A petition to save the 102-year-old Stonehurst (also known as the Inglis House) at the corner of Gibsons Way and School Road – and officially recognize it as a heritage site – is underway with strong community support.
Gibsons resident Dale Peterson started the petition on Sept. 9. He hit 100 signatures in four days and was at 143 as of Sept. 16.
“I don’t believe that it’s been officially sold yet,” Peterson said. “But the interest is there. Once permits have been issued and a bulldozer is on the ground, it’s too late to do anything.”
Peterson said he is concerned that the interested party (unnamed) wants to build condos on the potential heritage site. Stonehurst is currently a bed and breakfast.
Current owner of Stonehurst, Bill Sluis, was contacted but declined to comment.
“In my opinion it has both municipal significance and national significance,” Peterson said.
According to the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives (SCMA), the house was built in 1913 by Dr. Fred Inglis. Inglis was the only doctor between Port Mellon and Halfmoon Bay until the 1930s.
Inglis’s home was the only pharmacy, consulting room, surgery room and hospital on the Coast.
“It was the all-in-one and the only one for Sunshine Coast residents,” Peterson said. “That was it.”
Inglis befriended James Woodsworth – a Methodist minister – around 1917. The two shared an interest in socialism and pacifism.
Woodsworth left his church in 1918 when he could no longer see eye to eye with the church administration’s support of World War One. He moved his wife and six children into Stonehurst where they lived with Inglis.
In 1919, Woodsworth went on a lecture tour that culminated in him addressing 10,000 workers during the Winnipeg Strike. He was jailed for his involvement, but the charges were dropped.
Woodsworth moved his family to Winnipeg after this and later became one of the founders and leader of the Co-operative Com-monwealth Federation (CCF) in 1932. The CCF later became the New Demo-cratic Party (NDP) in 1961.
“He, Dr. Inglis and some other people formulated the philosophies and the plans of what the CCF was going to be,” Peterson said.
“Through minority government he was able to bargain things that we now take for granted. Like old age pension and unemployment insurance. That was done through his negotiating.”
“The start of all the planning was done in that house,” Peterson said.
The petition is online at change.org titled: Preserve Dr. Inglis house as a historical/heritage site.
Peterson said he is going to make a physical copy and take it around Gibsons to get more signatures. He also plans to take it to Gibsons council as a delegation.
