ARCHITECTURE:
This is a 1½-storey, side-gabled Vernacular house with a smaller 1½-storey gabled wing on the right rear. There is a shed-roofed back porch on the left rear. The Stanley façade is symmetrical except for the recent addition of a glazed shed dormer on the right roof. The central through-the-roof wall dormer sits on the wide shed roof of the two square bays and the entry porch. The roof of the entry porch projects beyond the bays and is supported on four square chamfered posts. The two central posts are surmounted by a pedimented gable. The porch has brackets and sawtooth mouldings between the posts, and curved balusters. The house is clad in drop siding. In 1952 Mrs. Vera Smyley converted it to three suites.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1900-1928: William Whittington (b. Shanklin, Isle of Wight, 1841-1912) in 1868 married Emelyn “Emily” Tuffnell (b. Southampton, ENG, 1846-1941). They lived many years in Lancs and Cumbria, England, where William was a general contractor and builder. In 1888 he and their eldest son, Ernest (1433 Vining St, Fernwood), came to Victoria. William moved on to Port Townsend, WA, where the rest of his family joined him, and then Port Angeles where he operated brick yards and worked as a contractor. In 1893 Ernest, who had stayed in Victoria, founded Moore & Whittington with William Moore (1431 Vining St, Fernwood). William and Emily and family moved back to Victoria in 1896 and built this house in 1900. Son Percy Whittington married in 1903 and moved into 1706 Fernwood Rd, Fernwood. Daughter Alice Cecilia married Percy Knott of the Fernwood building family (1466 Gladstone Av, Fernwood), while Ernest Whittington’s son Ronald married Herbert Knott’s daughter Muriel (1435 Richardson St & 53 Linden Av, Fairfield). William retired in 1910. Like many of the building families, the Whittingtons were strong Methodists. William’s last work in England had been construction of a Methodist Chapel.
Emily lived in the house until 1928, with her daughter Helen “Ellen” (1883-1969) and husband Wilmot Bryant Wellwood (b. Wingham, ON, 1883-1973) who married in 1909. Wilmot was a BCER clerk, Victoria Gas Co salesman, and then office manager of BC Electric Co until retiring in 1948. In 1928 Emily and the Wellwoods moved to 1317 McNair, where she died aged 94.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1932-35: BCCSS steward George Edward and Catherine Mary Stuart Bath. 1937: Coal and wood dealer John Donald Carlow and Mary Ross (née Galloway) married in Victoria in 1933.
1938: Sidney Fry and Euphemia “Effie.” Sid, a baker, came to Canada in 1913 and Victoria in 1923. They later lived at 1422 Fernwood Rd.
1939-40: Olga “Mary” and Robert Henry Potts married in Victoria in 1937. Robert was an engineer.
1941-51: Florie (née Cawthra, 1881-1980) and Albert Wardman (1877-1970), YWCA janitor. Born in Yorkshire, England, they farmed in Perdue, SK, from 1905-32, then retired to Victoria. They were members of the Victoria Truth Centre.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• This Old House, Victoria’s Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume One: Fernwood & Victoria West