When I became the director at a Victoria, BC, historic house museum, I was determined to attract more visitors to the place by regularly changing the exhibits; if the visitor experience never changed, people would be reluctant to return, I reasoned. I also wanted to show that the history of a house is not limited to its physical boundaries — the house is also a hub that connects to many other people and places.

My first attempt at this was the development of the exhibit Springs and Scavengers: Waste and Water in Victoria, 1842-1915. The exhibit used the house and its collection to show how people in Victoria dealt with access to drinking water and the removal of waste. I will admit, not many people saw this exhibit. There is a good reason for that though — it was set to launch in April 2020.

With the exhibit closed for many months, the research we compiled helped us pivot to blog posts, social media, and short videos. Thinking about the house as a hub led us many interesting connections, including with the Black history of Victoria.

For Black History Month 2026, I am re-sharing the story of the city scavengers and their role in keeping the houses and streets of Victoria clean.

Victoria’s Scavengers

For much of the nineteenth century, household garbage and waste generated by the inhabitants of Victoria was removed from properties by “scavengers” – collectors who operated under regulations established by the City.

Victoria’s Black business community included a number of draymen, teamsters, and contractors who possessed the required carts and horses to engage in scavenging. A number of Black entrepreneurs played a prominent, if not leading, role in the city’s scavenging business – particularly John and William Jackson, and Arthur Strong.

John and William H. Jackson’s first advertisement, in October 1862, recorded their night soil scavenging and garbage hauling businesses and noted that they had at least two carts built expressly for the night soil business.

“Night soil” was the polite term for poop and pee collected by scavengers from cesspools and outdoor toilets under the cover of night. What did it mean to have a cart built for night soil? The carts had sealed tops, thereby containing some of the smell.

An attempt in November 1862 by “Mr. Jackson” to be appointed to the position of scavenger for the City of Victoria was unsuccessful, but by 1865, John Jackson had a contract from the City of Victoria to clean city streets.

John and William Jackson do not appear in the Victoria newspapers after August 1865, but the night soil business appears to have been taken up by Arthur Strong, a Black man from New York State, who had come to Victoria around 1858.

Strong owned land and apparently resided on the south side of Discovery Street, between Government and Douglas Streets in Victoria. In the newspaper, Strong was described as being “very strong” and “the chief man for scavenger work” (Daily Colonist, 12 February 1933).

Like the Jacksons, Strong also secured contracts from the City of Victoria to clean the streets of the city. However, the question of where to dispose of night soil and garbage was a problem for Arthur Strong and other scavengers. Victorians did not enjoy the smell of night soil when dumped in their neighborhood.

In September 1875, several parties complained when Strong dumped night soil on a field near the house of prominent citizen, Roderick Finlayson. Strong denied any role in the event, but the city council passed a resolution that he be notified that “night soil must be deposited outside the city limits” (British Colonist, 23 September 1875).

In 1877, Strong was again in trouble for disposing of night soil in a Victoria neighbourhood. Strong claimed that he had done so by order of the Mayor, but the Mayor denied Strong’s claim and sent the police to investigate. The police reported finding no nuisance and the matter was apparently dropped.

In November 1879, Strong proudly advertised that he was the pioneer who made clean streets in Victoria, removed night soil, rubbish etc. and “thereby made the city healthy” (British Colonist, 12 November 1879). 

In 1880, Strong sold his scavenging business and soon afterwards left Victoria with his second wife, Mary, a native of Richmond, Virginia, whom he had married in 1877.

Black contractor Willis Bond also worked occasionally as a scavenger and received municipal contracts for building and repairs. Bond was born a slave and bought freedom for himself and his family before arriving in British Columbia.

Civic Dedication

We continue to rely on a combination of public and private waste collection services in Victoria. Historically, scavengers worked to keep Victoria’s houses and streets clean. The work of dealing with waste may be undesirable to many, but for a number of the city’s early Black residents, the job of scavenging provided an opportunity to earn a living and demonstrate their civic dedication.

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