Description of Historic Place

The Fullerton/McClung Residence is a vernacular wood-frame one-and-one-half storey Craftsman bungalow set in a large garden with an orchard, located in the Gordon Head area of Saanich. At the rear of the property is the former coach house and stables, now converted to living accommodation.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the Fullerton/McClung Residence is associated with its development within its neighbourhood context. Gordon Head is bordered on the north and east by Haro Strait and on the west by Blenkinsop Valley and Mount Douglas. First settled by farmers, starting with James Todd in 1852, Gordon Head became famous for its strawberries and then its daffodils. In 1921, city water service was brought to Gordon Head, leading to a proliferation of greenhouses and vegetable farming. Since the 1950s, the area has gradually been developed with single-family housing.

The Fullerton/McClung Residence is of heritage value for its connection with Nellie Letitia McClung (1873-1951) who lived in the house with her husband Robert Wesley McClung from 1934 until her death. McClung was a pioneer teacher, author, suffragist, social reformer, lecturer, and legislator; she was a champion for the causes of women's rights, prohibition, and the Liberal party. It was as a result of her efforts that Manitoba became the first province, in 1916, to give women the right to vote and to run for public office. At the national level, she, and four fellow campaigners - 'The Famous Five' - successfully petitioned the Supreme Court of Canada for clarification of the interpretation of the word 'Person' in the British North America Act, thereby making women eligible for appointment to the Senate of Canada. From 1921 to 1926, she served as a member of the Alberta Legislature and in 1939 McClung represented Canada at the League of Nations in Geneva.

At the local level, McClung contributed to the social and cultural history of Saanich in her books 'Leaves from Lantern Lane' and 'More Leaves from Lantern Lane,' penned from her upstairs study. These collections of her newspaper columns, many of which chronicle the lives and times of early residents of Gordon Head, as well as her own joy in her house and garden, are a valuable contribution to the understanding of the lives of Saanich pioneers. The house and the lane leading up to it comprise the Lantern Lane of McClung's writing; the name was coined by McClung who hung a ship's lantern on the garage door to throw a 'welcoming beam of light on a dark night, down the lane . . . and gave us the name 'Lantern Lane.' A ship's lantern still hangs on what was formerly the garage.

The house is also valuable for its connection to John Fullerton who built it in 1914. Fullerton served as chief engineer on the Hudson's Bay Company ship S.S. Beaver during her final years in the Company's service; later he was a respected importer and retailer of boots and shoes in Victoria. Fullerton retired to eight hectares in Gordon Head he had purchased, and had this house built by local contractor Edward James Merrett. He then began a successful strawberry farm, another valuable reminder of the importance of market gardening in Saanich.

Source: Heritage Planning Files, District of Saanich

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Fullerton/McClung Residence include its:
- form, scale and massing
- location set back from a lane leading off Ferndale Road
- the Craftsman features of the house, including wide, pointed bargeboards supported by knee-brackets in the gables, exposed rafter tails, and the shed-roofed box bay on the south side
- the stucco that covers the original siding, which was put there by the McClungs
- stable building with its commemorative engraving on the stone path in the front of the door "Nellie McClung"
- lantern on the garage
- garden and plantings, such as the monkey puzzle tree