ARCHITECTURE:
This is a variation of an Edwardian Vernacular Arts & Crafts house in that its façade is symmetrical and it has a side entrance. It has 1½ storeys, is steeply front-gabled, and there are two shingled, shed-roofed dormers. The front and back gables have finials which are tied to the tops of the bargeboards and Craftsman-style knee brackets at the ends of the bargeboards. The apex of the gable is shingled; it is separated by a bracketed stringcourse from the lower section, which has roughcast stucco and half-timbering. A hipped roof below the gable surmounts two shallow box bays. On the right wall is a tall through-the-roof brick chimney which has been seismically tied to the roof. There is beaded double-bevelled siding on the ground floor.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1912: Herbert Thomas Knott (b. Cornwall, ENG, 1869-1960) was both an independent contractor and a partner in Knott Bros. & Brown, Real Estate and General Finance Agents. This house, however, according to the plumbing permit, may have been built by Herb’s father-in-law, Thomas H. Matthew (1460 Gladstone Av). From at least 1902-12 Herb was purchasing land and building speculative houses (570-72 Niagara St, James Bay, 516, 616 & 621 Trutch St, Fairfield, 2008 Chambers St, Fernwood), possibly designing some of them as well. Herb and his brother Horace Knott (621 Trutch St, Fairfield) came to Canada with their family when young. In 1891 they arrived here from Toronto, working as bricklayers, and boarding at the Dominion Hotel with 22 other men from the building trades. In 1898 Herb married Charity Jane “Jennie” Matthew (1874-1971), Thomas’s daughter. The Knotts’ younger brother Percy was a masonry contractor and then a partner in the longtime contracting firm of Knott and Jones with Harry Jones, who married the Knotts’ sister Mabel. Their sister Lena Knott married contractor William Moore (1433 & 1437 Vining St, Fernwood) of Moore and Whittington Lumber Co, and Ernest Whittington’s sister Alice married Percy Knott. Herb and Jennie Knott’s daughter Muriel married Whittington’s son, Ronald (1435 Richardson St, Fairfield).
Herb was prominent in the prohibition movement and president of the YMCA. An elder of Metropolitan Methodist Church, he superintended the Sunday School and taught the Excelsior Bible class. Herb and Jennie celebrated their 60th anniversary in 1958.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1912-20: James Edwin Hamilton (1879-1963) and Margaret Mary (née Armstrong, 1875-1963), newly arrived from Nova Scotia. James was principal of Boys’ Central School, then taught at Oaklands (2827 Belmont Av, Oaklands), George Jay (1118 Princess Av, Fernwood) and Victoria High (1260 Grant St, Fernwood). A member of First Baptist Church and AF&AM, he retired in 1944. The Hamiltons lived at 1529 Vining for over 30 years.
1920-21: Angus Beaton McNeill, an auditor in the BC Controller General’s office, and his daughter Florence Marie, a teacher. Angus was teaching in Victoria by 1901. His first wife, Eliza Rae, died in 1907 of chronic nephritis and in 1922 he married widow Catherine R. Robertson. Angus retired in 1931.
1923: Margaret Creeden (née Cathcart, b. Co Antrim, IRL, 1861-1955) married John Creeden (b. Blackford, Somerset, ENG, 1855-1934) in Victoria in 1880. John was a ship’s steward and farmer. Living here with Margaret were five of their six daughters: BCER secretary Florence Elizabeth [she worked for BCER from 1907-45 as the the first woman employed by them; in 1947 Florence was featured in a film about industrial growth in BC, entitled Dinner for Miss Creeden]; BCER steno Lida May; Tillicum School teacher Irma; and Lorna who moved to San Francisco. The Creedens’ other offspring were Margaret Jane, and Victor John who retired in 1950 as the manager of Hedley Mascot Mines. The family lived here briefly before moving to 1528 Cold Harbour Rd, Jubilee, where they lived for 30 years. By 1950 Lida and Elsie were living at 1041 St Charles St, Rockland.
1924-1968: George Egerton (b. Birkinhead, Cheshire, ENG, 1881-1943) and Agnes (née Christopherson, b. Ruthin, WAL, 1878-1968) married in 1913. George worked in the federal government livestock department. In 1911 he had moved with his mother Catherine, the widow of W.G.H. Egerton, and his five siblings into Highfield, 3579 Quadra St, a Saanich Heritage-Registered house. George and Agnes’s daughter Margaret, a nurse, left the house after Agnes’s death.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• This Old House, Victoria’s Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume One: Fernwood & Victoria West