Heritage Register
James Bay

416 Luxton Avenue (ex-3 Stafford Av)

Built 1899
Heritage-Designated 2010

For: James & Esther Noble

ARCHITECTURE:

This is a cross-gabled, one-storey Queen Anne cottage. A hip-roofed addition to the left of the front gable extends over the small verandah. Three original pedimented gables have bracketed pent roofs at their bases and stickwork in the upper gables. An angled, bracketed bay on the right front below the gable has a flat roof; panels above and below the windows have vertical and diagonal T&G. A rectangular bay below the right gable has narrow double-hung sashes on each side. There were two chimneys, one unusually tall chimney with a two-part chimney pot on the left; both have been removed and there are now solar panels on the front of the left gable. The house is clad in drop siding. Corner boards and window casings have unusual applied decoration. Windows and details have been restored.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

Owners: 1899-1905: James and Esther Noble lived here until c.1903, and Esther was still owner when the house was plumbed in 1905. James Noble (b. New Haven, SCT, c.1862-1906) was a fisherman who came to Canada in 1889. In 1891 he married Esther Flucker (b. 1865), newly arrived from New Haven. By 1903 Esther was living at 164 Chatham, and James may have already gone to Vancouver, where he died in 1906. He was interred in Ross Bay Cemetery.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

Tenant: 1905-06: Mining engineer Henry E. Leave.

Owners: 1906-09: Marine engineer William Edward Wallis Oliver (b. New Westminster, BC, c.1882) and Matilda Ann (née Wilcox, b. Bristol, ENG, c.1884) married in New Westminster in 1906.

1910-12: Frank and Ione Giolma lived here while their Percy Leonard James-designed house at 35 Olympia Av, James Bay, was being built. They owned 416 Luxton until 1929.

Tenants: 1913-16: James Bay Dairy proprietor, later a Post Office employee, James Black (b. Whitehaven, Cumberland, ENG, 1865-1923) and Annie (née Martin) married in Winnipeg in 1894 and came to Victoria in 1910. James was 51 when he signed up for WWI in 1916, but claimed to be just 44. Son Ronald Douglas (b.1899) joined the navy in 1917, then the army in 1918.

1917-18: William Thomas Attwood (b. Mortlake, ENG, 1886-1963), a boilermaker with VMD, and Daisy Grace (née Fisher, b. Dorset, ENG, c.1886) married in Vancouver in 1912. William retired as a plumber in Vancouver in 1957.

1920-23: Frederick Sargent had a shoe repair shop on Humboldt; his sons Fred Jr and Arthur were clerks with the BC Government.

1925: Oliver Edward Hart (b. England, 1891-1963), and Tilly Maria Frances (née Gilbert, b. Woolwick, Kent, ENG, 1882-1974). Oliver was a waiter, a fitter at the Dockyard, then a Commissionaire until retiring in 1962.

Owners: 1929-40: John Charles William May (b. ENG 1872-1963) and Susan Jane (née Smith, b. Wiltshire, ENG, 1869-1938) came to Victoria in the mid-1920s. John was a bricklayer for 30 years and retired in 1918. A WWI veteran, he died in the Veteran’s Hospital. His three sons predeceased him.

1937-52: John Whitelegg (aka Whiteley, 1872-1952) and Ann Eliza (née Highfield, 1879-1961) rented, then bought 416 Luxton in 1940. Born in Manchester, ENG, they came to Victoria in 1937. John retired as a janitor in 1947. He was a member of the IOOF. Their son John “Roland” (b. Québec, 1919-1974), an employee of Crowe Gonnason, then the City Parks Department, lived with them.

1953-55: Timekeeper George Edward Grexton and his wife Marjorie I.

1956-2009: Ron Dean and Cynthia “Jean” (née Mason, 1925-1975) were born in Cannock, Staffs, ENG, married there in 1950, and came to Edmonton in 1952, and to Victoria in 1955. Ron retired in 1983 after 27 years with the City of Victoria, latterly as Sanitation Superintendent. In 1985 he remarried, to Doris Mary (née Littlewood).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• James Bay History

• James Bay Heritage Register



• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Two: James Bay