Richard Maynard (photographer)

Richard Maynard
Richard Maynard in the 1890s
Born	(1832-02-22)February 22, 1832 Stratton, Cornwall
Died	January 10, 1907(1907-01-10) (aged 74) Victoria, British Columbia
Known for	Photography
Spouse(s)	Hannah Maynard

Richard Maynard (1832–1907) was a Canadian photographer known mainly for his landscape views taken throughout British Columbia, along coastal Alaska and on the Pribiloff Islands of the Bering Sea.

He was born in Stratton, Cornwall, on February 22, 1832. When he was two years old, his family moved to the nearby town of Bude. As a boy he first went to sea, working the coastal trade between England and Wales. Richard was also apprenticed early on to learn the shoemaker's trade, and so he made boots in the winter and worked as a sailor in the summer. In 1852 he met and married Hannah Hatherly. The couple soon emigrated to Canada, settling in Bowmanville, now part of Ontario. In June 1859 he left to join the Fraser River gold rush in British Columbia where he apparently had some success mining. In the interim, his wife studied the principles of photography, probably acquiring the knowledge from a local firm of photographers. Richard returned to Bowmanville, and in 1862 the family with their four children moved permanently west to the city of Victoria on the Colony of Vancouver Island. Shortly after arriving he left for the Stickeen Territories to once again try his hand at placer mining, and by 1864 he was back in Victoria. During his absence, Hannah had started her own photography business, and upon his return Richard set up a bootmaking shop.

It is likely that Richard learned the skill of photography from his wife, and his earliest known photograph is an 1864 panorama of Victoria. In 1868, he took his first long distance trip, up the Cariboo Road to the gold mining town of Barkerville, accompanied by his eleven-year-son Albert, nicknamed "The General", who kept the miners entertained with magic tricks and acrobatics. Two years later, Richard returned alone to his hometown of Bude, and on the way back he stopped to purchase photographic supplies in New York City. In May and June 1873, he received a government commission aboard the gun boat HMS Boxer which journeyed first to New Westminster, then up the east coast of Vancouver Island, continuing past along the mainland as far north as Bella Coola. On the voyage was the first federal Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the province of British Columbia, Israel Wood Powell, and Maynard's role was to document native affairs for the official report. His photographs included the first views of free-standing totem poles among the Kwakwaka'wakw at Klinaklini River, and in Takush Harbour, he took six field portraits of villagers seated against the backdrop of a Hudson's Bay Company blanket. The next year, Richard was again the photographer on a similar mission with the same vessel, this time on a circumnavigation of Vancouver Island. The photographic results were disappointing due to the incessant bad weather, although his most important images were taken at Yuquot on Nootka Sound.