Address: 607 Manchester Road
Built: 1910
1912 householder: James J. Wilson, grain millerA building permit for this house was issued on 28 September 1910 to J. J. Wilson. Building plans are on file at City Hall and are described in a Victoria Heritage Foundation inventory. The plans provide for a six-room frame dwelling with hipped bellcast roof, with a small front-facing roof dormer and a side dormer on the east side. There was a hipped roof extension over the back porch. The front facing entrance had a front door with half-panelling and half decorative lights, and there was a multi-paned leaded window from the front entrance hall. There are cantilevered box bays for the parlour, dining room and back bedroom. Originally, there were back to back corner fire places in the sitting room and dining room, as well as a fire place in the main bedroom. There was a small pantry next to the kitchen.
The residence was probably built by Charles Deacon, who built the house next door at 603 Manchester Road and an adjacent residence at 656 Sumas Street. These three colonial-style bungalows share many design features.
This was the Wilson family home. When they were enumerated here in June 1911, James J. Wilson was 59 years old and employed as a grain miller at the Brackman-Kerr mill in Victoria. (The mill was located on the harbour at Shoal Point, the site of today's Fisherman's Wharf.) He was born in England and came to Canada in 1871. His wife and children were born in British Columbia. Emma Wilson was 55 years old. Their eldest son, John Wilson, 31, was identified as a grain miller on the census, while 15 year old Cyril Wilson was an “apprentice.” The youngest son, Clifford Wilson, age 7, was a student. Unless he was enrolled in a private school, Clifford probably attended North Ward School.
The Wilsons were Anglicans and may have worshipped at the old church of St. John, known as the Iron Church, on Douglas Street and Fisguard Street. The old church stood on the site of the former Hudson's Bay Company department store, presently The Hudson residential and commercial block. After 1912, they could have worshipped in a new place, in the Anglican church of the St. John the Divine Anglican Church on Quadra Street. Coinciding with the residential building boom in Victoria, there was a boom in church construction in Victoria at this time.