Heritage Register
Rockland
1630 Rockland Avenue
(ex-209/1626 Rockland Av)
Highlands Cottage/Edgehill
Built
1900
Heritage-Designated 1997
For: William & Harriet Macaulay
ARCHITECTURE:
Highlands Cottage is a cross-gabled British Arts &
Crafts shingled house with whalebone bargeboards and
open eaves. A shed-roofed dormer sits to the left of the
half-timbered front gable. A wide shingled balcony is
located above the full-width, main floor verandah. The
hip-roofed verandah has flattened shingled arches on
square posts; the left bay
has been enclosed. In the
1960s the original front
steps fell down, and were
not replaced. In 1984
the upper balcony was
extended outward and
balustraded to copy the
verandah. The house has
many understated leaded
lights. There is a semicircular
bay on the left
façade and a bracketed box
bay on the right, both with
hipped roofs. The door
on the left side is now the
main entrance. There is a
tall, slender brick chimney
to the right of the box bay.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
1899-1903: It was thought that this was the house
designed by Rattenbury for his lawyer Bodwell, but that
house is now known to be 1745 Rockland Av. Highlands
Cottage was built for $4,000 by William James Macaulay
(b. Sidney, Hastings Co, ON 1828-1902) and Harriet (née
Keenan, b. 1847-1906) (617 Battery St, James Bay), to
the west of their home Highlands, now 950 Terrace Av. They married in 1868 at Niles, MI. Their son
Norman D. Macaulay (b. ON 1870) and wife Florence
(b. BC 1874) married c.1895 and lived in the Cottage.
Norman and his cousin Henry Macaulay bought the
Victoria Coal, Wood & Lumber Yard in 1889. Norman
later lived in Alaska and Yukon, where he owned hotels
and a railway. The Macaulays’ daughter Harriet Lilly (b.
Orillia, ON 1871) married banker Charles E. Peabody of
Port Townsend, WA in 1891. After William’s death Harriet
moved to Seattle to be near her daughters; she sold the
Cottage at the end of 1903.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
1904-20: Ernest Victor Bodwell, QC (1856-1918)
married widow Delia Forbes Cowan (née Magann, 1872-
1953) in 1904 in Berkley, CA, and adopted her daughters,
Innes Delia Forbes (1893-1961) and Carolyn Alice
“Brownie” (b. 1895). The Bodwells also bought the large
towered house, Rockcliffe, to the west, about 1908, and
numbered both 1626; they usually lived in Rockcliffe, and
rented the Cottage out.
Ernest studied law in Ontario, worked in Winnipeg,
and moved to BC in 1884. [His father, Ebenezer Vining
Bodwell (d.1889), a noted Ontario politician, came to
BC with the CPR in the late 1880s, and was twice mayor
of Vancouver.] Ernest was associated with Theodore
Davie (638 Rockland Pl), then with Irving & Duff (1745
Rockland Av) until they were appointed judges. He then
joined J.H & H.G. Lawson as Bodwell & Lawson, and
specialized in mining.
Ernest had a nervous breakdown in 1916, and died 18
months later. Delia remarried in 1919, to Capt. Christopher
Alfred Maugham Cator, MC, and moved to Vancouver. In
1920 Brownie married Capt. Charles William Cudemore,
MC; they and Inneses lived in this house that year. Delia
kept Rockcliffe and sold Highlands Cottage, which then
became 1630. By 1923-24 Innes and then Delia were back
in Rockcliffe, and Delia had architect K.B. Spurgin design
a garage. In 1928 Delia, Innes, and Brownie moved into a
new house down the hill on the property at 1632 Rockland
Av designed by Francis Mawson Rattenbury in 1927.
Tenants: 1910-11: Mrs Alexis Martin (1598 Rockland
Av).
1912: Alistair Robertson of Robertson & Meterstein,
land surveyors (729 Pemberton Rd, Rockland).
1917: Charles Edward Thomas (1880-1953), sales manager of
Wellington Comox Agency coal, and Grace “Marion” (née
Lindsay, 1882-1965) from Ontario (1598 Rockland Av).
In 1920 the house was renumbered 1630.
1920-48: Frederick William Jones (b. Detroit, MI 1867-1954) and
Mary Stuart (née Howden, 1866-1935) rented the Cottage for
$65 a month, then bought it for $8,000 in January 1924. From
1906-20 they had lived in 1759 Rockland Av and called it Edgehill, then transferred the name to 1630. Fred’s family
immigrated to Ontario in 1867. He began as a CPR telegraph
boy in Montreal, and became secretary to Sir William White
of the CPR. Fred and Mary came to Golden, BC, in 1899.
Fred headed the Carlin & Lake Lumber Co from 1901-07,
then sold it to Columbia River Lumber Co. The Joneses
bought a ranch near Golden in 1905 and spent their time
between there and Victoria. Fred was associated with the
Red Cross for many years, as president of the Society during
WWI. After the war, he started a workshop for disabled
veterans. Fred had a sand and gravel business in Victoria, and
continued ranching in Golden throughout the 1920s. Mary,
a pre-insulin diabetic, died of a heart attack in Golden. Fred
moved into the Sussex Hotel in 1948, and gave the house to
his daughter.
Tenants: 1932: The Hon. Rolf and Sarah Bruhn
(1520 Regents Pl, Rockland).
1948-84: Elizabeth Jones (b. St. Boniface, MB 1895-
1971) married Henry Herbert Montague “Bertie” Oliver
(b. India 1897-1984) in 1928 and lived in Hong Kong and
England. In 1941 she brought their daughter Elizabeth
“Liz” (b. Portsmouth, ENG 1932) to Victoria to live with
her widowed father; she later inherited the house. Bertie
Oliver, a career soldier in the British Army, was posted
to Burma in WWII. He retired as a Brigadier in 1947 and
joined his family. The Olivers tried to sell the house in
1953, but were offered only $11,000, so kept it.
1984-present: Liz Oliver inherited the house. She married Kevin
Conlon (b. IRL 1921-2011) in 1960 in Ottawa where they
both worked as federal civil servants. They had restoration
work done on the house and moved to Victoria in 1988
after Liz retired.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:
• Map of Victoria's Heritage Register Properties
• Rockland History
• Rockland Heritage Register
• Royal BC Museum Archives
• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Three: Rockland, Burnside, Harris Green,
Hillside-Quadra,
North Park & Oaklands
