Currie, McWilliams & Fowler Fonds.

Scope and Content: The fonds consists of records of the Currie McWilliams Cannery and the Currie McWilliams import business. The fonds contains invoices and receipts for goods, materials, and machinery necessary for the operation of the businesses as well as other financial records related to their businesses. As wel…

History / Biographical: Currie, McWilliams & Fowler (also known as Currie, McWilliams & Company) operated a cannery on the eastern shores of Westham Island starting in 1897. They also had an operation at Anacortes, Washington, primarily operating fish traps and scows. It was also reported in 1900 that they had acquired a site for a cannery and built a net house at Anacortes. Fowler appeared to have more to do with the Anacortes operation. Prior to establishing their business, Currie and McWilliams had been bookkeeper and foreman, respectively, at the Bon Accord Cannery. Fowler had been an engineer on the Empress steamers operated by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Westham Island cannery was acquired by the British Columbia Packers Association in 1902. It continued to operate under the name of the Currie-McWilliams Cannery despite the men having no association with the business after they sold it. Most of the buildings were destroyed by fire in 1920, after which the property was used as a fish camp by Imperial Cannery, also operated by BC Packers. According to a local source in Delta's fishing community, the property was bought by Ron Sparrow of the Musqueam Indian Band sometime in the late 1970s.

Scope and Content: The fonds consists of records of the Currie McWilliams Cannery and the Currie McWilliams import business. The fonds contains invoices and receipts for goods, materials, and machinery necessary for the operation of the businesses as well as other financial records related to their businesses. As well, there are legal documents and various correspondence. Records relate to businesses in Delta, the Lower Mainland, and to Anacortes in the state of Washington. The fonds is arranged into three series: 1, Correspondence; 2, Financial Records; and 3, Legal Records.

Notes: Title and dates based on contents of the fonds. Additional contextual information obtained from "Development of the Pacific Salmon-Canning Industry: A Grown Man's Game" by Diane Newell, news articles related to Anacortes operations at the Anacortes Archives, records from the City of Richmond Archives, the Gulf of Georgia Cannery's "From Tides to Tins" virtual museum exhibit, and information obtained from museum staff of the Gulf of Georgia Cannery. According to a BC Packers map of properties, they still held the Currie-McWilliams site in 1977.

Custodial History: The material was salvaged from a fire and thought to have once been in the possession of a captain on the Fraser River. James Blair of Huntingdon (Abbotsford) donated the fonds to the Mission Archives who later transferred the material to the Delta Museum and Archives in 1987.

Name Access: Currie, McWilliams & Fowler. Currie, McWilliams & Company. Currie-McWilliams Cannery. Robert Currie. Daniel McWilliams. James Fowler.

Arrangement: Very little original order appeared to exist. In 2021, series and file level descriptions were created and arrangement was placed on fonds to reflect the series and files created. Files for series 2 were broken down based on year.