Address: 3066 Albany Street
Built: c. 1909-1910
1912 householder: William Ozard, newspaper printer and linotype operatorA building permit for a dwelling on this site was issued on 16 April 1909 . The permit authorized the construction of a 1 storey, 5 room frame dwelling at a cost of $1,800. A permit for a septic tank was issued on 1 September 1909 to Luney Brothers, the well-known Victoria builders, on behalf of the owner, Jack Morrison. The owner was a carpenter in James Bay and this house may have been built “on spec.” It might have been completed in 1910 but there is no evidence that it was occupied that year. But it was definitely occupied in 1911.
This house has been covered in stucco and has lost much of its original character. Residential building plans at City Hall reveal that it once had an offset square porch halfway down the left side of the house, with broad, front-facing steps. The recessed porch, bracketed with champhered posts, still exists, but the original steps are gone. However, the Edwardian colonial bungalow style is still evident in the flared, bellcast, hipped roof; the hipped dormers on the front and both sides of the house; and the projecting box bays at the front and right side of the house. The corbelled brick chimney is also a clue to the age and character of this house.
The William Ozard and Charles Walker families are the first documented residents of this house. Previously, they had lived next door at 3070 Albany Street and were enumerated there when the census was taken in June 1911. Ontario-born William Henry Ozard was 36 years old and working as a printer. His wife, Rhoda Rose Ozard, also born in Ontario, was 31 years old; and their son, Charles W. Ozard, who was born in Manitoba, was 5 years old. We know from other sources that Mr. Ozard worked for the Victoria Daily Times newspaper. Originally from Chatham, Ontario, he and his parents and siblings moved to Winnipeg in the early 1890s. In 1903 he married Rhoda Rose Emma Gatchell Walker in Winnipeg. They moved to Victoria with their young son a few years later. About the same time, Ozard's parents and siblings moved from Winnipeg to a farm at Gordon Head in Saanich.
When the 1911 census was taken, the Ozard household included a family of lodgers: Charles H. Walker, age 56; Margaret Walker, age 52, and their son Harold Walker, age 9. The Walker family may have been related to Mrs. Ozard. Charles Walker was an architect from Winnipeg. He relocated here in January 1911 to join the firm of William Dunford & Son, one of Victoria's leading house contractors. (Dunford was then residing a few blocks south at 640 Dunedin Street.) The Walkers lived here at until 1915. However, 3066 Albany Street was the William Ozard family home for over thirty years. William was living here at the time of his death in 1935, and his widow, Rhoda, was here until 1939.
This part of the Burnside Gorge neighbourhood was an Ozard family enclave. William Ozard's younger brothers, Harry Ozard (1882-1944) and Walter Ozard (1879-1936), and sister, Marguerite Ozard (1876-1954), lived one block over at 3040 Carroll Street. Their house was built in 1913 and is now on the City of Victoria's Heritage Register. Walter Ozard was a typesetter and worked at the Victoria Daily Times for nearly twenty years. Possibly he and his brother William travelled to work together on the No. 10 Burnside streetcar!