Heritage Register
Fernwood

1460 Gladstone Avenue
(ex-116 North Chatham St)

Built 1891
Heritage-Registered

For: Thomas H. & Emma Matthew

Builder: Thomas H. Matthew

ARCHITECTURE:

This is a two-storey, hip-roofed Queen Anne house with eaves brackets and shaped bargeboards. There are three square bays: the right side and front are gabled and the left side is hip-roofed. A wide flared beltcourse with decorative shingles separates the stuccoed upper floor and shingled lower. A hipped roof covers the wrap-around porch to the right of the front bay. There are three square turned posts and turned spindles in the frieze. The balustrade is shingled. The panelled front door has side lights and a transom. A shallow pent roof covers a window located above the rear of the porch roof. The second floor was at one time half-timbered and stuccoed. Most of the half-timbering has been removed. The main floor and gables are clad in shingles, the foundation is concrete. The house sustained interior damage from a fire in the 1970s.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1891-1928: Carpenter, joiner and builder Thomas Henry Matthew (1840-1928) and Emma Jane (née Matthew, 1843-1923) were born in Cornwall, England. They married there in 1862 and came to Ontario in the mid-1870s where Tom operated a lumber mill. They moved to Victoria in 1891, bought this property and built the house. Their sons Alfred Henry Poltaire and Sydney Edwin were also carpenters and helped build the house. Alfred became a miller for The Brackman-Ker Milling Co (1004 Catherine St, Vic West).

The Matthew daughters all married in this house: Laura Annie worked as a milliner at Spencer’s Arcade until 1897, when she married builder Aaron Parfitt (1421 Grant St, Fernwood). Charity Jane “Jennie” married bricklayer Herbert Knott (1466 Gladstone Av) in 1898. Rosina Georgina “Rose” married music salesman Alfred Huxtable in 1901 (1422 Fernwood Rd, Fernwood).

Tom and Emma marked their 60th anniversary in 1922 at their summer home, 296 Beach Dr. Emma was a strong churchwoman, first with Metropolitan Methodist Church and then Belmont Methodist. She was a life member of Sherwood Auxiliary, Women’s Missionary Society. Tom taught the Adult Bible Class for decades.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1891-35: Sydney Edwin Matthew (1866-1967) and his father Tom were survivors of the Point Ellice Bridge Disaster on May 26, 1896. They were both on the fatal streetcar, but were thrown free; Sydney’s hip and leg were injured, causing lameness with a twisted foot for the rest of his life. When WWI started, Sydney went back to England to serve in any way he could; for some time he worked as a carpenter in Liverpool. Sydney was the proprietor of the Shirley Apartments, later called the Grant Street Rooms, at 1802 Chambers St, and remained single. He lived in the family home until 1935, when he lost the house to the city for non-payment of taxes due to the depression. Sydney died aged 100 at the Salvation Army’s Matson Lodge in Esquimalt. He was a member of the Salvation Army’s first Victoria band.

1939-40: The Rev. Nathaniel Noble Strain, pastor of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Tabernacle at 571 Yates St, and his wife Mary Beryl. 1942-44: Ellen Emilie Breakell, whose husband James was on WWII active service. James was a shoe repairer for 40 years until retiring in 1951.
1945-51: AA1 Apartments, a rooming house owned by timekeeper Donald Pratt Cameron (b. New Mexico c.1904) and Lois Helen (née Tripp, b. Victoria, c.1906), who married in Oak Bay in 1929.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Fernwood History

• Fernwood Heritage Register


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