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. Captain’s 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. Mayne’s journal was incorporated into a book well-known to local historians, entitled Four Years in British Columbia and Vancouver Island. The original journal and typescript of Mayne’s journal are available at the British Columbia Archives and his book is available online. While Mayne’s Four Years has been mined extensively, historians of Vancouver Island have paid less attention to Gowlland’s lengthy and detailed journal. Gowlland’s journal is held by the Mitchell Library in Sydney, Australia, and copies of the handwritten journals are available on microfilm at the British Columbia Archives and at the University of British Columbia Library. Together, the journals of Richards, Mayne and Gowlland give us a balanced and complete version of one of the most significant survey expeditions on Vancouver Island.
The publication of the The Private Journal of Captain G. H. Richards: The Vancouver Island Survey (1860–1862) is long overdue. It is intended to recognize Richards’ official accomplishments as well as the personal qualities of balance, tolerance, integrity and perseverance that are his legacy to British Columbia.
— Linda Dorricott & Deidre Cullon
Nanaimo, 2012