Dorricott Linda - The private journal of Captain G.H. Richards: the Vancouver Island survey (1860-1862)

In the spring of 2006 the editors travelled to England in search of the original surveys, logs, field notebooks, journals and letter books of Captain George Henry Richards. We were eager to review these documents on behalf of our First Nation clients, hoping to find material that would add to existing ethno-historical information and provide support for land and resource claims. We were particularly interested in Richards journal of the Vancouver Island surveys conducted between 1860 and 1862.

Our first stop was the Hydrographic Office (the UKHO) in Taunton, where archivist Guy Hannaford gave us ready access to all of the original charts and drawings of the Vancouver Island surveys. Twenty-first century satellite photography cannot render the misty seas and immense forested shores suggested in these delicately etched and colour-washed nautical drawings. The published version of these charts can be viewed at the British Columbia Archives in Victoria, but certain details of the original drawings have been omitted and our interest was in these omissions, particularly the barely visible rectangular boxes on the shore which represent the houses and villages of many First Nations on Vancouver Island.

At the UKHO we were directed to a cottage near Westbury, Wiltshire, where Captain Richards manuscripts have pride of place in the private library of Donal Channer, the great-great-grandson of George Henry Richards. The collection came into the possession of the Channer family through Captain Richards Victoria-born daughter, Rose, who married Arthur Channer. Donal Channer now has responsibility for its preservation.

At the Channer home, along with tea and hospitality, we were given permission to photograph all of Richards Vancouver Island collection. In a colourful bound journal in excellent condition entitled Vancouver Id Survey H. M. S. Plumper 1860. Captains Journal GHR, the story of the numerous circumnavigations and surveys of Vancouver Island is recorded in full and vivid detail. Upon reading the journal and recognizing the contribution it would make to our knowledge of the early colonial period on Vancouver Island and in British Columbia, we requested and were given permission by Mr. Channer to publish the journal.

The journal is presented here in its entirety with as few editorial changes as possible. The text is liberally annotated and we have supplemented Richards account with excerpts from the journals of John Thomas Ewing Gowlland, Richards second master. Described by Richards as a most competent surveyor and along with Master Browning, his best draughtsman, Gowlland wrote at least as many pages as Richards, providing additional detail and bringing a youthful, though less-tempered, perspective to his account. His attitude toward the aboriginal inhabitants is certainly not as respectful as Richards and he exhibits a Victorian prejudice that may not be considered acceptable to the modern reader.

Richards trusted officer and friend, Lieutenant Richard Charles Mayne, also kept a record of the Vancouver Island survey expedition until 1861 when he was promoted to his own command and left the West Coast to serve in New Zealand. Maynes journal was incorporated into a book well-known to local historians, entitled Four Years in British Columbia and Vancouver Island