ARCHITECTURE:
This vernacular Italianate house is one of the four almost identical houses built by William Whittaker (1201-03 Yukon St). See 1209 for house description. It differs from 1209 in that it is shingled over the original drop siding and it has corbelled chimneys on the main and rear extension roofs. The house was extensively rehabilitated in 2006 by Simon Cater.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
Tenants: 1894-95: Barber George Hanft worked for William Whittaker.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1898-1901: John Edmond Whiteside (b. Templemore, Co. Tipperary, IRL, 1863) and Ada (née Sweatman, b. Surbiton, Surrey, ENG, 1853) came to Canada in 1890 and married in Victoria in 1893. John, a widower when he married Ada, was a clerk in Her Majesty’s Customs, and later a miner and bookkeeper.
1905-06: Rudolph and Katherine Vancouver “Kate” Schnoter married in Victoria in 1901. Kate’s parents Isaac and Isabella Johns married in Nanaimo in 1867 and were dead by 1890. In 1891 Kate’s 20-year-old sister Jennie was the head of the household, raising five younger siblings. Rudolph came to Canada in 1888, following his parents Andrew and Emma, three brothers and a sister. The men were partners in A. Schnoter & Sons, cigar manufacturers at 148 Government St (122 South Turner St, James Bay). The firm was established, as Schnoter & Cramer, at least by 1887, and continued under brother Frank Schnoter until c.1916.
1907-08: Baker John Gordon and Isabella Thompson married in Victoria in 1900.
1917: Herbert Brighton and Rebecca, widow of James Brighton.
1918: Mary Erskine, widow of Alex, her son Samuel, a boilermaker’s helper, and daughter Jeanie, a maid.
1920-78: Clarence Cleveland Ganner (1886-1978), and Margaret “Maggie” Christie (née McFawn, 1891-1959) married in Victoria in 1912. Clarence was born in Esquimalt to Elijah and Mary Jane Ganner who came to Canada in 1879. Elijah was a miner in Nanaimo when he married Mary in Victoria in 1884. Maggie was born in Glasgow, SCT, to an Irish father, machinist William McFawn and Scottish mother Margaret, and came to Esquimalt with her family in 1891. Clarence was a streetcar conductor, then an automobile salesman for Revercomb Motors (1537 Gladstone Av, Fernwood) and Atkinson Motors.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• This Old House, Victoria’s Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume One: Fernwood & Victoria West