Address: 665 Gorge Road East
Built: c. 1901
1912 householder: Hanson Barraclough, railway brakeman
Photo credit: Vickie Jackson, July 2012.

This property was formerly known as No. 2 Gorge Road. When a new system of street addresses was introduced in 1907, it became 665 Gorge Road East. Victoria City Directories indicate that a house stood here as early as 1900, but we have not yet confirmed if the present structure is that old.

The first residents of No. 2 Gorge Road were Charles W. Ross and Augusta C. Ross. The 1901 census indicates that he was a 35 year-old boiler maker from Ontario and she was a 34 year-old homemaker from New Brunswick. Mrs. Ross died in 1904 and is buried in Ross Bay Cemetery. The property known as 665 Gorge Road East was the Barraclough family home in 1911. When it was enumerated in June that year, Hanson Barraclough, head of household, was 34 years old; his wife, Louisa Barraclough, was 29 years old; and their son, David, was 5 years old. They had immigrated to Canada from England in 1907. Before settling in Victoria, they lived in Ontario, where 2 year-old Edmond Barraclough was born. When the census was taken, Hanson Barraclough was working for the Canadian Pacific Railway as a brakeman.

In 1911, the household at 665 Gorge Road East included a couple of lodgers: 24 year-old Sarah Graham, who immigrated to Canada from the United States in 1907, and her 9 month-old daughter, Gladys, who was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in August 1910. Sarah Graham was married but her husband was not enumerated in this census household.

Hanson Barraclough subsequently left the CPR and in 1912 worked as a road survey chainman for the City of Victoria. The next year he joined the Dominion (i.e. federal) government civil service as a customs officer. He worked for the Customs Office in Victoria until he retired in 1935. He was then a widower, his wife Louisa having died in 1931. He married Annie Stewart Reid in Victoria in 1936. She died in 1950 and he died in 1959.

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