Frederick Christie Burrell Cummins (c. 1911 - c. 1965)

After WWII, Lieutenant-Colonel Cummins again lived in New Westminster, where he became the commanding officer of the Royal Westminster Regiment. In the spring of 1948 he commanded three hundred uniformed men who worked with civic authorities and civilian volunteers to reinforce railway dykes against the rising waters of the Fraser River during the floods that year.

In 1952 Lieutenant-Colonel Cummins became Deputy Warden of the BC Penitentiary, serving under Warden Robert Douglass. Following Warden Douglass' retirement, he was appointed warden of the institution on June 4, 1955, and served in this capacity until a transfer in 1960. Warden Cummins was challenged during his tenure at the BC Pen by significant overcrowding at the institution, however his term as warden also coincided with a period of liberalization of Canadian penitentiaries under the government of John Diefenbaker, including the enactment of the Parole Act and establishment of the National Parole Board in 1959.

In 1960 Warden Cummins became warden of the Saskatchewan Penitentiary in Prince Albert. He died in Prince Albert on March 3, 1963 at the age of fifty-three.

Sources

1. British Columbia Voters' List - 1898 - from the Sessional Papers of the British Columbia Government, 1899, extracted by Hugh Armstrong
2. "The Lardeau: A Country Bustling with Towns, Ranches and Mines" in BC Historical News Vol. 35 No. 2, Spring 2002
3. Jack David Scott, Four Walls in the West: the Story of the British Columbia Penitentiary, 1984.
4. Correspondence with family of F.C.B. Cummins