CPR EXECUTIVE DIES AFTER STORIED LIFE
Marpole was ‘invaluable’ in early days of rail line through mountains
Many of Vancouver’s streets bear the names of old Canadian Pacific Railway officials, including Lauchlan Hamilton, Henry Cambie, Henry Beatty, Harry Abbott, Richard Angus, Edmund Osler, Wilmot Matthews, and Augustus Nanton.
Some neighbourhoods are also named after CPR bigwigs. Shaughnessy was named after Thomas Shaughnessy, the president of the railway when the blueblood enclave was built. Strathcona is named for Lord Strathcona (Donald Smith), co-founder of the railway.
The third neighbourhood named for a CPR executive is Marpole, after Richard Marpole, who also had a street named after him.
Unlike Shaughnessy and Lord Strathcona, Marpole actually lived in Vancouver, where he ran the B.C. operations of the CPR for two decades. When he died on June 8, 1920, the local papers ran his obituary on the front page.
Marpole came to B.C. in March 1886, when he was named the superintendent of construction and operations of the CPR’s Pacific division.
He had held a similar position in the Lake Superior division, and was in charge when the first CPR train from Montreal reached Winnipeg on May 20, 1885. That first train carried troops from the Montreal Garrison Artillery who were on their way to fight against the Metis in the Riel Rebellion.
After he moved west, Marpole oversaw the first train from Montreal to reach Port Moody on July 4, 1886, and Vancouver on May 23, 1887. In 1897 Marpole was named general superintendent of the CPR’s Pacific division, and in 1907 he became the railway’s general executive assistant for B.C. He was also a vice-president of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway, and travelled around the province in his own private railway car, the Nanoose.
Marpole was born on Oct. 8, 1850, in Montgomeryshire, Wales. He started working for railways in Britain when he was 18. When he was 25 he immigrated to Canada, where he worked for the Northern Railway. In 1881 he started with Canadian Pacific as a contractor, and a year later joined the company.
He was regarded as a very skilled manager. When Marpole died the CPR’s D.C. Coleman told The Vancouver Sun “during the early days of operation through the mountains, the railway was faced with many difficulties on account of slides and washouts, and Mr. Marpole, with his intrepidity, resourcefulness, genius for leadership and great powers of physical endurance, was an invaluable asset to the Canadian Pacific.”
It sounds like Marpole was a strong guy. On Sept. 14, 1908 the Vancouver World reported Marpole and some CPR officials went for a tour of Shaughnessy in a car and had “an unpleasant experience.” The car couldn’t make it up a hill, and the chauffeur “reversed the machine in order to change the gear.” Unfortunately “the machine started to glide down the hill with the pace rapidly increasing.”
The chauffeur turned the car into a bank and it started to tip over. Marpole leapt out “and in true Herculean style threw his weight against the tipping car and succeeded in preventing the impending upset.”
He may have conquered the car, but he wasn’t as lucky with the feisty newspaper editor John Houston. In 1896 he went to Houston’s office in Nelson to complain about Houston’s anti-CPR editorials, and Houston bonked him over the head with a ruler. When Marpole fought back, Houston bit Marpole’s hand. His head wound required four stitches.
Marpole was married twice. You can find his second marriage certificate online, and on the line “condition” someone wrote “widower,” crossed it out, then wrote “divorced.” He had three kids with his first wife. Sadly his son Dalton died in a fire at his ranch in Nicola in 1908; another son, Clarence, died in 1918 after returning home “invalided” from the First World War.
Marpole’s first Vancouver house was at 801 West Hastings. He moved to a Shaughnessy mansion at Angus Drive and Marpole Street in 1910. He was in poor health for a few years before his death and spent some time in California, but returned to Vancouver and died in the Hotel Vancouver annex.
Marpole district was originally known as Eburne, after a postal station. But there was another Eburne post office on Sea Island in Richmond, so in April 1916 the Eburne Residents Association started a petition to change the name to Marpole. It became official on June 1, 1916.