ARCHITECTURE:
This two-storey, gabled British Arts & Crafts house is T-shaped. The right side has a full eight chimney, to the rear of which are two shed-roofed, through-the-cornice wall dormers. The rear has a bracketed back porch. To the left of the front gable are two dormers: a small gabled dormer to the far left, (not on the original plans) and a larger shed-roofed dormer behind a balcony with spindled balusters. The front gable has heavy knee brackets and sits above a cantilevered box bay on the main floor. The gable is separated from the bay by a continuation of the main roof which creates a shed-roofed effect. To the left is a deeply-recessed front porch with paired square posts and a spindled balustrade. The wide front steps have shingled balustrades. The upper walls are stuccoed and half-timbered, as is the small dormer; the lower floors and large dormer are shingled. It has brick corbelled chimneys. The house was valued at $3,850.
D.C. Frame* (b.Larkhall, SCT, 1882-1960) came to Victoria in 1905. He apprenticed under architect F.M. Rattenbury until 1908, then opened his own practise. Some of his notable designs include the 1909 Chinese Public School, 636 Fisgard St, and 1911 Alexandra Club, 716 Courtney St (both Downtown); the 1910-11 Bank Street School, 1625 Bank St); the 1911 stone house Kingsmont, 305 Denison Rd, on Gonzales Hill in Oak Bay; and the 1912 Arts & Crafts style Wesley Methodist Church, 943-49 Fullerton Av, Vic West. He designed several apartment blocks in 1944-53, including the 1945 Art Deco Park Towers Apts at 905-09 Vancouver St. D.C. Frame’s own residences, 1908-09 Larkhall at 337 Foul Bay Rd, Gonzales, and 1926 Solway at 1143 Munro St, Esquimalt, still stand.
*Research by Jean Sparks for “Building the West,” 2003
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1911-62: Capt. William “Bill” Cooke Thompson (b. IRL 1886-1959) met Maria “Marie” (née Emberley, b. NL 1876-1962) in San Francisco and they were engaged at the time of the 1906 earthquake. Like many others, they had great difficulty finding each other after the disaster. His workplace was destroyed so he left for Victoria to find work, signing on with Weiler Brothers. He returned to SF and married Marie on New Year’s Eve 1906 then came back to Victoria. They rented Newbliss, 2523 Government St, while this house was being built, moving here in 1913. He enlisted with 5th Regt CGA, serving from 1914-19 with the rank of Lt. and was promoted to Capt. at the end of the war. Although stationed at Work Point Barracks, he was allowed to live at home. He returned to Weiler Bros as drapery department manager until the business closed in the early 1930s after one of the Weiler sons was killed in a shooting accident. He then sold insurance for Griffith & Co in the BC interior, but Marie wouldn’t leave Victoria, so he came back and drove taxi with Quarter Cab Co. Bill sang with the Arion Male Voice Choir and was a Mason. Marie was a charter member of Queen City Chapter, Eastern Star.At the beginning of WWII, son John William “Jack” Thompson (1921-1972), a cadet in the militia, was posted overseas. Marie believed if she looked after the sons of others, someone would look after hers so she took in boarders from the RCAF. Her last boarder, Cpl. John Nairn Bond (1912-2005) from Edmonton, had lived in barracks at Pat Bay from 1942. A former bank accountant, he worked in the air force pay office in the Belmont Bldg (801 Government St, Downtown), and was one of the last to be demobilized.
1944-53: John Bond married Bill and Marie’s daughter Mary Elizabeth “Elsie” Thompson (1907-1976) in 1944 and they lived with her parents until 1953, then moved to 331 Windermere Pl. With a Veterans Allowance, he was able to article with Ismay Boiston Dunn & Co (now KPMG), Chartered Accountants, eventually becoming a partner. Elsie trained at the Normal School and became a primary school teacher, leaving teaching in 1948 when pregnant with their daughter Penny Marie.
1952-54: Jack Thompson and wife Jean Mary (née Furtney) lived upstairs from his parents. Jean, born in Togo, SK, to a Scottish mother and French Huguenot father, served as a decoder with the RCN during WWII, in Canada and London, ENG. They met while studying at Camosun College in 1948, both using their Veterans Allowance for their studies. They married in 1949 and moved to Vancouver where he earned a degree in social work at UBC. He worked here at RJH, then in 1954 joined the RCAF as a social worker. After postings in Canada and Europe, he retired with the rank of major in 1968 returning to Victoria and bought a house in Gordon Head with Jean’s Veterans’ Land Act (VLA) funding assistance. Jack worked at the Fernwood office of BC Family & Children’s Service until his sudden death.
1957: 2201 Vancouver was officially duplexed and the upper floor rented out. Both units were rented after Bill and Marie’s deaths. Elsie inherited the house with Jack, and Jean sold his share to Elsie after his death.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1976-present: After inheriting the house, in 1983 Penny Bond moved in when she came back from Vancouver. A physiotherapist, she graduated from UBC in 1972.