage, perseverance and business sense to lead the project.

He had recently overseen the rebuilding of Christ Church Cathedral, Fredericton, which was ignited by lightning in 1911 during his tenure there as Dean.

Winston Churchill visited the site several weeks earlier, on September 9, 1929, and was quick to help when the superintendent asked him to lay a stone on the north tower.

Reginald Dove, the architect's assistant, sculpted the bird and nest in clay, and a stone casting of his model was made and installed on the capital of the pillar.

In 1936, through the generosity of two donors, Mrs. Mozley and Mrs. Matson, a peal of eight bells for change ringing was purchased and installed atop this floor.

They were dedicated on March 8, 1983 in the presence of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh before being hung in the tower.

The Treble is dedicated to the memory of Mr. Izard, who led the ringing in the tower for nearly forty years, and the Second to the Queen's grandson Prince William, Duke of Cambridge.

In 2000, a contract for a new four-manual mechanical action pipe organ was signed with Hellmuth Wolff & Associés of Laval QC.