Heritage Register
Fernwood

1217 Yukon Street
(ex-7, then 1217 Whittaker Rd)

Built 1892
Heritage-Designated 1994

For: William Whittaker

ARCHITECTURE:

This is the third of the four remaining almost identical houses built by William Whittaker (1201-03 Yukon St). See 1209 for house description. It differs from 1209 in that it has corbelled chimneys on the main and rear extension roofs and a portion of the front porch has been enclosed with siding.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1898-1901: Elizabeth Stewart MacFarlane (1856-1951), the wife of John Hay MacFarlane. Living with her were her children Evelyn Anderson, a stenographer, Gertrude Mary, a teacher, later at Girl’s Central School, and son William. Elizabeth brought her young family to Canada from Edinburgh, SCT, in 1892, the year after her three brothers, Andrew, James and George Stewart arrived here. Elizabeth’s last child, Victoria Isabel Anderson MacFarlane, was born in Victoria shortly after they arrived. John Hay MacFarlane, who is unlisted in city directories, is listed on Victoria’s birth certificate as a commission agent. However, the 1898 voters’ list records a J.H. MacFarlane, mine manager at Greenwood, BC. In 1902 Evelyn MacFarlane married George Williams, a mining engineer from Ladysmith, and when George and Evelyn visited her mother on Sylvia St in 1907, he was superintendent of BC Copper Co in Greenwood.

By April 1901 Elizabeth, her offspring, her brothers and her Japanese servant Tasney were at Petreavie, 2 Sylvia St, later 362, in James Bay. In 1908 she was a widow. In 1909 Gertrude was married in a large society wedding to Alexander Kaye of the Dominion Assay office in Vancouver. Elizabeth was prominent in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, the Children’s Aid Society, and the Alexandra Literary Club.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1902: Carpenter/contractor Samuel and Ellen Isabel/Isabella Creech came to Victoria c.1882, lived in Comox, BC, when their last two children were born, and then in Victoria for the rest of their lives. Their offspring lived here with them: Samuel Harvey, a barber at Van Sicklens on Trounce Alley, signed up to fight in WWI in 1916; Walter Hamilton, a brakeman on the Great Northern Railroad; Lillian Agnes; William Havelock signed up for WWI in 1916 and married when he returned as a lieutenant in 1919; and Arthur Lewis, an electrician, then a department manager for BC Tel.
1908: Jeweller William Henry Pennock, whose wife Clara had died two years before. They married in Victoria in 1888. 1909: Spencer’s department store salesman Percival Augustus “Percy” and Edith Marion Hawkes lived at 1110 Pembroke St, Fernwood, from 1918-34.

1912-14: New arrivals Henry and Elizabeth Tidbury from England. Henry was a gardener, as were their three sons Frank, Stanley and Ernest by the 1930s. Ernest worked for William Hobart Molson of the Montreal brewing and banking family at 1663 Rockland Av, then as a gardener in the civil service. 1918-20: Royal Naval College instructor Thomas Stevenson, his wife Mary Elizabeth and daughter Hilda, a clerk at the Green Jewellery Store.

1927: Woolworth’s assistant manager George H. Ireland lived in the 1010 Queens Av apartments in 1926, and left town by 1928.
1927-34: Emmanuel Defty (b. ENG, c.1874-1928) and Ellen (née Lea, b. St. Helens, Lancs, ENG, 1889-1974) married in 1926. Ellen had married Charles Gilbert Lucas (1881-1924) in Victoria in 1913 but he died of a brain tumour. Emmanuel, a cook, baker and New Method Laundry washer, lived in Seattle, WA, in 1916 when he came to Victoria and signed up with the CEF for WWI.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Fernwood History

• Fernwood Heritage Register


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