ARCHITECTURE:
Ridgway-Wilson’s 2½-storey British Arts & Crafts house combines elements of the Queen Anne and Tudor Revival styles. The asymmetrical design has a deep, sideridged, hipped roof and a dormer between two front-facing gables on either side of the main entrance. On the left is a jettied, pedimented gable over an angled bay; on the right the gable is above a threestorey rectangular bay. A small oriel bay on long brackets capped by an angled roof is located on the far right. Maclure added a flat-roofed “Coach Porch” with plain brick pillars in front of the main entrance. The chunky eave brackets are a continuation of the original brackets on the right bay.
There are gables on the other three sides and a dormer on the left. The bargeboards on the front and rear gables have appliquéd decoration. An elaborate verandah which begins at the entrance wraps around the left side of the house; it has multiple brackets, clusters of ornate, square, reverse-tapered columns, and sawn balusters. Originally three sets of double-doors led out onto the verandah; only one set remains.
The foundation and main floor are brick, the upper storeys are half-timbered. There are two styles of decorative shingles on the oriel wall, the wall above the entrance and the bay below the left front gable. There are many elaborate corbelled Queen Anne chimneys. There are now attached buildings on the right side and at the rear. The house cost the Bostocks $15,000.
The name Schuhuum is reportedly of Indian origin and means “windy spot.”
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1894-1900: Hewitt Bostock (b. Surrey, ENG 1864- 1930) and Lizzie Jean (née Cowie, 1867-1942). Hewitt graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1885 and 1322 Rockland Av, c.1890s RBCM / BCA G-06069 / Maynard came to Canada in 1886. He bought a ranch at Monte Creek, near Kamloops, and returned to England to marry, then returned to BC and built Schuhuum. He entered politics in 1896 when elected as MP for Yale-Cariboo. In 1896 he started The Province, a weekly Victoria paper that he and Walter Nichol (1759 Rockland Av) subsequently turned into a daily Vancouver paper. He was appointed Senator for Victoria in 1904, although by this point he had sold Schuhuum and was living on his ranch. He was appointed Speaker of the House in 1922 and held this position until his death. Daughter Marion obtained her MD at the London School of Medicine in England, and became a medical missionary in India. She married banker Victor Sherman and they retired to Miramar on Ten Mile Point in Saanich in 1936.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
Tenants: 1898-1901: H. Hirschel Cohen of the Cassiar Central Railway Co, and managing director of the African-BC Corp Ltd of London, a large shareholder in CCRC. The CCRC was built in 1898 to carry gold out of Cassiar.
1900-01: Arthur Philip Luxton (b. Brushford, ENG 1863-1924) of Davie, Pooley & Luxton, Barristers & Solicitors. He later lived at 1663 Rockland Av.
1901-11: The Hon. James Douglas Prentice (b. Lanarkshire, SCT 1861-1911) and Mabel Clare (née Galpin, b. ENG 1868) married in Victoria in 1897, bought the house in 1901, and commissioned Samuel Maclure to undertake numerous renovations. James was educated in Edinburgh and came to Canada c.1888. He was a bank clerk and then a rancher in Lillooet, BC. He was elected MLA for Lillooet in 1898 and 1900, and the family lived at Braeside, now 1731 Rockland Av, when they were in Victoria. They moved to Schuhuum after James became Provincial Secretary in the Dunsmuir administration in 1900, and then Minister of Finance in 1901.
1912-50: William Agnew (b. Co. Down, IRL 1848-1922) and Emma Johnson (née Waterous, 1849-1917: William hired Samuel Maclure to design her tombstone) retired from Montreal to Victoria in 1912. William was a wholesale silk importer. He came to Canada in 1856 and lived in Ontario, where they married. Their only son, Augustus Waterous Agnew (b. Montreal 1884-1916) was a civil engineer and in the militia for six years when he signed up at 21 for WWI in 1915. He was a Major with the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Pioneers when he was killed in the Battle of the Somme in France in September 1916. He is buried in Contay British Cemetery on the road to Amiens. Their daughter Martha Clara “Kathleen” (b. Montreal 1880-1967) remained in the house. Educated in Germany and France, she was fluent in both languages. Kathleen was a noted philanthropist, and was named Victoria’s Good Citizen in 1957. She was a patron of the arts, and supported the YWCA, YMCA, Girl Guides and Boy Scouts. She willed her entire library to the University of Victoria, and many paintings to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (1040 Moss St, Rockland).
1950-2004: Kathleen donated Schuhuum to the Anglican Church as the Caroline Macklem Home for Anglican Women. It closed in 1999. Controversy ensued when the so-called Baron George von Bothmer zu Schwegerhoff, aka George C. Davis, signed a 99-year lease with the Anglican Church Women’s Society for $1 a year in 2000. An out-of-court settlement was reached, the Baron left Canada and the house was sold in 2004.
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