Heritage Register
Fairfield

1267 May Street

Built 1947
Heritage-Designated 2009

For: Charles & Elizabeth Hawkins

Builder: Charles W. Hawkins

ARCHITECTURE:

This 1-storey, front-gabled, 1940s Bungalow features a large parged 1930s English Cottage-style brick side-wall chimney. It was built by the owner, retired contractor Charles William Hawkins (1865-1952). He also built the very similar house to the east of this, 1271 May. He covered 1267 in the popular 1940s wide, rustic cedar shingle siding, and used the asbestos siding that imitated those cedar shingles on 1271. 1267 also has clapboards in the gables, slightly shallower than the cedar shingles. The gables have narrow bargeboards with simple crown mouldings. There are gabled, cantilevered and bracketed box bays on either side, a shed-roofed back porch, and a small gabled front porch with shingled balustrade and posts, wooden steps and 1940s wrought iron railings. The tripartite horizontally muntined casement windows have simple mouldings and their original glass. The old basement windows have one horizontal muntin, and the exterior basement door is original.

The interior is almost intact, with 1940s coved ceilings. The owners want to restore the kitchen, which was rebuilt in the early 1970s, to 1947; they can do this because the kitchen in 1271 remains untouched and will provide the template. The original garage also exists, but the doors were removed when they rotted out several decades ago.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

The Hawkins lived here until c.1950. Born in Newfoundland, Charles came to BC with his first wife, Harriet (White, 1872-1932) in 1906. He married Elizabeth Hunter Weir (1868-1963) in 1933. Elizabeth was born in Muirkirk, Scotland, and came to BC in 1928.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

Retired couple Benjamin (1879-1959) and Clara (Manly, 1885-1980) Wellwood moved to Victoria in 1951 and owned the house until 1958. Benjamin, born in Arthur, ON, was a real estate broker, an elder of Fairfield United Church, and a life member of Khartoum Temple, AAONMS, Winnipeg, and of Victoria Shriners. Clara was born in Dauphin, MN, trained as a teacher and taught in Saskatoon. She also was active in the church.

O.V. Rogers owned the house 1959-63, when it was purchased by John Charles (1920-1976) and Johanna Magdalena (Bohnet) Dawson. John was an accountant and a native of Bristol, England. They sold the house to Greg and Valerie Windwick in 1979. Greg worked for the BC Ministry of Finance. Born in Oak Bay in 1948, his Victoria ancestry goes back to 1899. Valerie, a musician, was born and raised in Vancouver and lived in Dawson Creek for two years before moving to Victoria in 1965. Both are now retired and asked for heritage designation of their house in 2008 as part of the City’s Fairfield Heritage Inventory Update.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Fairfield History

• Fairfield Heritage Register



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