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Vancouver's Bessborough Armoury: A History R. Victor Stevenson Vancouver: The Fifteenth Field Artillery Regiment, rca Museum and Archives Society, 2010. 112 pp. Illus. $25.00 paper.
VICTOR STEVENSON'S long-standing personal and professional attachment to Vancouver's Bessborough Armoury is reflected in his concise and well-researched account of the building's history. Having served as both honourary colonel of the Fifteenth Field Artillery Regiment, rca, the primary reserve unit housed at the Bessborough, and as the founder, director, and curator of the regiment's museum and archives - the first official Canadian Forces militia artillery museum of its kind in Canada - his book is presented as the collective product of Stevenson's leadership and the work of several university students sponsored by the Directorate of History and Heritage and the Royal Canadian Artillery Heritage Fund (10). A significant strength of the resulting work is the primary research this group has assembled, from military correspondence at Library and Archives Canada to legal, municipal, and architectural records as well as local newspaper coverage from the 1920s to the late 1990s. The group worked in consultation with ubc history professor Peter Moogk, who carried the book through to publication after Stevenson became fatally ill.
The introduction...