Romantic and Racist Visions of British Columbia The Writing of Hilda Glynn-Ward

In the Victoria Daily Times of October 15, 1966, it was noted that a “well known” city writer had died in Madrid, Spain. In 1964 Mrs. Hilda Howard had left her Victoria residence at 217 Cook Street to live in England. In 1965 she moved again to Spain where she developed a “serious illness.” The obituary noted her published poetry and travel writing about British Columbia under her pen name Hilda Glynn-Ward. Glynn-Ward was an early and important British Columbia travel writer, as well as poet, who tried to popularize the natural beauty of the wilderness and the development of the landscape as a Pacific paradise for Anglo-white settlers. Her travel writing and poetry about early twentieth century British Columbia combined her romantic passion for the province’s landscapes and its pioneers with her fears about the threats to white dominance from minority groups.

She published The Glamour of British Columbia in 1926 and it was reprinted in 1933. Caro Playfair reviewed the book for The Daily Colonist and told readers the book was “a reliable guide” for “everybody who is interested in this wonderful province of ours,” adding that “throughout the book the author exhibits that sympathetic interest in the ways of all sorts and conditions of men.” Playfair’s approval is given despite Glynn-Ward’s frequent disparaging of the numerous minority groups she encountered on her grand tour of British Columbia.

Her Early Life and Writing Career

Born Hilda Glynn Williams in Bangor, Caernarvonshire, Wales in October 1886, Glynn-Ward was the daughter of William Glynn Williams, a classical scholar and headmaster of the Friars School, a boy’s secondary school. Williams was a notable classical scholar who translated the literary and philosophical works of Cicero. Her grandfather was Welsh bard and cleric Morris Williams known to his readers as “Nicander.”