Heritage Register
Fairfield

906 Linden Avenue

Built 1910
Heritage-Registered

For: Richard & Louisa Hall

Architect: Samuel Maclure

ARCHITECTURE:

Samuel Maclure was an admirer of British A&C architect C.F.A.Voysey, and Martin Segger has delicately noted in Samuel Maclure that “Maclure was not averse to producing residences which must be almost literal interpretations of the Voysey manner.” Certainly this house has much in common with Annesley Lodge in Hampstead, England, which Voysey designed for his father in 1896. Both are two storeys high, stucco-clad, and have steeply-pitched, bellcast hipped roofs with wide, closed eaves. Both have strings of multiple leaded windows on each floor (those on the second tucked under the eaves) and sloping buttresses to the roof at the corners. The upper-storey windows on this house are interspersed with half-timbering, a feature found on several of Voysey houses.

The house faces east and is cross-axial, with a single-storey wing at the rear. There is a recessed entry on the front right corner, open on two sides, balanced by a shed-roofed, single-storey box bay to the left, and with corresponding two- and three-part leaded multi-pane windows on the upper storey. On the left side there is a 2-storey hipped-roof wing, originally open at ground level but now glassed in. On the right side is a shallower wing, with a gable added to the hipped roof shown in Maclure’s plans. Three stuccoed chimneys tower above the roofline, with a fourth on the rear wing.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

This house was built for Richard Hall (1853-1918), who was variously a local MLA, city alderman, and partner in many businesses, including Walter Walker Coal and Victoria Sealing Co. Born in Grass Valley, CA, Richard came to Victoria with his parents in 1859. He was educated at St. Louis College and the Collegiate School. In 1875 he was a purser on a sternwheeler on the Stikine River. Upon his return to Victoria the following year, Richard joined Robert Ward & Co, (1249 Rockland Av, Rockland). In 1882 he became an agent for Liverpool & London & Globe Insurance Co. He also joined W.J. Goepel (146 Clarence St, James Bay) to form Hall, Goepel & Co, general business agents. In 1899 Richard joined Walter Walker Coal and eventually formed Richard Hall & Sons. In 1888, Richard joined the Victoria Sealing Co, and retained interests in the business even after seal hunting was shut down in 1911. He was elected an MLA in 1898, 1900 and 1903. In 1905 the federal government appointed him fisheries commissioner for Victoria.

In 1897 he married Louisa Kinsman (1867-1937), a Victoria native and daughter of Ald Joseph Kinsman (Louisa’s sister Nellie married Dr. George Milne, 617 Battery St, James Bay.) She remained in this house after Richard died until her own death. Sons Rupert Cecil Hall (1888-1936) and Norman Burnley Hall (1889-1963) were both coal & insurance agents with their father. Rupert was living here when he died in 1936. Daughter Kathleen lived here until shortly after her mother’s death. She married R.J. Dunsmuir.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

By 1939 this house was converted into the Kipling Apartments. Ellen Savin (Smith, 1872-1951), widow of Philip Savin, lived here until the mid-1940s. Born in Kent, England, she came to Canada in 1912, and moved to Victoria in 1937. Seamstress Lottie May Dodimead (1883-1956) lived here until 1950. Born in Portage La Prairie, MB, she came to Victoria in 1931.

Assistant Victoria Daily Times editor Harry Percival Hodges (1884-1968) and wife Sarah Annie “Nancy” (Austin, 1888-1969), lived here until the late 1940s. Born in England, they married there before moving to BC in 1913 and lived in Kamloops before coming to Victoria in 1916. Harry and Nancy began working for the Times shortly after their arrival; Nancy was women’s editor and columnist, and Harry was editor-in-chief when he retired in 1950. Nancy was elected MLA for Victoria in 1941, and was re-elected in 1945 and 1949. In 1950 she was appointed Parliamentary Speaker, becoming the first female to do so in the Commonwealth. She was appointed to the Senate in 1953 and retired in 1965.

Beauchamp S. Hickman Tye lived here until the late 1940s and was the proprietor of the Victoria Hearing Aid Co, which he and his wife established in 1938. He was son of Thomas Beauchamp Tye, and grandson of Victoria pioneer Thomas Hickman Tye, who established Hickman Tye Hardware Co in 1858.

Robert Arthur (1889-1957) and Blanche (Ogden, 1897-1962) Gurney lived here from the mid-1940s-1950s. Robert was born in Schreiber, ON, and moved to London, England, in 1910. He worked a variety of jobs, but eventually came back to Canada. He began his career in the newspaper industry as a reporter and worked in various Canadian cities. He joined the army in 1914 in Winnipeg. Robert married Blanche Ogden during WWI, and afterwards returned to newspaper work in Port Arthur, ON, until 1930. In 1931 he came to Victoria to work for the Victoria Daily Colonist as a reporter and editor. Robert became head librarian when the Times and the Colonist moved into the same building and pooled their resources.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Fairfield History

• Fairfield Heritage Register



• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Four: Fairfield, Gonzales & Jubilee