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Mortimer-Lamb House
https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/landmark494
- Repository
- Burnaby Heritage Planning
- Description
- The Mortimer-Lamb House is a one and one half-storey, Arts and Crafts-style residence with a steeply pitched, side-gabled roof. The original cottage form has been enlarged with a later addition on the west side of the house. Located next to the Burnaby Lake Regional Park Wildlife Rescue Care Centre…
- Associated Dates
- c.1922
- Formal Recognition
- Community Heritage Register
- Other Names
- Harold & Katherine Mortimer-Lamb Residence
- Street View URL
- Google Maps Street View
- Repository
- Burnaby Heritage Planning
- Other Names
- Harold & Katherine Mortimer-Lamb Residence
- Geographic Access
- Glencarin Drive
- Associated Dates
- c.1922
- Formal Recognition
- Community Heritage Register
- Enactment Type
- Council Resolution
- Enactment Date
- 26/05/2003
- Description
- The Mortimer-Lamb House is a one and one half-storey, Arts and Crafts-style residence with a steeply pitched, side-gabled roof. The original cottage form has been enlarged with a later addition on the west side of the house. Located next to the Burnaby Lake Regional Park Wildlife Rescue Care Centre, the house has picturesque views of Burnaby Lake.
- Heritage Value
- Built circa 1922, the Mortimer-Lamb House is valued for its association with first owners, Harold Mortimer-Lamb (1872-1970), and his wife, Katherine Mary Mortimer-Lamb (1873-1939). Born in Leatherhead, Surrey, England, Harold Mortimer-Lamb immigrated to Canada in 1889. Seven years later in Vancouver, he married Katherine Mary Lindsay, a native of Winnipeg. Mortimer-Lamb was a key figure in the B.C. mining industry, serving as Secretary of the Mining Association of B.C. between 1900 and 1945, and also as the Secretary of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. In addition to his professional life, Mortimer-Lamb was a pioneer art photographer and was among Canada's leading art critics, and this house served as a central gathering place for renowned Canadian artists of the day. Mortimer-Lamb’s daughter, Molly Lamb Bobak (born 1922), became a renowned watercolourist, and was the only woman ever hired as an official Canadian war artist. The Mortimer-Lamb House is a significant example of the work of noted architect, Samuel Maclure (1860-1929) and his partner, Ross Lort (1889-1969). Maclure, who was a close friend of the Mortimer-Lamb family, was British Columbia's leading residential architect, and was renowned for his high quality designs for prominent citizens in both Vancouver and Victoria. Maclure was a leading exponent of the Art and Crafts design movement in B.C., and established a sophisticated local variation of residential architecture. The Mortimer-Lamb House was designed at the time when Maclure was in partnership with Ross Lort. In 1907, Lort began working for Maclure's firm as a draftsman, and by 1920 was in charge of Maclure's Vancouver office. Lort's architectural career spanned some sixty-years, and he designed some of the province's most familiar houses, apartments, institutions and places of worship. The Mortimer-Lamb House is also a significant local example of the Arts and Crafts style, and incorporates elements such as board-and-batten siding on the ground floor, shingled gables and leaded casement windows. It is a testament to the domestic architecture built outside of established suburbs during the post-First World War era, typically modest in scale and representative of middle-class residential ideals.
- Defining Elements
- Key elements that define the heritage character of the Mortimer-Lamb House include its: - treed setting with views of Burnaby Lake - residential form, scale and massing as expressed by its one and one-half storey height, rectangular plan and steeply pitched side-gabled roof - wood-frame construction - Arts and Crafts elements such as board-and-batten siding on the ground floor, cedar shingles in the gables and open soffits - original straight-leaded casement windows in single and multiple-assembly - internal red-brick chimney with corbelled cap
- Historic Neighbourhood
- Burnaby Lake (Historic Neighbourhood)
- Planning Study Area
- Burnaby Lake Area
- Organization
- Mining Association of B.C.
- G.F. and J. Galt Limited
- Architect
- Samuel Maclure
- Ross Lort
- Function
- Primary Historic--Single Dwelling
- Primary Current--Single Dwelling
- Community
- Burnaby Lake
- Cadastral Identifier
- P.I.D.002-977-788
- Boundaries
- The Mortimer-Lamb House is comprised of a single residential lot located at 5180 Glencairn Drive, Burnaby.
- Area
- 5652.78
- Contributing Resource
- Building
- Ownership
- Private
- Documentation
- City of Burnaby Planning and Building Department, Heritage Site Files
- Street Address
- 5180 Glencarin Drive
- Street View URL
- Google Maps Street View
Images
Murdock and Lillian McMurray interview November 17, 1975 - Track 2
https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/oralhistory244
- Repository
- City of Burnaby Archives
- Date Range
- 1906-1975
- Length
- 0:09:00
- Summary
- This portion of the recording pertains to Murdock McMurray's memories of riding the tram as a young man and briefly, of working for Ed Brown. Murdock mentions Reeve Byrne and the development of first water system in Burnaby. He also discusses Gilley Brother's Logging Company practices near his fath…
- Repository
- City of Burnaby Archives
- Summary
- This portion of the recording pertains to Murdock McMurray's memories of riding the tram as a young man and briefly, of working for Ed Brown. Murdock mentions Reeve Byrne and the development of first water system in Burnaby. He also discusses Gilley Brother's Logging Company practices near his father's ranch of six acres, which grew mostly strawberries to sell in Vancouver.
- Date Range
- 1906-1975
- Photo Info
- Emerson Doran (left) and Murdoch McMurray, 1917. Item no. 229-004
- Length
- 0:09:00
- Subjects
- Agriculture - Fruit and Berries
- Geographic Access
- Imperial Street
- Historic Neighbourhood
- Edmonds (Historic Neighbourhood)
- Planning Study Area
- Kingsway-Beresford Area
- Interviewer
- McGeachie, Doreen “Pixie”
- Interview Date
- November 17, 1975
- Scope and Content
- Recording is of an interview with Murdock McMurray and his wife Lillian (Wray) McMurray conducted by Pixie McGeachie on November 17, 1975. Major themes discussed are: Burnaby's development, the Wray Shoe store and Murdock McMurray's cordwood delivery business.
- Biographical Notes
- Murdock McMurray was born in Vancouver in 1892 to Wilhelmina May and Robert William McMurray. Other children in the family included older siblings John “Jack” and Margaret Lillian, younger siblings Minnie May born May 4, 1895 and Hampton born June 8, 1902. Murdock’s father Robert worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) but retired shortly after moving his family to Burnaby in 1906. He bought six acres of land of what had been previously the Gilley Ranch, the base of operations for Gilley Bros. Ltd. at 2519 Windsor Street (later renumbered and renamed to the 6400 block Imperial Street). Murdock McMurray quit school early to apprentice as a printer. By sixteen he had left the trade and gone into partnership with his older brother Jack. With a team of horses, harness and a wagon, the brothers helped to macadamize roads, haul building supplies for new homes, deliver cord wood for heating, clear land and excavate basements. When Jack McMurray set off to serve overseas during World War I as a driver in the engineer corps, Murdock bought his team of horses and continued working, mainly in the Deer Lake district. In 1916 Murdoch McMurray partnered with Emerson Doran, nephew of the owner of Doran's Mill to buy Edmonds Coal and Wood fuel yard. As everything was geared towards the war effort, Murdock and Emerson soon ran out of work and had to sell the business. Murdock sold off his horses and equipment and went to work at the ship yard on Pitt River. By 1919 Jack McMurray had returned home from overseas and was working as a fireman at the Shull Lumber and Shingle Mill on the Fraser River. In 1921, he and Murdock teamed up with Emerson Doran and repurchased the Edmonds Coal and Wood fuel yard which they ran together until 1947. Murdock McMurray married Lillian Wray on September 17, 1925. Lillian was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Wray, who came to settle in the Jubilee area of Burnaby in 1919. The family lived on Dow Road and Edward Wray operated Jubilee Shoe Store and Post Office. He was known throughout the district as "Wray - The Shoe Man." Mrs. Wray died in 1957 at the age of eight-six and Edward Wray died January 14, 1967 at age of ninety-three. Murdock and Lillian lived at Inverness Street (now Arcola) and raised three children together, Bob, Jack and Bessie. Murdock McMurray died in New Westminster on April 28, 1985 at the age of ninety-two. Lillian Ethel (Wray) McMurray died in Burnaby on February 28, 1986 at the age of eighty-seven.
- Total Tracks
- 7
- Total Length
- 0:58:55
- Interviewee Name
- McMurray, Lillian Wray
- McMurray, Murdoch
- Interviewer Bio
- Doreen "Pixie" (Johnson) McGeachie was a resident of Burnaby for over sixty years. Pixie married John Aloysius "Jack" McGeachie and raised their children Kathi (Dunlop) and David McGeachie in the house the couple built themselves in 1947. Pixie served as the editor for the Burnaby Examiner newspaper and wrote a column entitled "Burnaby History" for The News. In 1974 she authored her first book titled "Bygones of Burnaby" which was one of the first to develop anecdotal stories about pioneer life in Burnaby. She authored "Burnaby - A Proud Century" in 1992 and in 2002 she wrote a biography of the city's namesake in the book "Land of Promise: Robert Burnaby's letters from Colonial B.C." She also contributed many hours of volunteering; helping to establish Burnaby's first museum Heritage Village in 1971, serving as President of the Burnaby Historical Society from 1991-1993. She served a six year term on Burnaby's Heritage Commission leading the charge to preserve many historic sites throughout the city, and during her twenty years as the Community Archives volunteer archivist for the historical society, she succeeded in gathering thousands of rare and valuable historic photographs and documents which now forms the core of the photograph collection on the Heritage Burnaby website (as these items were donated by the Society to the City Archives in 2007). The City of Burnaby awarded Pixie McGeachie the Kushiro Cup as Citizen of the year in 2002. In 2006 she received a Heritage BC project award for leading the Friends of Interurban 1223 project, and in 2008 Heritage BC recognised her again by presenting her with the Ruby Nobb Award. John Aloysius "Jack" McGeachie died October 12, 1981 at the age of sixty-seven. Doreen "Pixie" (Johnson) McGeachie died August 14, 2010 at the age of eighty-nine. On 24 September, 2011, the City of Burnaby dedicated the reading at the City Archives in honour of Pixie and formally named it the Pixie McGeachie Reading Room in recognition of her years of service to the community.
- Collection/Fonds
- Burnaby Historical Society fonds
- Subseries
- Oral history subseries
- Media Type
- Sound Recording
- Web Notes
- Interview was digitized in 2010 allowing it to be accessible on Heritage Burnaby. The digitization project was initiated by the Community Heritage Commission with support from City of Burnaby Council and the BC History Digitization Program of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia. It was recognized by the Heritage Society of BC with an award in 2012.
Images
Audio Tracks
Track two of recording of interview with Lillian and Murdock McMurray
Track two of recording of interview with Lillian and Murdock McMurray
https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/media/hpo/_Data/_Archives_Oral_Histories/_Unrestricted/MSS137-010/MSS137-010_Track_2.mp3