ARCHITECTURE:
This two-storey, hip-roofed house has a front-facing gabled extension with decorative bargeboards and original wood-pegged half-timbering above a cutaway bay. The front entry to the left is below a balustraded balcony. The balcony and half-width porch with Tudor arches were redesigned in 1981. A two-storey gabled bay on the right at the rear balances a hip-roofed box bay on the left, both with shingles flared under the stucco. It is thought that the house, the rest of which was clad in drop siding, was stuccoed in roughcast c.1912. Water permit application #605 gives the date of construction as 1894 and the contractor as McCrimmon. Rattenbury’s daughter claimed her father as the architect, but it has not been proven.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1894-97, 1901-04: Alan Southey Dumbleton (b. Wynberg, SA 1863-1937) and Mabel Constance (née Cookes, 1876- 1959), daughter of a British Army Maj.-Gen, married in 1890 in Cheltenham, ENG. In 1891 they had architect Cornelius J. Soule design a house on Belcher St, now 1731 Rockland Av (extant), but soon sold it to F. Walter Galpin. In 1894 they built Newholme on land split off from his parents’ Rocklands estate (1750 Rockland Av, demolished), after which the street was named. The 1894 Land Registry shows the transfer from Alan’s father Henry to Mabel, who took out mortgages to build the house, but Henry paid the assessments until 1904. [Henry Dumbleton (b. Bagshot, Surrey, ENG 1821-1909) met Clara Marian Garcia (b. George, Cape of Good Hope 1827-1915) in South Africa. They came to Canada in 1886.] Their son Alan went to Marlborough College, ENG, came to Victoria in 1887, and was admitted to the BC bar in 1890. In 1898-1900 Alan and Mabel lived at Rocklands.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
Tenants: 1898-1900: John Murdock Campbell, BCER assistant manager.
1905: Royal Bank manager George Aiken Taylor, The Grove.
Owners: 1906-48: Malcolm “Bruce” Jackson, KC (b. Woodville, ON 1873-1947) and Lilian Gertrude (née Edwards, b. Surrey, ENG 1874-1950) paid the 1906 taxes and 1908 plumbing permit. His family moved to Winnipeg in 1880. After receiving his law degree from U of MB in 1908, he and Lilian moved here. He was MLA for The Islands in 1916-24, and chairman of BC Game Conservation Board. Their son, 2nd Lt. Hugh Arthur Bruce Jackson joined the CEF in 1916 at age 17. He was discharged in ENG (17 Jan 1918) enabling him to join the RFC. KIA 25 June 1918, he is buried in Charmes Military Cemetery, Vosges, FRA.
Tenant: 1907-08: Arthur Davis, The Grove.
1948-49: Frank and Hilda Jeffries.
Owners: 1950-57: Aubrey Walker (b. Sheffield, ENG 1892-1957) and Hilda (née Young, b. Royal Leamington Spa, ENG 1895-1991) lived in Shanghai, China for 28 years where he ran a furniture factory, designing most of the furniture himself. Hilda owned and operated a successful dairy. When war broke out, both businesses were confiscated. After imprisonment in Japan during WWII, they came here in 1949. Aubrey managed the Art Centre 1950-51 then established Walker’s Art Store & China Repair on Fort St, followed by A. Walker & Co, importers of plywoods and veneers. He was a member of Shanghai’s Sinim Lodge, AF&AM. They subdivided the house: Tenant: 1950-55: Ethel “Hope” MacMinn (née Atwater, b. Boston, MA, USA 1894-1982), widow of bank manager Earle George MacMinn (1759 Rockland Av).
Owners 1966 to date: James Armstrong Munro (b. Oakville, ON 1929-2016) and Alice Ann (née Laidlaw, b. Wingham, ON 1931) met at U of W ON, married in 1951, and moved to Vancouver, where Jim worked at Eatons. In 1963 they moved here and opened Munro’s Books on Yates St.
Alice wrote short stories and worked at the shop in the afternoon. In 1968, her first published book won the Gov-Gen’s Award. Jim and Alice separated in 1972. Alice Munro has published a number of books, and has won many awards, including the 2009 International Booker Prize and 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature as a “master of the contemporary short story”.
Jim married again in 1976 to renowned fibre artist Carole Sabiston (b. London, ENG 1939). In 1984 he bought and restored the 1909 Royal Bank building at 1108 Government St (Downtown) for Munro’s Books, and decorated it with Carole’s tapestries. Columnist Allan Fotheringham called it “the most magnificent bookstore in Canada.” Jim retired on August 31, 2014, and gave the business to four of his employees. He was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2014.
Carole still owns the house. For her art she has received many honours, including the Saidye Bronfman Award for Canada for Excellence in Art in 1987 and the Order of BC in 1992. In 2014 the AGGV (1040 Moss St) held a retrospective of her work.