ARCHITECTURE:
Architect D’Oyly Rochfort designed at least three Tudor Revival houses on Davie for Bevan Bros. at the end of 1908: building permits were issued in quick succession for #1023, 1063 & 1077 Davie St. This is marginally larger than 1077, but built on a very similar plan and both cost about $4,000. It has a high bell cast hipped roof, a shingle-clad ground floor, and a half-timbered second floor. There are fine corbelled chimneys, and a bracketed box bay on the right side. A large left-side extension has a hipped roof. Records show Gerald (president) and Reginald (secretary-treasurer) Bevan of Bevan Brothers building all three. By 1912, Florida, widow of Joseph Tassie, was living here.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
Barrister William Howard Bullock-Webster (1866-1945) came to Victoria in 1912, and probably bought this house that year. He lived in Victoria for the rest of his life, with his wife Marie. Born in Herefordshire, England, William was educated at Sherborne School and came to Canada in 1886 following a brief banking stint in Suffolk. He lived briefly in Alberta before coming to Vancouver. Several years later he joined his brother Edward in a ranching enterprise in Keremeos in the Similkameen Valley. In 1892, William began a 15-year career with the BC Police Force, but resigned his position of chief constable for the West Kootenay region to enter the law profession. He was called to the Bar in 1912, at which point he and his family moved to Victoria. William and Oscar Chapman Bass, KC, practised law together until Oscar’s death in 1936. William retired in 1944.
In 1900 William had married New Brunswick-native Marie Emmeline Fowler DeBou (1870-1954), who was living in Victoria at the time. She came to Victoria in 1890, was one of the first two student nurses in the new Royal Jubilee School of Nursing and was in the first class to graduate in 1892 (1900 Fort St, Jubilee, Begbie Hall). Marie, or “Bou” as she was known at the Jubilee, was a favourite of Dr. John S. Helmcken (638 Elliot St, James Bay). She was one of three student nurses who volunteered to work the Quarantine Hospital during the 1892 smallpox epidemic, and they had no access to the main hospital from June to December that year. Marie was living at 810 Foul Bay Rd at the time of her death in 1954.
William Clarence (1882-1948) and Isobel Margaret (Wilson, 1882-1969) Bradburn bought this house in 1946 when they moved from Ontario. William was a retired painter. Isobel sold this house after he died.
Dr. John F. and Joan E. Tysoe bought this house in 1949 and lived here until the mid-1950s.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• This Old House, Victoria’s Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Four: Fairfield, Gonzales & Jubilee
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