March 1935.
Despite the cool night of early spring, the windows were open in the sitting room of a villa in a quiet seaside town in southern England. The fresh air and slight breeze gently billowed the curtains as a man in a lounge chair stared at the wall.
He was surrounded by books he had purchased during better days… when he was the toast of the city and money flowed easily.
In his hand was his favorite drink. A whisky and soda.
For the past few miserable years, it had become his constant companion.
As his eyelids grew heavy, and he began to drift off into another drunken sleep, something moved behind him.
A shadowy figure loomed large.
An intruder… and his eyes were locked on the man dozing off in front of him.
HIs heart was filled with jealousy and rage.
It fueled him….
He tightened his gip on the mallet he had in his hand and with one fell swoop, he brought down onto the man in front of him with a sickening crunch.
I’m Craig Baird and this is Canadian History Ehx.
Today I bring you the story of one of Canada’s most gifted architects and share the shocking details of his death.
This is…Love, Betrayal, and Murder: The Scandalous Life of Francis Rattenbury
Before I get into it, I have to take a minute to thank one of you because I get your email suggestions. I keep track of the topics, and I promise I’ll eventually get to them so please keep them coming.
This episode was requested by Peter, a respected Toronto architect and a fan of the show.
As you’ll hear in a second, Francis Ratterbury’s story is fascinating, but I was more than happy to cover the topic for another reason.
You see, Peter’s father inspired my love of history.
I even named my dog after him.
If you’re a long-time listener of this show, you know who I am talking about.
Pierre Berton.
So, Peter, thank you for your email and for listening…
Let’s dive in.
This is a story of ambition, scandal, obsession…and one of the most sensational murder trials of the 20th century and it begins in Leeds, England.
That’s where on Oct. 11, 1867, Francis Rattenbury, was born to Mary Ann and John Francis.
His father worked with family in the textile industry, but he wasn’t happy. He believed that he was destined to be a great artist and when his son was 10, John quit his job to pursue that dream.
Unfortunately, for John, he wasn’t that good and he didn’t get very far.
But because he had dropped everything to pursue it, the family had to move from a large house to a small one.
Meanwhile, where his father failed, Francis thrived.
From a young age, he could draw well and one of his favorite subjects were buildings.
His uncles owned an architecture firm in London and where Francis became an apprentice.
He was so good that at 23, he won a national competition by the Royal Institute of British Architects but working for his uncles wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
He knew there would little opportunity for growth and he chafed under their rules.
He had always been inpatient and longed for more, so he started his own firm.
But it wouldn’t be in England.
Around 1891, he made his bold move:
He emigrated half a world away to Vancouver, British Columbia.
The culture shock was immediate.
London was a world-class city of over one million people; Vancouver was a colonial community of 13,000 people.
Ten years earlier it was mostly forests and sawmills.
But as they say fortune favors the bold because just as he was leaving England the British Columbia government in Victoria was looking for a new home.
They wanted to replace the two-storey wood building that served as the Legislative Building for over 20 years, with a new one that screamed modern metropolis and projected the emerging prestige of Canada’s Pacific capital.
On July 5, 1892, the province put out a notice for the competition on Page 2 of Vancouver Daily World.
By chance, that same page featured an advertisement for a new architectural firm.
It read, quote. Francis, Architect and Superintendent.”
The advertisement described Francis as an architect with ten years experience, having worked with one of the most prestigious firms in London.
A bold claim for someone who had never been formally trained and never completed an academic program.
To say he had stretched the truth a little was an understatement because he stated he had been trained by acclaimed architect Henry Francis Lockwood…who died when Francis was 11.
He also failed to mention that the firm he had worked for was owned by his uncles.
That July morning Francis bought the newspaper to see his name in print for the first time and by chance also saw the competition notice.
And at that moment…He decided to enter.
But the brash young architect would have his work cut out for him.
There were 67 entries from across North America and to avoid bias, the province required everyone to submit their ideas using a pseudonym.
Francis submitted his design and signed it as A British Columbia Architect.
He stated that his creation was for the quote “glory of Our Queen”.
His design stood above the rest because he proposed constructing the building in the Inner Harbour of Victoria.
That would mean when visitors arrived by ship the first, they saw would be a multi-domed building that housed government offices flanked on either side of the legislative chamber.
For the exterior, he wanted sandstone and granite from the British Columbia mainland. The centrepiece dome was to be built with copper, mined from the interior of the province.
The inside would be lined in marble from Vancouver Island.
In early-1893, Five finalists were chosen, and only one was from Canada.
Francis Ratternbury.
By March 16, 1893, the winner was announced with a simple sentence.
“The plans for the new Provincial buildings prepared by F.M. Rattenbury, of this city, have been accepted.”
The man who had arrived in British Columbia only a year earlier was now in charge of designing one of the most important buildings in the whole province.
Within days, he closed his office in Vancouver and moved to Victoria.
Designing the building was the easy part now Francis had to make it come to life.
Francis had talent. There was no doubt about that.
But he was also inexperienced, brash and arrogant.
Winning the competition was fuel to his egotistical fire.
Now the man in charge of the biggest construction project in British Columbia’s history had a choice to make.
He could lead by consensus and take advice from those who worked for him, or he could be a dictator who demanded total obedience.
I’ll let you guess what he chose.
When construction began, he demanded, but did not earn, the respect of workers.
They didn’t see him as a great architect, instead they found him rude and arrogant.
He constantly fought with Frederick Adams, the building contractor, over payments and overspending.
Sadly, Adams would never get to see the finished building.
He died on March 22, 1895, when the steamboat that was on its way to the marble quarry sank in a storm.
Many blamed Francis for his death and for pushing Adams so hard.
People also suspected the overspending may have been on purpose too.
Francis was guaranteed to be paid a percentage on the building’s final cost, not the estimated cost.
The more over budget he went, the more he made.
After 5 many years of construction Victoria’s Legislative Building officially opened on Feb. 10, 1898.
Known as the Marble Palace, over 4,000 people were on hand for the ceremony, and the day was declared a school holiday in Victoria.
It was truly magnificent…but also very expensive.
The estimated budget had been $500,000, but the final cost was almost double at a whopping $923,000.
Because of his contract, Francis also made a mint even if the government was not pleased.
And it was for good reason.
Not only was the building over budget, but the finished product was also a bit of a Monet.
It looked beautiful from afar, but once you got up close the cracks started to show.
The vaulted ceiling over the legislative chamber was elegant, but it also swallowed up the sound which caused politicians to shout just to be heard.
That problem was eventually fixed by hanging a giant salmon fishing net from the ceiling.
There was also no press gallery, so a high loft had to be converted that forced reporters to walk up a narrow and steep staircase.
And if that wasn’t bad enough the Lt Governor suite had no washroom.
Nonetheless, people were in awe of what Francis had built, and he was now one of the most famous men in the province.
He was able to brush elbows with the upper-class and that opened up more opportunities.
Through the 1890s, he went on to design courthouses for Vancouver and Nanaimo, and banks for Nelson, Victoria and Rossland.
When one of the richest cattlemen in Alberta, wanted a mansion, he hired Francis to build it.
Pat Burns’ prairie palace had 10 bedrooms, four bathrooms and cost $32,000 to build.
And like with most of his projects, it was over budget.
By mid-1898, Francis took a gamble on a new venture.
He bought three paddlewheel steamships to transport people to the Klondike Gold Rush.
The three ships carried the names Ora, Flora and Nora, and were named after his lover Florence Eleanor Nunn.
He met her while visiting a friend’s office and they fell in love and quickly married.
But society hummed with questions about the union… after all… why the most eligible bachelor in the province married a woman who did not come from an upper-class family.
And the answer would soon be revealed.
Instead of vacation at a luxury resort, or tour Europe as many wealthy newlyweds did at the time, Francis took Florence on a long overland journey to Northern British Columbia.
The journey to the lake region was difficult and rough, and Francis showed little regard for his wife who was now pregnant.
When they finally returned to Victoria, the couple moved into a large waterfront home that Francis had designed.
On Jan. 1, 1899, their son, also named Francis, was born.
That’s when people started doing the math. They counted back nine months and quickly realized why the eligible bachelor had married Florence so quickly.
And for the first few years it seemed to be a good union.
Francis bought Florence bought her many gifts, and hired servants to ensure she didn’t have to lift a finger.
A second child, a little girl named Mary, in 1904.
Francis built schools for them and refused payment for his work.
I should note that just because Francis was now married with children, it didn’t mean he had softened.
H was still arrogant, maybe even more so now that he had become so famous and risen the ranks of Victoria’s upper class.
After the home of the Lt. Governor burned to the ground on May 18, 1899, a competition was held to find an architect to rebuild it.
Francis was the province’s most famous architect, so he felt he was a shoe in
Instead, a firm out of Vancouver was chosen.
To say Francis took the loss poorly would be…well…an understatement.
He told friends, colleagues, and the press that the chosen design was terrible and unworthy of the Lt. Governor.
Francis claimed that the only reason the Vancouver firm won was because they lowballed the offer.
What’s interesting however is that all of the complaining worked, and he was hired to rebuild the home.
The other firms were now livid. They claimed that he had stolen supplies for his own home and had lined his pockets by ordering materials in his own name to profit from commissions.
The government organized a committee to look into the claims.
And in response Francis portrayed himself as an innocent victim.
When he was asked why a fireplace grate meant for Government House had been found in his home, he stated it was too small for the Lt. Governor’s fireplace and instead of returning it he kept it.
They also found marble in his home that was supposed to be at the Governor’s house. Francis claimed he had originally ordered it for his home, but it had gone to Government House by accident. Naturally, he had it redirected to his own home.
The committee asked him for documentation to support his claims, and Francis said he had no filing system and was bad at record keeping.
Somehow…. In the end, he was cleared of any wrongdoing, and he continued to get massive projects.
A year later, the Canadian Pacific Railway hired him to build the new Empress Hotel in Victoria.
He mostly adhered to the design specifications set by the CPR, but often clashed with Walter Painter, the head architect of the company on how the interior should be laid out.
When he was called to Montreal to speak with management, he instead resigned from the project which was still built according to his designs, but without his oversight.
By now Francis Rattenbury had been like Icarus; his hubris and excessive pride was catching up to him.
He had flown too close to the sun and people had grown Francis’ arrogance.
Work began to dry up.
In 1908, he put his name forward to design the Saskatchewan Legislative Building.
By then his reputation for being difficult preceded him, and he lost out to a Montreal firm.
Then a proposal for the design of a high school in Victoria was described as uninspired and it was turned down as well.
Then… as the First World War broke out in Europe things went from bad to worse when the province went into an economic downturn.
Hoping to find new sources of income.
Francis used most of his money to invest in a large plot of land where the Grand Trunk Railway was expected to build a line.
The company had also hired him to design all of their new hotels along that line.
Sadly, that deal went up in smoke in 1918 when the company went bankrupt and Francis was saddled with land no one wanted.
Part of it was eventually purchased by the provincial government to provide housing for war veterans.
But they bought it from him at a bargain.
And as his professional life collapsed, his personal life soon followed and eventually that would lead to scandal.
As I mentioned earlier, Francis’s marriage to Florence had made some rumblings in society but it never really shocked anyone. At least not yet.
Early on Francis was a loving and doting husband but once the honeymoon phase ended cracks began to form and the stark differences in the couple began to show.
Florence was a bit of a homebody. She enjoyed spending time in her garden, while Frances was more of a man about time and could often be found at parties, drinking and hobnobbing with high society.
Over the years, the couple grew farther and farther apart until it got to the point that they would only speak to each other through their daughter Mary.
Thankfully their home was large enough that they could live relatively separate lives and rarely crossed paths.
The two dealt with their growing misery in different ways.
Florence indulged in food.
Francis downed whiskey.
His unhappiness got a brief reprieve when he was hired to build the new home for the Victoria Chamber of Commerce in 1921.
The grand building was paid for by the CPR and would cost $200,000.
It included the largest indoor heated sea-water public swimming pool in the British Empire, a glass roof, Turkish baths, a fountain, tea garden and more.
The project needed public approval, and a massive campaign was launched where the Chamber of Commerce reproduced Francis’ sketches in thousands of fliers and handed them out across the city.
This new project was also about to change Francis’ life forever and would lead to his violent death.
[PAUSE MUSIC TRANSITION POSSIBLE MIDROLL]
On Dec. 29, 1923, Francis Ratternbury was at the Empress Hotel, at a gala.
He was celebrating that the referendum to build the Chamber of Commerce had passed.
There was a loud rendition of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” in his honour.
Francis Rattenbury was flying high and in later that night, that joy reached new heights when he was introduced to Alma Wolfe.
Alma may have been 30 years younger, but the young pianist had already lived quite the life.
Her first husband, Caledon Dolling, the nephew of Eric Alexander, 5th Earl of Caledon had been killed in the First World War.
When she heard of the news she volunteered with the Scottish Women’s Hospital Organization hoping to get to France to visit his grave.
She served as a stretcher bearer in hospitals only a short distance from the front lines and was wounded twice.
For her bravery, the French government awarded her the Croix de Guerre.
In January 1919, she met Thomas Compton Pakenham while he was on leave from the army. The two began an affair. But there was one problem. He was married.
Pakerman had married Phyllis Price in 1915 but, by October 1918, he had written to her to inform her that their marriage was over.
They divorced in 1920 and that same year the couple emigrated to the United States where he worked as a lecturer and Alma gave piano lessons, in contrast to her pre-war status as a concert soloist.
By now Alma followed the current fashion and became a flapper.
She had a short bob, enjoyed jazz and began to live a life of fun rather than following the rigidity of the Victorian Era.
Her second marriage soon fell apart. Thomas had frequent affairs and Alma preferred going out, to drink cocktails and dance the night away. As you can imagine, this led to their divorce in March 1923, and soon after she moved to Vancouver with her son to live with her mother.
She had always been a gifted pianist, so she started to perform at recitals in Victoria and Vancouver to rave reviews.
And that is how Francis and Alma crossed paths.
She had been playing in the lounge at the Empress Hotel as Francis celebrated in the dining room.
Upon meeting they were drawn to each other and soon their relationship raised eyebrows
And then it turned into public scandal
Madly in love with Alma, Francis bought her a house across the city from the home he shared with his wife Florence.
HIs marriage mattered little to Francis.
He flaunted his affair with Alma.
He even purchased a box at the theatre where he takes her in full l view of the audience who could see their loving embraces throughout the performance.
High society blamed Alma, rather than Francis, whom they considered to be one of their own.
There were rumours that she had introduced him to cocaine and had made him addicted so she could control him.
None of this was true.
But the rumours were now loud enough that they were difficult for Florence to ignore.
Francis was besotted and asked her for a divorce, which she absolutely refused because of her religious beliefs.
So, Francis chose cruelty.
He pushed Florence to her limit.
First, he arranged for all the best furniture to be taken from their home and be taken to Alma.
In response, Florence didn’t budge so he had the power, heat, water and telephone cut off.
Still, she refused him.
So, he took it a step further.
Florence had a heart condition and because of it she often spent time in bed to avoid straining it.
So, Francis brought Alma over to play the piano downstairs throughout the night.
When that didn’t work, Francis hauled Florence’s bed away, along with most of the rest of the furniture.
Did Florence give in?
Not a chance.
She bought a cot to sleep in and an apple crate to sit on.
Can we just give it up for Florence here? What badass.
She was a master tactician it seemed, and now she was going to hit Francis where it hurt him most.
His ego.
Francis’ affair with Alma had become the talk of the town.
Most everyone in Victoria and Vancouver sided with Florence.
They saw her as a doting wife and the victim of the entire scandal and that was very bad news for Francis.
It was one thing to be arrogant and talented; it was another to be a menace to high society and its decorum.
With Francis’ reputation now in tatters, Florence agreed to the divorce but only if he paid to build a new home for her, He did, and she hired his main rival.
Where did she have it built?
Directly down the hill from her former home, where Francis and Alma were now living.
Every time they stepped out on their balcony, they saw the house their affair had built below them.
The couple married in late 1925 but the controversy that surrounded their infidelity and his subsequent divorce led them to be social outcasts.
Alma often introduced herself as Mrs. Rattenbury and was often met by people saying that there was only one Mrs. Rattenbury, and it wasn’t her.
Francis couldn’t get hired either.
When the Lt. Governor made plans to build a vacation home directly across the street from Francis’ home, he made no secret of why he chose a different architect.
The scandalous affair had essentially ruined Francis’ career.
HIs reputation also wasn’t helped by what he did next.
On Oct. 13, 1929, Florence died.
Soon after, Francis rewrote his will to leave everything to Alma, and nothing to his children with Florence.
That made him a social pariah and on, Dec. 18, 1929, the same day he changed his will, the couple boarded a ship bound for Europe.
But instead of peace, they found tension.
Money problems.
Resentment.
Distance.
And then… someone else entered the picture.
Francis, Alma, their son and Alma’s son from her previous marriage made their home in Bournemouth, England.
At first, things went well for the couple.
They were accepted in society but soon there were new problems.
Francis may have been a famous architect in British Columbia, but no one knew who he was in England, so he got hired for small jobs that barely paid the bills.
As the Roaring 20s transitioned into The Great Depression of the 1930s, things only got worse.
Francis was now in his 60s and burdened with financial problems which led to depression.
He spent his nights drinking heavily in his sitting room.
The couple soon entered into a celibate relationship, with separate bedrooms on separate floors of their home, the Villa Madeira at 5 Manor Road.
By now he was also nearly deaf and often threatened suicide.
Alma, meanwhile, was still in her prime.
She was in her mid-30s and still wanted to enjoy life.
She attempted to establish herself as a singer and songwriter in Britain but was met with minimal success and often fought with Francis over finances because she spent lavishly.
The relationship was strained and then… temptation entered the home.
On Sept. 25, 1934, the couple advertised in the Bournemouth Daily Echo for a teenage male live-in servant.
The ad was answered by George Percy Stanley who was about to turn 18.
He was quickly hired to be the Rattenbury’s chauffeur.
George still lived with his parents and up to that point had lived a mostly sheltered life and had very few friends.
This was his first real job.
He moved in with the married couple and quickly found out that the home was not a happy one.
Francis and Alma were barely talking and were deep in the throws of a loveless marriage.
Soon after he arrived, he began an affair with Alma who felt young and vibrant when she was with him.
By all accounts, Francis was aware of it and tolerated it.
Some historians believe he was impotent in his late-60s and saw the affair as something to keep Alma happy and occupied.
Alma would sometimes go on trips with George and in early March 1935, they went to London.
Francis had Alma on a tight allowance, but she told him she needed an operation, and he gave her extra money for the trip.
In the city, she bought George and herself new clothes.
She also gave him enough money to buy an engagement ring.
That night, while wearing the new suit Alma had purchased for him, he put a ring on her finger in a private commitment ceremony.
Alma said later that the love between them was beautiful.
By the end of the four days in London, all the money was gone and Alma and George returned home.
It was March 23, 1935, and outside the home nothing seemed amiss.
But overnight… a shocking and violent crime would be taking place.
When George and Alma returned from London on the morning of March 23, inside the house, tensions escalated.
Francis spoke with Alma about the affair.
Behind closed door he told her he admired anyone who could die by suicide.
Hoping to get his mind on something else, she suggested he see Shirley Hatton Jenks the next day.
Jenks owned a large country estate.
He was a wealthy man that had plans to build apartments on the land and Alma believed that Francis could get the contract and lighten his mood.
That evening, she called Jenks to tell him that they would be visiting him the next day.
George was eavesdropping outside the couple’s door and believed they had reconciled and were sleeping together. The young man had a temper and during the affair with Alma had flown in a jealous rage whenever she suggested breaking things off.
Filled with anger, he burst into the bedroom holding a gun and threatened to kill her.
Alma was able to calm him down, but his jealousy still simmered beneath the surface.
He left the Rattenbury home and went to his parent’s house to borrow a mallet that he claimed he would use to build a sun shelter.
His mother gave him one from their toolshed and he left.
Meanwhile, Alma and Frances were at home playing cards.
Alma then went to bed where she expected George to join her and Francis retired to his lounge where he poured himself whisky and soda.
He had a few drinks already and the alcohol was lulling him to sleep so he didn’t see the man creeping in through an unlocked window.
Francis didn’t sense the intruder enter the sitting room.
Then the intruder wrapped his gloved hand around the mallet he was carrying and walked up behind the architect.
The leather gloves were meant to keep fingerprints off his weapon of choice.
The weapon that was supposed to be used for a sun shelter.
The intruder then lifted mallet and swung it with a blinding rage at Francis’ head.
He then savagely continued to pummel him.
The force to the head was so severe that it caused Francis’ false teeth to fall out.
It was a shocking and violent scene as a pool of blood extended across the sitting room’s floor.
The splatter was all over the books, almost every nook and cranny had Francis’ blood on it.
Shortly after the intruder attacked Francis, the Rattenbury’s maid went downstairs to get something to eat.
As she passed the sitting room, she heard someone breathing oddly.
She briefly looked into the dark sitting room and saw Francis in his chair. Believing he was asleep, she went back to her room.
By now the intruder was upstairs.
But the violence wouldn’t continue, instead he changed into pajamas, went into Alma’s room and confessed that he had killed her husband.
Alma jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to find her husband covered in blood.
She ran back upstairs and asked the killer to put on his clothes, then went back downstairs and took a shot of whiskey.
Alma steeled herself for what would come next.
She called the maid down to the room, and George came down too.
She quickly said that Francis must’ve killed himself.
In the chaos the maid called the doctor and didn’t see George take the mallet and put it just outside the door. Everyone was shocked when the doctor arrived because he did not find a dead man.
Francis was still hanging on by a thread.
He was rushed to the hospital.
As he was being treated it was clear that he hadn’t suffered self inflected wounds.
This had been an attempted murder.
And four days later, that charge would change to murder. Within hours of the attack Alma was in police custody.
She confessed to the attack to protect her lover who was wracked with guilt.
While Alma was in custody he confessed to the maid who immediately told police.
George and Alma were both arrested and the story of the architect murdered by his wife’s lover spread across front pages in England. Both George and Alma were charged with murder and were tried together and they both plead not guilty. The five-day trial began on May 27 and quickly became one of the sensational high-society court cases in the British Empire. Alma was represented by Ewen Montagu, a rising lawyer who was well on his way to becoming one of the most prominent lawyers in Britain.
After the Second World War, he became the Judge Advocate of the Fleet and was responsible for supervising the Royal Navy’s court martial system.
He argued that Alma had given a false confession and that she was motivated to protect her lover from prison.
The press was sympathetic to her case and on May 31, after only one hour of deliberation, the world would find out if the jury felt the same.
They were, Alma was deemed innocent and was acquitted.
George however would face a different fate.
George was sentenced to death, with the recommendation of mercy.
Upon hearing the verdict Alma reportedly collapsed
While George was led back to jail.
Alma walked out as a free woman, but she wasn’t free from guilt.
On June 4, 1935, only days after she was acquitted, Alma walked to the River Stour at Christchurch.
As she stared out of the water, we don’t know what she thought but we do know she walked on the bridge and took out a dagger.
As she teetered above the rushing water, she stabbed herself six times in the chest.
Three of those pierced her the heart and she fell into the river below.
She left behind a note that read.
“It must be easier to be hanged than to have to do the job oneself. One must be bold to do a thing like this. It is beautiful here and I am alone. Thank God for peace at last.”
George’s sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment after 300,000 signatures were gathered in a petition that was sent to the home secretary.
George ended up serving seven years in jail until he was released so he could join the British Army to fight in the Second World War which he survived.
After the war he got married and had a daughter and they lived a quiet until his death in 2000 at the age of 83.
After Francis died, he was buried in an unmarked grave in Bournemouth, near his birthplace and he didn’t get a headstone until 2007. One of Canada’s most celebrated architects, responsible for some of the most iconic buildings in Vancouver and Victoria, was without a true resting place for decades.
It could be why it is believed that he was actually never at rest.
There are some who say they have seen his ghost walking with a cane near the staircase in the lobby of the Empress Hotel
His happiest times were when he was the toast of the town and after his death many believe he returned and he’s been seen at the Legislature, where people claim to have sighted a slender man calmly standing around the building but disappears when he turns a corner.
Why did Francis come back?
Maybe because a man with his ego would want to be known as the architect who once shaped cities…
And not one best known for the way he died.
