Heritage Register
Fernwood

1434 Vining Street (ex-14 Milne St)

Built 1892
Heritage-Registered

For: Edwin Depew
Builder: likely Edwin Depoew

ARCHITECTURE:

This is a front gabled, 1½-storey Homestead house, with a side-gabled rear addition at the left. The front gable has decorative bargeboards and an ornament in its apex supported on brackets. Above the upper windows is a shingled panel. Recently, the original stickwork design between the two windows has been removed. A full-width shed roof which covers the front porch is supported by three square turned and bracketed posts. The front steps are on the right side of the porch, and the balusters are square. The windows all have ornamental aprons. The house is clad in v-groove lap siding with lattice under the verandah.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1892-93: Carpenter Edwin A. Depew (Dephew) paid the taxes, but was rooming at the corner of Amelia and Farquhar (Mason) Sts in 1892, the only year he appears in city directories. Because no street numbers were listed for Milne St until 1898, we don’t know the tenants of #14.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1894-96: The taxes were paid by Margaret Rogerson (née Laithwaite, b. Ontario, 1846-1932), who came to Victoria in 1890 with her husband Isaac (b. Yorkshire, ENG, 1843-1894). Isaac was a housebuilder and contractor, and in 1893-94 manager of Rock Bay Lumber Co. In 1891 they lived at 90 Pandora Av with their four children, and Margaret was running it as a boarding house with eight lodgers, including five carpenters and one woman, a dressmaker. Margaret’s son Ernest Benson Laithwaite Rogerson worked as a clerk from 1897, and daughter Sada Eugenia Tressa got a job as a clerk the next year. The family later moved to Vancouver.

1897-1906: Postman Arthur Charles Charlton and Linda Ann (née Knott) moved to 1437 Vining St in 1906.
1907-09: Henry and Ada Pretty had the house plumbed in 1907. Harry was a brick and tile moulder and maker and a quarry foreman. They came to Canada from England in 1886.

1910-24: Charles Edward Driver (1858-1928) and Elizabeth (1854-1933). Born in England, they came to Canada in 1883 and Victoria in 1888. Charles was a mason and bricklayer, but after the war was a labourer. In 1901 three of their children were working in the clothing business, Ada Mary, 16, as a shirt maker, Henry Walter, 14, a pressman, and Margaret, 13, an apprentice milliner. Charles was a member of Court Vancouver, 5755 AOF.

1926-56: William James Hook (b. Willing, Kent, ENG, 1872-1947) and Sophia Burnham (née Saunders, b. London, ENG, 1873-1956) immigrated to Victoria in 1909. William began as a City labourer, and retired as City Foreman; he was a member of Court Camosum, AOF.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Fernwood History

• Fernwood Heritage Register


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