Heritage Register
Victoria West

543 Northcott Street
(ex-Burleith Pl, 519 Northcott St)

Built 1912
Heritage-Registered

For: Harry Roch (Roche, Roach)

ARCHITECTURE:

This Colonial Bungalow has a bellcast hipped roof with bellcast hip-roofed dormers on all four sides. Under all the eaves are modillions clustered in threes. The front dormer has a sleeping porch with two chamfered posts and projecting square-spindled balustrade. On the right side there are two shallow box bays on sandwich brackets. The house has a symmetrical façade with a full-width front verandah. There are square balusters between four heavy chamfered posts supported on shingled piers. The stairway balustrade is wide, sloped and shingled. The main body of the house and the dormers are clad in beaded, double-bevelled siding. The basement level, which is shingled, has a doorway on the right with two casement windows under each box bay. The house was assessed at $3,000 when built.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1912-14: HBC department manager Harry Roch built this house but lived at 535 Northcott until 1914. 1914-16: George Thomas and Edith Marion Young. George was a partner in Copas & Young, Anti Combine Grocers at 631 Fort, then a fruit farmer in Saanich when he retired in 1941. 1917-18: Capt. Frederick W. Hanning, pay inspector, CAPC, his wife A. Ethel, and their son Howard. The Hannings came to Canada in 1907 and lived in London, ON, in 1911. Capt. Hanning had spent 12 years in the Imperial Army and military forces of British South Africa Co (BSAC) and Rhodesia, and over 11 years in the Canadian Army Permanent Force. He signed up for overseas service with the CEF on November 11th, 1918 at Willows Camp in Oak Bay.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1920-21: St. Pauls Presbyterian Church pastor the Rev. Hector Noble and Mary Euphemia Maclean came to BC in 1911 and later lived in Vancouver. 1923-27: The Rev. John S. Patterson from St. Pauls Presbyterian Church. 1928-33: Martha Jane McClimon (née Hamilton, b. IRL, 1873-1951), widow of David, with her daughter Mattie and son James, a meat cutter at Superior Meat Market. They came to BC c.1901 and Martha died in Vancouver.
1934-41: Boilermaker John Foyer (b. SCT, 1881-1942), Mary (née Ross, b. IRL, c.1882-1939), and their offspring: Mary and Margaret were both saleswomen at Spencers. Florence was a steno for the BC government. James was a truck driver. John “Jack” was a DND heavy equipment operator.
1942: Mrs. Priscilla Silvester and Constance Dora Silvester, who married chauffeur William Leslie Silvester in Vancouver in 1926. It is likely that their husbands were brothers and possibly both on WWII active service.
1943-50: R. Mae Abell, widow of retired stationer Percy Collinson Abell (b. Ontario, 1882-1937); they lived at 301 Kingston St, James Bay in 1937.
1951: The house was duplexed for $3,000 by owner Arthur John Robson Fuller.
1952: The tenants in one suite were Arthur’s parents, Manufacturers Life agent John Edward Fuller and Ada “Irene” (née Robson, b. Union /
Cumberland, BC, 1895-1992). They were married in Victoria in 1914 by Irene’s father, the Rev. John Robson, at Belmont Av Methodist Church, Fernwood. Rev. Robson was the second minister at Grace Methodist Church at the Dunsmuir Union Mines/Cumberland from 1892-95.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Vic West History

• Vic West Heritage Register


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