Heritage Register
Fernwood

1508 Gladstone Avenue

Built 1909
Heritage-Designated 1991

For: Thomas Matthew

Builder: Thomas H. Matthew

ARCHITECTURE:

This is another variation of the Edwardian Vernacular Arts & Crafts, with its full-width verandah and gabled wing on the right instead of a dormer. It is 1½ storeys, with a roof dormer on the left and a steep front gable. There is a cantilevered box bay on the left. Two stringcourses separate the three sections of the front gable. The apex is shingled, the central portion has three windows, stickwork and vertical siding, and the lower has stucco and half-timbering. The verandah has a hipped roof and paired chamfered square posts on shingled piers with square balusters. There are two leaded glass windows to the right of the door. The offset front steps has a similar balustrade. The house is covered in bullnosed double-bevelled siding.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1909-10: Contractor Thomas Henry Matthew (1460 Gladstone Av) built this house on a speculative basis.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1912: Frank and Catherine Calvert (1900 Belmont Av, Fernwood).
1913-14: Freeman LaFayette Henry (b. Stoney Creek, Hamilton, ON, 1865-1953) and Elizabeth Electa “Lizzie” (née Lincoln, b. Buffalo, NY, 1872-1948) came to Victoria in 1899. Cousin Frank Henry, a lieutenant at No.2 Fire Hall (1240 Yates St, Fernwood), was living with them. [Note: On Boxing Day, 1901, Frank was driving a hack (horse-drawn taxi) down Blanshard St in a terrible storm when he heard a loud crash behind him; he later found out that the small steeple had blown off St. Andrew’s Cathedral, narrowly missing him. The next day, Freeman and Lizzie’s son Georgie didn’t return home from delivering lunch to his father at Sayward’s Mill. His little sister was with him, but when Georgie stopped to play with some boys at Rock Bay Bridge, she went home. His body was found three weeks later in the water, with a cut over his eye. It wasn’t until the 1920s that one of the boys who was there that day knocked on Freeman and Lizzie’s door and told them what had happened. They had been throwing rocks: one hit Georgie and he fell into the water. The boys got frightened and ran away, leaving him to drown.]

Freeman became a fireman at No.1 Fire Hall from 1903 until retiring in 1927. In 1930 the city had to cut pensions in half due to the Great Depression, and their granddaughters quit school to bring in money for the household budget. Freeman and Lizzie were married 60 years, and lived at 1329 Stanley St from c.1921 until 1953. They outlived all their children and raised two of their granddaughters: Phyllis Grace Hawkes (1913-2001) who in 1939 married Gordon Windwick (b. Orkney Islands, SCT, 1907-1967), and Mary Frances “Molly” Hawkes (see photos pages 12, 13 & 14). Phyllis was born at 1508 Gladstone to Grace Irene Henry and Wilfred Edgar Hawkes. [In 2009 Phyllis’s son Greg Windwick and his wife Val requested that the City designate their 1947 house at 1267 May St, Fairfield.]

1917: Euphemia “Effie” Hibberd whose husband Lionel Godfrey “George”, a janitor, was on WWI active service. 1918-21: BC Electric Railway (BCER) conductor Herbert George Bolt (b. ENG, 1876-1935) and Emma Sophia (née Fernie, b. ENG, 1879-1956) came to Canada in 1912. Their daughter Margaret Frances, a stenographer, married baker James Hanbury in 1928. The Hanbury family ran the Golden West Bakery from 1910-33, then sold to McGavin Bakery. James was foreman of McGavins until 1943. Margaret and James bought a ranch near Osoyoos, BC, and Emma went to live with them.

The house was briefly owned by James W. Gidley (303 Mary St, Vic West). From 1923-28: Carpenter Herbert George and Marguerite Richdale married in Victoria in 1916. Florence “Olive” and Frank Turner Painter married in Victoria in 1917; the marriage was dissolved in 1941. Assistant City accountant Cyril and Joan Norman.

1929-37: Carpenter Ainger Roger Berry (b. Brixton, London, ENG, 1879-1968) and Elizabeth Mary (née Warman, b. Folkestone, ENG, 1887-1962) married in Vancouver in June 1915, ten days before Ainger volunteered for the CEF in WWI. Ainger had served 15 years in the Royal Navy, and was a member of the 72nd Gordon Highlanders militia. His attestation papers were later stamped: “Invalided to Canada for further treatment” at the Canadian Military Hospital Hastings, ENG. Ainger was a pipe fitter at the Foundation Shipyard.

1938-39: Robert and Florence Robertson; Robert was a millworker at Manning Lumber Mills, 1910 Store St, Burnside. Living with them were their offspring, student Florence M. and George, Victoria Super Service Station “washerman”, 24-Hour-Service, Blanshard & Johnson Sts.

1940-45: Douglas C. Moodie (b. Dundee, SCT, 1872) and Margaret A. (née Sutherland), retired. Douglas was a 44-year-old labourer when he signed up for service in WWI in August 1916. He had been a member of the 50th Gordon Highlanders militia for two years, and of the 42nd Highlanders, the Black Watch, in Scotland for 17 years.

1946-47: BC government apprentice electrician William M. and Joyce E. Howlett.
1949-58: Retired gardener Axwell John Couper (b. Inverness, SCT, 1879-1958) and Adeline “Ada” (née Finlayson, b. Rosshire, SCT, 1881-1962), and their offspring Isabella A, a clerk at the Victoria Daily Colonist; Margaret, a saleswoman at Spencer’s department store; Marie F, a BC government stenographer; and William John, a city labourer. The Coupers came to Canada in 1910 and Victoria in 1948.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Fernwood History

• Fernwood Heritage Register


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