Government House (Manitoba) - History

History

Prior to the foundation of Manitoba, the Lieutenant Governor of the Northwest Territories occupied a designated residence within the walls of Upper Fort Garry; a house that was, at one point, used by Louis Riel as president of the provisional government of Red River. After the new province joined Confederation on 15 July 1870, a structure five kilometres outside of Winnipeg was leased for use as the lieutenant governor's residence, known as Silver Heights, but it was not found to be suitable, given its size and distance from the capital. Instead, the lieutenant governor remained at Upper Fort Gary until the present Government House was completed.

The house there, however, was in constant need of repair; after $10,000 was spent on the structure in 1873, Alexander Morris wrote to the federal Minister of Public Works: "You can fancy the state of the house when I tell you there was five feet of water in the cellar till middle of July. Year before till middle of August..." Further, as the population of the province was increasing, the need for public buildings became more pressing, and a delegation travelled to Ottawa to discuss with the Queen's Privy Council for Canada the matter of parliament allocating funds for a new legislative assembly and Government House for Manitoba. This was approved, and Thomas Seaton Scott, the Dominion architect, immediately set about drawing up plans for the structures.

The current provincial royal residence was constructed in 1883, at a cost to the federal Crown of $23,995. However, the building was two years later, on 10 June, purchased by the provincial Crown for $1, with the provision that the house be used as a residence for the viceroy "and for no other purpose," as written by John A. Macdonald at the bottom of the Order in Council transferring the house. In 1901, the royal home played host to the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George V and Queen Mary), as well as the Duchess' brother, Prince Alexander of Teck (who would later become Governor General of Canada); Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, and Prince George, Duke of Kent, in 1919 and 1941; and King George VI was the first reigning monarch to reside at Government House when he and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, stopped in Winnipeg during their cross-country tour of Canada in 1939; from Government House, the King broadcast over the radio a speech to the British Commonwealth, the table at which he sat still in the residence. Their daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and each of their children have also stayed at Government House over the years.

The architect Frank Worthington Simon included in his plans for the Manitoba Legislative Building a new Government House, to be constructed on the bank of the Assiniboine River, opposite the parliament. This plan never came to fruition, however, and the Victorian Government House was adapted over time to suit the lieutenant governor's changing needs. In 1978, the mansion was designated as a historical structure by the Manitoba Heritage Council and in 1999, at the initiative of Shirley Liba, wife of Lieutenant Governor Peter M. Liba, the house underwent a major renovation, in which many of the original features of the mansion were uncovered and restored.