Address: 3117 Delta Street
Built: 1892, 1895
1912 householder: James Smethhurst, carpenter and building contractorThis building is gone! It was demolished in March 2015, about 3 years after this photograph was taken. For the record, here is a description of the building as it was in 2012::
This two-storey residence was built in the 1890s by James Smethurst, a house carpenter and contractor. It began as a small, one storey structure in 1892. It was raised on to a new foundation and a second storey was added in 1895. A hipped roof, corbelled brick chimneys and decorative elements were added at this time. The elements include a false gable on the front of the roof and perpendicular boards linking the double-hung sash windows on the second floor to the eaves. It features an angled bay window with Queen Anne-style coloured glass panes and a graceful open porch, supported by chamfered columns.
This late Victorian residence is a testimony to the owner's skills in house design and construction. It is also a reminder of the attractive homes that once graced this part of the Burnside Gorge neighbourhood.
James Smethurst was born in Victoria in 1867. His parents emigrated from Manchester, England in the early 1860s and he was one of their six children. Smethurst apprenticed as a carpenter at the age of fifteen and was employed on many projects during Victoria's first building boom in the early 1890s. He was only twenty-five when he commenced this house on Delta Street. When he married, this became a family home and the first of his four children was born here in 1894. He was widowed in 1898 and never remarried.
Smethurst was 34 years old and working as a house carpenter when his household was enumerated in 1901. His mother-in-law, Eleanor Bennett, who was 60 years old, was a member of the household and doubtless helped to care for his four small children. When the household was enumerated ten years later in 1911, his widowed mother, 73 year old Martha Smethurst, was living in the family home on Delta Street. The eldest daughter, Ethel, was 17 years old; Gertrude was 15, and Lillian was 11 years old. Ralph Smethurst was 13 years old and, like his sisters, attended North Ward School. He was photographed with his Grade 8 classmates at North Ward School in 1912.*
During this period, James Smethhurst built several residential homes in the area. A couple of his houses were erected on Tennyson Avenue in neighbouring Saanich. The houses are now demolished but the name of the avenue commemorates a contemporary of Smethurst, house carpenter Frank Tennyson. Smethurst may have built the small cottage that still stands at 541 Alpha in our neighbourhood, since the building permit for it was issued to his brother, Joshua.
In 1912, following the death of his mother, Smethhurst moved to a new house that he had built at 1110 Princess Avenue. He lived there, with his daughters Gertrude and Lillian, for the rest of his life. He died in December 1940 and is buried in Ross Bay Cemetery.
*Ralph Smethurst can be seen in an archival photo at North Ward School in 1911/12. He was on active service with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1915 and, happily, survived the First World War. Years later, the Victoria Daily Colonist (10 May 1931, p. 8) announced that Dr. Ralph W. Smethurst, son of James Smethurst of Victoria, was to marry Dorothy Ellen Chandler of Walla Walla, Washington.