ARCHITECTURE:
This single-storey, front-gabled Vernacular house has a shed-roofed addition at the rear of the house. On the left is a shallow angled bay with a small porch behind. At the front the gable sits on the hip of the full-width, wrap-around verandah. There are hooded rectangular Palladian windows in the shingled gable. The verandah has chamfered square posts and pilasters, a frieze with cutout plaques on either side of the posts, and a solid balustrade. The windows are multi-lights-over-one, and the house is clad in drop siding.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1903-05: Mary Lydia DeVoll (Devol), widow of John, is first listed in city directories in 1902 at 5 George St, but not in this house until 1905.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1907-09: George Henry and Maude Lucille Hall. Born in 1877 in the early Vancouver Island mining and farming community of Westholme, George’s birth was not registered with BC Vital Statistics. He married Maude in Victoria in 1902 and architect C. Elwood Watkins was his best man. George worked for decades for Turner-Beeton & Co, then in the late 1930s purchased the wholesale dry-goods firm and its famous Big Horn brand overalls and shirts; he renamed it Hall & Co. George was a member of St. Andrew’s Lodge No.49, AF&AM. George and Maude lived for many years at 1059 Belmont Av, Rockland.
1910-14: Electrician Harry Gifford Nash (b. Niagara on the Lake, ON, 1859-1955) and Mary. Harry later worked as a forest warden until retiring in 1930.
1917-23: School gardener Charles Henry Bennett (1873-1959) and Elizabeth Mary (née Rawbone, 1875-1961). They came from Kent, England, c.1913. The Bennetts moved next door to 1710 Stanley, where they resided until Charles’ death. He was a member of St. John’s Church and the Victoria Horticultural Society.
1924-40: Widow Gertrude L. Dixon, a teacher at Oaklands School.
1941-47: James Gerry Lewis (b. Devon, ENG, 1900-1956) and Gwynedd Emily. James came to Canada in 1937 and was away on active service during WWII. He was a music teacher, organist and choirmaster of St. Mary’s Church, Oak Bay.
1949: George Franklin and Bessie McCall. George was a storekeeper and farmer; they moved to BC in 1940.
1951-52: Aleksander Michael Bednarski (b. Crakow, Poland, 1907-1987), City draftsman and surveyor, and his wife Elizabeth.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• This Old House, Victoria’s Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume One: Fernwood & Victoria West