Heritage Register
Fernwood

1418 Fernwood Road (ex-41 Fernwood Rd)

Built 1890
Heritage-Designated 1978

For: Mary & Herbert Welch

ARCHITECTURE:

This house could be described as Edwardian Vernacular because of its mixture of styles. Its steeply hipped roof and two-storey rectangular shape is similar to a Foursquare. The house originally had two pedimented dormers on the front and one on each side; in the 1970s a third was added to the front. There is a wide two-storey angled bay on the front left and one on the lower right side, all with multi-paned leaded transoms in the centre. A wide front porch to the right of the bay has a Classical Revival pedimented entrance on brackets and four columns supporting the porch’s hipped roof. Shingles covering the upper floor are flared at the beltcourse. The body and the balustrade are clad in bevelled siding. There is a wooden three-storey fire escape on the left side. The foundation is stone. In 2005 owners Garde Collins and Malcolm Harman received awards from both Victoria’s Hallmark Society and the Heritage Society of BC for their superb work in rehabilitating and returning to active use the two houses at 1418 and 1422 Fernwood Rd.


ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
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1904-05: Herbert Hatton Welch (b. London, ENG, 1864-1918) and Mary (née French, b. Frome, ENG, 1868-1950) both came to Canada in 1884. Herbert was listed as “Divorced by the Courts of B.C.” on their marriage certificate in New Westminster in 1893. By 1901 they were living in Victoria. Herbert was a commercial traveller. He was for many years the mainland representative of W.J. Pendray & Sons (309 Belleville St, James Bay), and a member of Victoria Columbia Lodge, AF&AM. Their son Herbert John “Bert” Welch (1894-1959) was a member of the BC Legislature, and was president of Olympic Logging Co.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

Owners: 1906-22: Elizabeth Jane Bowron (née Watson, b. Victoria, 1865-1922). [Note: Her parents were blacksmith Adam Watson (b. Greenock, SCT, 1823-1880) and Mary (née MacLachlan, b. Bel-Na-Hule, Argyllshire, SCT, 1831-1915). In 1848 Adam and Mary sailed to New York, then came to Victoria in 1860 via the California and Cariboo gold rushes. Adam established a foundry in Victoria, then again in the Cariboo for three years until his death. Elizabeth’s sister Jeanette “Janet” McAuslan married Sewell Prescott “Sew” Moody, who founded Moodyville, BC; their son Sewell Moody later lived at 1020-22 St Charles St, Rockland].

In 1895 Mary Watson, her daughters and grandchildren moved to Ross Dhu at 1055 Foul Bay Rd. In 1897 in Ross Dhu Elizabeth Watson married widower John Bowron (b. Huntingdon, QC, 1837-1906) of Barkerville. John was a member of the expedition that travelled to the Cariboo gold fields over the Yellowhead Pass in 1862. He was the first Cariboo Gold Commissioner for the government. John founded the Cariboo Literary Society in Barkerville in 1863 so that “men could meet and talk and once again feel themselves to be part of the world of music, books and the arts that had all been left behind on entering the gold fields.” A daughter by his first marriage was Lottie Mabel Bowron (see 589 Toronto St, James Bay). John Bowron’s place in Cariboo history is commemorated in Bowron Lakes and Bowron Lake Provincial Park. He died in this house shortly after Elizabeth bought it. She rented it out for some years, but moved back in 1920-22.

1922-24: Elizabeth and John’s only child, teacher Aileen Genevieve Leone Bowron (b. Barkerville, 1897-1961), married Russell George Stinson (b. MacGregor, MB, 1892-1940) a month before her mother’s death. They lived in the house another two years. Russell was manager of Island Taxi & Touring Co. After his early death, Aileen worked as a clerk at HMCS Dockyard.

Tenants: 1908: Elizabeth Bowron’s sister Mary Agnes (née Watson, 1855-1919), widow of merchant Ithiel Blake Nason (b. Maine, 1839-1893). [Note: Ithiel and Mary, his second wife, married in Victoria in 1875. Ithiel went west to the California goldrush and came to BC in 1858. He had a sawmill in the Cariboo and an interest in many mines. Ithiel was elected MPP for the District of Cariboo in 1884 and 1891, the only American then in BC’s legislature. Mary Nason and children lived at Ross Dhu by 1899.]

1910-11: Mary and Delbert Hankin, manager of the lumber department, Canadian Puget Sound Lumber Co, came from the USA in 1909. In 1911 they moved into their new Samuel Maclure-designed home at 644 Linden Av, Fairfield. By the mid-1920s Delbert was general manager of Royse-Hankin Lumber Co in Washington State; it was destroyed by fire in 1926. 1913-14: Labourer Isaac and Mary Jennie Morgan. A veteran of the United Spanish War, Isaac was a cement worker.
1915-18: Machinist Joseph and May Mercy “Minnie” Brakes. Minnie was a widow when they married in Victoria in 1902. Joseph signed up for the CEF in 1916. He survived WWI, only to die in Victoria in September 1918 of Spanish Influenza.

1920: The Rivers brothers, William Robert David, Charles Edward and Albert Vincent, all painters, lived in 1201-03 Yukon St and 1209 Yukon St, Fernwood, in the mid-1920s.
1925-47: Kenneth Farquhar Ferguson (b. St. Thomas, ON, 1885-1943) and Roberta Scott (née Brown, b. Kilmarnock, SCT, 1892-1977) married in Victoria in 1914. Ken was manager of Imperial Life Assurance Co. Roberta was a nurse before her marriage.

1948-58: William Leavens Hodgkin Sr (b. Cumberland, ENG, 1890-1966) and Margaret “Maggie” (née Williamson, b. Cumberland, ENG, 1892-1984) married in Victoria in 1915. William was a mechanic when he signed up for service in WWI in November 1914. He later became a helper at Yarrows. He served with the BC Provincial Police for 20 years until retiring in 1950.