William Chinley (c. 1883 - 1919)

In April 1917 Mr. Chinley and his mother were committed for trial on charges of having murdered Mr. Chinley's wife. He was tried at the Clinton Assizes in Clinton, British Columbia in May 1917, represented by F. Temple Cornwall, a lawyer based in Kamloops, B.C. who was hired by the Department of Indian Affairs.

Mr. Chinley was apparently convicted of the charge. He had been tried for murder once before, for the killing of another resident of the Quesnel reserve, but was acquitted.

In early October 1918 the first cases of what later came to be known as the Spanish Flu were reported in New Westminster. The disease had spread quickly across British Columbia by steamboat and rail line. Crowded bunkhouses in the logging and fishing industries, rooming houses and public institutions were particular breeding grounds, and New Westminster had its share of all these. On October 15, 1918 an entire floor at the Royal Columbian Hospital was set aside for the care and quarantine of Spanish Flu patients moved from hotels and rooming houses (other patients were being treated in their own homes). By October 17th a provincial Board of Health order had closed all schools, theatres, churches and other public gathering places across the province. They remained closed by provincial order for more than a month, until November 20, 1918.

Although city newspapers continually reported that the flu was "on the wane", the number of illnesses and deaths continued to increase in New Westminster as 1918 drew to a close. It is not known how many staff and prisoners at the B.C. Penitentiary fell ill or died during the epidemic, but the toll taken by the disease must have been comparatively large -- four of the fifty-two men buried in the B.C. Penitentiary cemetery died of the Spanish Flu.

Mr. Chinley was treated for influenza by B.C. Penitentiary physician Dr. W.A. Dewolf Smith between December 29th and January 4th, 1919. He died on January 5, 1919 at the age of thirty-six, and was buried in the Roman Catholic section of the BC Penitentiary cemetery.

B.C.'s Aboriginal population had been particularly hard hit by the Spanish Flu -- more than 1,140 died across the province, a death toll that was more than nine times greater than the non-Aboriginal population.

References

• Public Archives of Canada RG10 Reel C-14771, Vol. 7473, File 19160-2, Part 1.
• British Columbia Division of Vital Statistics (see BC Archives online Vital Event Indexes)
• The British Columbian newspaper, October 1918 - January 1919 editions.
• Dominion of Canada Return of Death of an Indian