The Sign at 1701 that Certainly Could Have Changed the Population-base on the Property!

Conceived by renowned Victoria architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury, the original builder and owner on the waterfront where Glenlyon Norfolk School’s Junior Campus now stands, was the idea of a hotel and pub called the “St. George and the Dragon” situated on the 1701 Beach Drive property.

In 1927 a zoning bylaw was implemented in Oak Bay that defined areas for commercial development. In June of that year, W.C. Merston applied for and was issued a permit for the development of the Oak Bay Beach Hotel further south along Beach Drive.

Rattenbury, always the opportunist and owning his 4-acre waterfront property, applied for a development permit in September, 1927 to build the St. George and the Dragon Hotel & Public House, but his application missed the zoning deadline. After nearly three years of heated public debate, the municipal council allowed a portion of Rattenbury’s property to be zoned for his hotel/pub development.

However in 1930, a very troubled Rattenbury fled Victoria to live in England with his new, young wife. A permit extension was requested and granted in 1932 but no development was ever started. While still in Bournemouth, England, in 1935 Rattenbury would meet his untimely death—called “The Murder of the Century” by the British tabloids – and the St. George and the Dragon plan was pursued no further. 

At that very same time, Major Ian Simpson, headmaster of Glenlyon Preparatory School did inquire and seal the deal to purchase the Rattenbury property to expand the development of his fledgling school, started three years earlier on St. David’s Street.