ARCHITECTURE:
This is a simply-detailed, hip-roofed, 2-storey Edwardian Four-Square with shingles below and half-timbering with roughcast stucco above. The side-facing entrance with front-facing steps is set in a recessed corner porch on the right. Pairs of heavy square chamfered posts are supported on high piers of dressed stone and the steps have matching stone parapets. The front façade has two cantilevered box bays with tripartite casement windows and art glass transoms. Upper windows are grouped in pairs and are double-hung multi-panes over single-panes. Both the entrance door and hall windows feature art glass windows. The porch balustrade is spindled and relieved by circular cut-outs which match a little balcony off the end of the porch; it is sheltered by a bracketed shed roof above.
The plumbing permit lists Luney Brothers as the pipe layers, so they were likely the contractors.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
The first owners were Angus Edward (1868-1931) and Jessie Marie McLean (1869-1948). Born in Pictou County, NS, Angus came to BC in 1891 and in 1897 married Ontario-native Jessie Urquhart in Kamloops. They came to Victoria in 1906 and Angus managed the grocery department in R.P. Rithet & Co, Wholesale Merchants, for about 14 years. The McLeans lived in this house until c.1925, then moved to Vancouver where Angus joined Kelly, Douglas & Co.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
Angus’s sister, Katherine Florence Creighton (1866-1934) lived in the house from c.1925 until she died. Her husband, James Edwin Creighton, was a professor of philosophy at Cornell University in Ithica, NY, from 1895 until his death in 1924. Katherine then came to Victoria. Another sister, Margaret Christina McCutcheon (1864-1947) also lived here c.1925 until her death. She married Hugh McCutcheon (1851-1924) in Kamloops in 1888. He was a customs collector and newspaper publisher in Greenwood, BC.
Salesman Herbert W. Biggin and his wife Jessie lived here in 1949, then widow Charlotte Button in 1951.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• This Old House, Victoria’s Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Four: Fairfield, Gonzales & Jubilee
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