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Sir Matthew Begbie Elementary School, was named after Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, who was the first and only court judge in British Columbia in 1859. He walked and rode hundreds of miles getting to know the miners and mining camps, and judging cases everywhere. Additionally, Sir Matthew Begbie was an artist and an opera singer. He was a linguist who heard cases in the Shuswap and Chilcotin languages and often defended the right of First Nations people, who called him "Big Chief".
The school, named after him, was built in Hastings East in 1922 on land known as Block Seventy. In March 1948, construction began on a twenty-one room school on the present site. With eight hundred students in 1963, four portables were added which were later removed. In July 1987 two million dollars were spent updating the interior and exterior of the school to its present state.
Today the school has a population of 370 students who are enrolled in classes from kindergarten to grade 7. The Begbie students come from a wide array of economic and ethnic backgrounds. The students continue their secondary education at either Vancouver Technical or Templeton Secondary School.
Contact Information:
1430 Lillooet Street
Vancouver, BC
Canada V5K 4H6
Phone: 604 713 4686
Fax: 604 713 4688
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