Government House (Saskatchewan) - Use As A Functioning Government House 1891-1944

Use As A Functioning Government House 1891-1944

From its completion in 1891 until the formation of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905 Government House was the workplace as well as residence of Lieutenant-Governors of the North-West Territories, the legislative buildings being east on Dewdney Avenue. In 1901 the Duke and Duchess of York — from 1910 King George V and Queen Mary — visited the North-West Territories and were accommodated at Regina’s Government House. Government buildings were not built south of Wascana Lake until after the province was established in 1905: the Territory's government buildings on Dewdney Avenue but not Government House then ceased having such use, such reduction in public expenditure being widely deemed to be entirely reasonable during a second World War immediately following the Great Depression, intensified on the then substantially agricultural Canadian Prairies by the Great Drought. Lieutenant-Governors Charles Herbert Mackintosh, Malcolm Colin Cameron and Amédée E. Forget lived and worked in it.

After September 1, 1905 it was the residence and work-place of six Lieutenant-Governors of Saskatchewan until 1944 when Premier Tommy Douglas very soon after his election followed Ontario in closing the provincial vice-regal palace. During that period Government House accommodated official guests to the province. This included "in 1901 when the future King George V and Queen Mary came to Regina. The Duke of Connaught, son of Queen Victoria, inaugurated the Saskatchewan Legislative Building as Governor General in 1912. The Prince of Wales, later in 1936 briefly to be King Edward VIII, visited Saskatchewan in 1919 and and again in 1927, though the Hotel Saskatchewan had opened on Victoria Avenue by the time of his second visit," and the ballroom not being added until 1929.

Lieutenant-Governors of the North-West Territories who lived and worked in Government House were the Hon. Joseph Royal (who became Lieutenant-Govenor in 1888 and moved into the new Government House in 1891, remaining until 1893; t he Hon. Charles Herbert Mackintosh, 1893-98; the Hon. Malcolm Colin Cameron, 1898; the Hon. Amédée E. Forget, 1898-1905. Lieutenant-Governors of the province of Saskatchewan who lived and worked in Government House were the Hon. Amédée E. Forget, 1905-10; the Hon. George William Brown, 1910-15; the Hon. Sir Richard Stuart Lake, 1915-21; the Hon. Henry William Newlands, 1921-31; the Hon. Hugh Edwin Munroe, 1931-36; the Hon. Archibald Peter McNab, 1936-45 though he moved out of Government House in 1944.