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Born in Leeds, England, Francis Mawson Rattenbury (1867-1935) was a prominent British Columbian architect. He is best known for the buildings that he designed in Victoria, BC, such as the Parliament Buildings (1893-8) and the Empress Hotel (1903-8). Rattenbury emigrated to British Columbia in 1892, and shortly thereafter he won an international competition for the design of the Parliament Buildings in Victoria. Throughout his career, Rattenbury worked extensively for the British Columbia provincial government, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and the Bank of Montreal. His oeuvre is characterized by his use of the Château style, as in the design for the Empress Hotel and the Beaux-Arts style, as in the Vancouver Court House (1906-11). In 1911 Rattenbury returned to England.