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Studio portrait of Rev. T.H. Gilbert, Rector of St.-John-The-Divine in 1882. This shot shows him full length wearing full clerical garb including special hat and cassock.
Gilbert Family
Thomas Henry Gilbert arrived in Nanaimo in 1874, a Cornish miner, aged 18, with a Church of England background. Apparently he found the local Anglican Church to be unfriendly so joined his two brothers in the association with the Methodist Church. His training here was undoubtedly as a lay preacher.
When he was deemed trained he was ordained a preacher and appointed to the mission church at Derby (Fort Langley) the original capital of BC.There was no Methodist church at Derby so services were held in the Anglican Church. From there Thomas was relocated across the Fraser River to Maple Ridge. Here in a mission church administered from Toronto, over 2200 miles away, he ministered to a small congregation of twenty-four members, funded by a mission grant of $225 each year. That amount would have provided the majority of Thomas' and the church's income.
The Nanaimo Free Press newspaper reported on Oct. 7, 1874 that, "Mr. Thomas Gilbert, who on several occasions occupied the pulpit of the Wesleyan Church in this town, has been appointed a Local Preacher, and will take charge of the church in Maple Ridge, New Westminster District."
By 1880 he was transferred back to Nanaimo and was reported in the paper to have delivered stirring addresses. In 1882 he was reassigned to Maple Ridge and there arranged in December for the Derby church, no longer required, to be moved across the Fraser River to Maple Ridge. That church had been built by the Royal Engineers in 1859, primarily of California redwood as there were at the time no mills in BC capable of supplying the required timbers. The church, St. John the Divine, is still in use and is located on the corner of Laity and River Road.
In about 1884, Thomas was again transferred, this time to St. Thomas' Church in Chilliwack. On June 9, 1897 Catherine gave birth to the couple's only child, Rodney Greenshield Gilbert.
Excerpted from a history written by Al Kline, great-grand nephew of Thomas Gilbert.
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