ARCHITECTURE:
This is a 1½-storey, cross-gabled Queen Anne house with ornamented bargeboards on its gables. The right and left gables cover full-height square bays. The front gable has a pair of windows in its square upper bay; the window sill is of an unusual length with turned ends. The bracketed angled bay below has a Queen Anne transom in its central window. The small hip-roofed porch enters the lower left bay and has eaves brackets under its roof. The porch has four square turned posts, scrollsawn brackets and an Eastlake balustrade. The front door is panelled and has a stained glass transom; there is a double-hung stained glass window to the left. The upper floor is covered in square butt shingles, flared over the beltcourse, the lower floor in drop siding. The corbelled chimney and the foundation are brick.
[Note: Ormond was originally known as School St as it led to three schools: Boys’ Central, Girls’ Central and Victoria High (see 1260 Grant St, Fernwood).]
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1895-1902: Contractor John Pitcairn Elford (1442 Elford St, Fernwood) appears to have begun this house in 1895, and built it gradually. A small house on this property was assessed at $600 in 1896; the assessment jumped to $2,500 in 1902.
1903-46: J.P. Elford’s son John “Herbert” Elford (b. Victoria 1878-1970) and Sarah Jane (née Lilley, b. Point Edward, ON, 1870-1946) married in 1900, the year after Herbert’s widowed father had married Lilley’s much older sister Agnes. [Their brother Herbert Lilley was proprietor of Lilley’s Candy Factory at 1417 Douglas – 1004 Catherine St, Vic West.] In 1901 Herbert and Sarah were still living with John and Agnes on Cadboro Bay Rd (later 1228 Fort St, now demolished). Herbert apprenticed as a bricklayer, was foreman of Victoria Brick & Tile Co by 1901, and a partner with his father and William J. Smith by 1912. Their offspring: John Pitcairn worked in the family business; Daryl Oswald; Agatha “Constance”; and Hazel I. The family lived in this house until Sarah’s death. Herbert retired in 1949 and later lived with Constance and her husband Melville Otto Mayhew.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1948-49: Lawrence and Mary “Gertrude” Thompson came to Victoria in 1946. Lawrence had an electrical repair shop at 1508 Cook St and Gertrude was secretary to A.B. Patterson.
1950-88: Edward Thomas Longman (b. London, ENG, 1889-1988), a salesman for Home Hardware, and Cecily Maud (née South, b. Reading, ENG, 1889-1979), a housekeeper at the Douglas Hotel, 1450 Douglas St.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• This Old House, Victoria’s Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume One: Fernwood & Victoria West