Crehan, Mouat & Co.

Crehan, Mouat & Co. Chartered Accountants and Municipal Auditors was established ca. 1908 by Matthew Joseph Crehan. The offices were located at 615 Pender Street, Vancouver. Crehan was born in Galway, Ireland in 1874 and arrived in British Columbia in 1892. He served as President of the British Columbia Institute of Chartered Accountants in 1912 and 1913. He married his first wife Annetta Etta Ward ca. 1895. Anetta died in Vancouver in 1905 and was buried in Mountain View Cemetery. Crehan married his second wife, Mercy Ellen Wilkinson in 1906.

Mercy Ellen Wilkinson arrived in Canada from England in 1892. She had been highly educated and had sat the Cambridge University examinations in arithmetic, drawing, and French before arriving in Canada. Upon her arrival in Canada, she became the first woman employed by the Canadian Pacific Railway west of Winnipeg. Between 1893 and 1906, she worked as a stenographer but was soon conducting accounting work for the Canadian Pacific Railway and then worked as a bookkeeper for the Hastings Lumber Mill. She helped her husband start his own firm of chartered accountants and later worked for the firm as a chartered accountant. In 1922, Mercy became the first female member of the British Columbian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the first woman chartered accountant in Western Canada.

Matthew Joseph Crehan died in Vancouver on March 22, 1930 and was buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver. The company continued operations under the same name until 1937. Mercy died in 1953 and was also buried in Mountain View Cemetery.

Chartered Accountants and Municipal Auditors

Rules for Archival Description (Revised Version – July 2008)
ISAAR (CPF): International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families (2nd edition - September 2011)

Created 31-08-2020
Updated 19-03-2021

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BC Directories (https://bccd.vpl.ca/)

"Crehan, Matthew Joseph (1874-1930)" (https://westendvancouver.wordpress.com/biographies-a-m/biographies-c/crehan-matthew-joseph-1874-1930/)

"Northern Who's Who: A Biographical Dictionary of Men and Women Especially compiled for Newspaper and Library reference - Volume 1" Edited by Dr. C.W. Parker, The Western Press Association, 1916. (https://archive.org/details/northernwhoswhob01park)

"Mrs. Mercy Ellen Crehan, C.A. Has Trained Her Figures to Loop the Loop" MacLean's Magazine, August 15, 1925 (https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1925/8/15/mrs-mercy-ellen-crehan-c-a-has-trained-her-figures-to-loop-the-loop#!&pid=56)