ARCHITECTURE:
This one-storey, flat-roofed, symmetrical, commercial brick building has a sheet metal cornice and coping on the side walls. The slightly projecting entrance bay is a round-arched entry over a recessed door; the arch is parged and scored to imitate dressed stone. Tall, segmentally-arched windows on either side of the entry have rusticated stone voussoirs. The building makes superior use of over-scaled elements. Because of the steeply sloped site, the rear has two levels. There was restoration in 1958.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
Owners: 1896-1906: Built for $600 for Charles “Charlie” Joseph Vancouver Spratt (b. Victoria 1873-1941; 548 Lotbiniere Av, Rockland) at the top end of Spratt’s Wharf; he inherited the site from his father Joseph Spratt, who established Spratt’s Wharf in 1876 or earlier.
1906-13: Henry Broughton Thomson (b. Rostrevor, Co Down, IRL 1870-1939).
1913-23: Contractor brothers Michael Burns Carlin (b. Tinwick, QC 1857-1933) and Joseph David Carlin (b. Green Lake, MN, USA 1870-1936), and Dominic Burns (b. Kirkfield, ON 1860-1933) [brother of Senator Pat Burns of Burns Meats (528 St. Charles St, Rockland)]; now P. Burns’ Wharf.
1923-36: Dominic Burns, then his Estate was sole owner.
1936-64: City of Victoria.
1964-2020: Store St Holdings Ltd, Greene Family, who owned Capital Iron (1824-1900 Store St, Downtown).
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
Occupiers/Tenants: [W.R. Clarke established the first Coal, Wood & Commission Business on Spratt’s Wharf in 1876.]
1896-1901: C.J.V. Spratt and Henry Charles Macaulay (1869-1944) [cousin of Norman Macaulay (1630 Rockland Av)] as Spratt & Macaulay, coal merchants & commission merchants.
1898-1901: Capt. Thomas and Nora Whalen lived above the wharf as caretakers.
1901-05: Edmund Francis Radiger (b. Montréal 1848-1922 [married to Henry Macaulay’s sister]) & H.C. Janion, coal & commission merchants.
1905-07: A turpentine factory was developed on the wharf then moved out of town.
1907-20: Joshua Kingham & Co (b. Bucks, ENG 1866-1922), Victoria agents of Western Fuel Co’s New Wellington coal from Nanaimo Collieries. [1913-35: Producers Sand & Gravel, Man Dir Fred W. Jones, 1630 Rockland Av, on property to left of 1910; later Evans Coleman & Evans, etc]
c.1918-27: P. Burns’ Wharf caretaker/carpenter Henry Emert (b. GER c.1862?).
1926-27: Tometaro “Taro” Yoneda, a well-known boat builder.
1936-58: Manning Timber Mills, prop Frederick “Fred” Albert Ephraim Manning (b. Calgary 1911-1989) built a mill below the office. [In 1935 he married Phyllis Audrey (née Pendray, b. Victoria 1912-2010), daughter of John Carl Pendray (309 Belleville St, James Bay)]. The mill burned in 1958.
c.1959-60s: Johnson Terminals.
early 1960s-97: Capital Iron, established 1934 by Morris Louis Greene (b. NY, NY 1900-1972) with two partners, whom he later bought out. Son Ronald Greene joined the company in 1961, then ran it from late 1971-97, when he retired and sold the company. [Nightwatchman Jack Borland lived in the office c.1959-67].