Heritage Register
Fernwood

1112 Caledonia Avenue (ex-8 Caledonia Av)
Oak Villa

Built 1890-91
Heritage-Designated 1977

For: St. Barnabas' Church Institute, Anglican Synod of BC, in the name of Rt. Bev. Bishop Hills, Bishop of Columbia

Architect: John Teague

ARCHITECTURE:

This Queen Anne house shares many similarities to 1116 Caledonia Av. They were designed as a pair by John Teague and built for the same client. The two-storey, hip-roofed house features a front pedimented, full-height angled bay. The upper storey bay has brackets. There is another hip-roofed, two-storey square bay above a bracketed cutaway bay on the left side. The sloping porch roof on the right of the front bay is an extension of the main roof and covers a recessed, two-storey front porch. It has turned posts on both levels, with turned balusters; the upper balcony is inaccessible. The lower porch has an unusual Art Nouveau scroll-sawn frieze and a panelled front door with side lights. A beltcourse defines the two storeys on the front and left sides; a slightly flared band of fishscale shingles further divides the front bay. The house is clad in drop siding, and has a brick foundation. Most windows are multi-pane-over-one double-hungs with horns. At the rear is a shed-roofed extension. The unusual central chimney has cruciform corbelling. There was a $1,500 addition in 1934.

From 1888-1890/91, architect John Teague owned the two lots on which 1112 and 1116 Caledonia stand, as well as the three lots to the west where the church was built. He lived across Cook St, at 1902 Cook St. [His house was demolished for Royal Athletic Park but his Sequoia tree remains.] The Daily Colonist in January 1891 mentions that two 2-storey frame residences were built on Caledonia Av for $6,500 in 1890. They were designed by Teague for Bishop Hills and the Anglican Synod of BC. The sewer for both houses was hooked up in 1900.

Several structures on the street were originally associated with St. Barnabas’ Church Institute. This one was the Rector’s house and is the best preserved. St. Barnabas Church itself, built in 1890-91 and altered in the 1990s, was designed by Rev. Taylor. It was based on Trinity/St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Ottawa, where he had been rector in 1889-90.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
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1890/91-94: The first occupants of the rectory, the Rev. George William Taylor, FRSC, (b. Derby, ENG, 1851-1912) and Elizabeth Ann “Bessie” (née Williams, b. Cowbridge, WAL, c.1860-1895) married in Victoria in 1885. Bessie had been the headmistress of Victoria Central Girl’s School and organist at Christ Church Cathedral (911 Quadra St, Fairfield). She was the sister of William Thwaites Williams, whose men’s furnishings business B. Williams & Co outfitted goldseekers for the Klondike (528 St Charles St, Rockland). Her mother Elizabeth was David Spencer’s sister (1040 Moss St, Rockland). Bessie died from complications in childbirth.

Rev. Taylor came to Victoria in 1884, was ordained in 1886, and became the first rector of St. Barnabas Parish in June 1890, holding services for adults and Sunday School for local children in the area until the church was built in 1891. He was apparently a “champion of the rights of Churchwomen to vote at church meetings,” as well as a renowned naturalist and biologist: he published more than 50 articles on entomology, conchology and marine biology, and several species of fish and molluscs were named in his honour. Among other honours, he was first president of the BC Academy of Sciences, and from 1908, curator of the Dominion Biological Station in Departure Bay, BC.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1894-99: The Rev. James Belton-Haslam.
1899-1919: The Rev. Ernest George Miller (b. ENG 1865) and Emily (née Kingham, b. Luton, Beds, ENG, 1869) came to Canada in 1890, married in Victoria in 1893, and celebrated their Silver Wedding Anniversary in this rectory. Miller trained at St. Augustine’s missionary college, Canterbury, UK, and was rector in Cedar, BC, before coming to Victoria. In 1901 the Millers had a domestic servant, Nellie Ryan, living with them. In 1903 Miller oversaw the construction of a schoolroom attached to St. Barnabas.

Ernest and Emily had two sons, Gerald Cedar and Vernon Ernest Montague, and two daughters, Eileen Margaret and Muriel. Ernest and Emily returned to England in 1919 and retired there.

1919-44: The Rev. Norman Elliot Smith (b. Kent, ENG, 1883-1945) and Jessie Gordon (née Smith, b. Bury St Edmonds, ENG, 1881-1985). Smith was educated at the King’s School, Canterbury, Kent, then graduated with degrees in arts from Keble College and theology from Cuddleston Theological College, Oxford, UK. He came to Canada in 1914 as rector in a logging community near Sudbury, ON. In 1938 he was made a Canon, but he resigned in 1944 due to ill health and died shortly after. Jessie died aged 103 in Lady Minto Hospital, Saltspring Island, BC.

1945-51: The Rev. Eric George Munn 1903-1968) and his wife Thyra. Munn graduated from the University of Leeds, Yorkshire, ENG, in 1927, then from the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, Yorkshire, and was ordained in 1930. He emigrated to Canada in 1932. About 1952 he was made an honorary canon, and in 1958 was made Archdeacon of the Cariboo. From 1959 until his death he was the sixth Bishop of Caledonia, the Diocese in the north of BC, the Yukon and the Queen Charlotte Islands.

1952-2012: In 1951 this St. Barnabas’ Anglican Church was closed, and a new St. Barnabas’ Church was built at the corner of Belmont Av and Begbie St in Fernwood (designed by John Wade of Birley, Wade & Stockdill.) The church property was sold for $6,500 to the Parish of St. Nicholas The Wonderworker Ukrainian Catholic Church. Fr. Demetrius Hnat and parishioners adapted the church to the needs of the Byzantine Rite, and it reopened on Easter Sunday 1952. In October 1952 the Ukranians purchased the rectory for $3,444.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Fernwood History

• Fernwood Heritage Register


• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume One: Fernwood & Victoria West