ARCHITECTURE:
This impressive asymmetrical British Arts & Crafts house has a complex roofline consisting of hips and gables and shed-roofed dormers. A tower, perched on the rear of the roof, overlooks the garden façade; it has a pyramidal hipped roof on brackets and arched multi-light windows on all sides. A square extension on the rear of the tower has a long oriel bay below a balcony. The rear façade has multiple arched porches and balconies. The offset recessed front entrance is accessed through a hip-roofed porte-cochère supported on four massive battered, random granite piers with quoins. To the left of the porte-cochère is a two-storey, gabled extension with a multi-paned leaded light arched window. There are three large parged chimneys, one of which is on the tower. The house is clad in roughcast stucco with quoins at lower corners and some simple half-timbering in gables. The architect used both Nelson Island granite and Haddington Island andesite as building materials. Buncrana derives its name from a place on Lough Swilly, Co. Donegal, Ireland. Vancouver architect A.A. Cox designed this residence whose “upper extremity once was higher above sea level than any other structure in the city.”
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1912-33: Hon. William John Bowser, LLB, KC (b. Rexton, NB 1867-1933) received his law degree from Dalhousie U Halifax, was called to the NB bar in 1890 and came to Vancouver in 1891 where with different partners he practisedlaw until 1921. He returned to Rexton in 1896 and married Lorinda Davidson (née Doherty, 1868-1928).
In 1897 he was elected MLA for Vancouver. Sir Richard McBride appointed him Att Gen in 1907 and in 1909-10 he was Min of Fin. He initiated the first automobile legislation and pushed for liquor control laws. He represented Vancouver as a Conservative for many years. He briefly served as Premier when McBride resigned in December 1915. He continued to serve as Leader of the Official Opposition retiring from politics in 1924 after losing the Vancouver seat in a general election.
The Bowsers came here in 1911 and lived at 1462 Rockland Av with Harry and Ethel Barnard until their new house was completed. Lorinda died in 1928 after a long illness. Throughout her husband’s career she played a prominent role in the public life of Victoria, often opening her home for political, social, and philanthropic functions. Bowser on Vancouver Island is named for him.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1934-79: Gladys Blanche Irving (b. New Brunswick 1892-1979), Lorinda’s niece, came to Victoria in 1914 and worked for the Canadian Red Cross for many years. Gladys’s sister, Eunice Bowser Weldon (née Irving, b. New Brunswick 1896-1972) lived at 906 Pemberton Rd, Rockland, from 1939-52, then lived here with Gladys from 1952 until her death. Eunice, the widow of Haliburton Hugh Weldon, who died by 1947, Eunice came to BC in 1910. She was an active member of the CNIB and honorary president of the White Cane Club.
About 1975, developers offered Gladys a corner suite on the 15th floor of Camosack Manor, now called the Belmont, on top of Terrace Av, the highest building in Victoria. She was delighted with the views, and agreed to sell Buncrana to them. It was strata-titled in the mid-1980s and is now called Bowser Mansion.