ARCHITECTURE:
The front façade of 836 presents as Edwardian Italianate, but this two-storey house has a front-gabled main roof hidden behind the flat roofs of the false front. A flat-roofed, one-storey entry porch sits to the right of the full-height box bay. A matching flat-roofed box bay is on the left side. The corners of both bays have rounded mouldings. The entry porch has bold, square, chamfered posts, small brackets and solid balustrades. The double front doors have sidelights and transom with art glass. The house is clad in drop siding, and the foundation is concrete.
By the late 19th Century, lower Cormorant St, now Pandora, was almost exclusively Chinese grocers, tailors, barbers, jewelers, opium sellers, butchers and bakers. East of Douglas, the population was more mixed. Samuel Thomas Styles developed most of Amelia St and built at least three more houses on Cormorant. 836 and 840 comprise an important part of the Amelia streetscape.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
Owner: 1907-16+: Styles (1519 Amelia St) owned this house until at least 1916.
Tenants: 1909: Coal miner John Weeks (b. ENG 1857-1930) married Ann “Annie” (née Truscott, b. Cornwall, ENG 1859-1944) in Tynemouth, ENG in 1877 and came here in 1889.
1910-15: Iron worker James Butterfield (b. ENG 1858-1925) and Mary Louisa (née Symons, b. ENG 1863-1949) came here in 1907.
1915-17: Teamster Henry Steinberger (b. Victoria 1869-1960) married Flora (née McGillivray, b. Bruce Co, ON 1874-1954) here in 1901. [His father William, from Cologne, GER was involved with the brewery business. His mother Catharine McHugh’s family immigrated from Australia in 1861.] Steinbergers farmed near Beaver Lake in Saanich.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1920-28: The Baines siblings Francis John “Frank” Hardcastle (1871-1954), Ethel Maude (1874-1960), Edwin Ward (1876-1925) and Arthur Joseph (1888-1970). Their parents William Baines and Agnes (née McCarthy) emigrated from England via New Zealand and San Francisco, arriving in Victoria in 1872 on the Prince Albert. Ethel, Edwin and Arthur were born here. Frank was the proprietor of Lilley’s Confectionery on the east side of Douglas St, between Johnson and Pandora, which Herbert Alfred Lilley (1004 Catherine St) had established in 1879. Frank started working as a chore boy in the late 1880s, eventually became manager, and then owner by the early 1920s. Frank closed the store when he retired in 1948. He, Edwin, a painter, and Ethel never married. Arthur married Victoria-born Ivy Stella Clegg (1895-1973) in 1925. He worked in the confectionery business with Frank.
1929-47: City Directories listed the owners and residents of this address as “Orientals” or “Chinese.”
1948-77: James Codling (b. Gateshead, ENG 1898-1950) married Mary Esther (née Webster, b. ENG 1896-1977) in Liverpool in 1924. He was living at 1004 Blanshard St when he enlisted in the Army in Vancouver in 1917 on a Short Service contract. He was working as a janitor and passed away soon after moving here. Mary continued to live here until her death.