Maynard, Richard
Richard Maynard is one of the foremost of Victoria pioneer citizens, widely known for his connection with business interest, for his prominent identification with the public welfare and municipal progress and for his large-hearted and public-spirited citizenship. He came to Victoria forty-five years ago, and has ever since been active in his own department of work and a representative of the best interests of business and society.
Mr. Maynard was born in Stratton, Cornwall, England, February 22, 1832. He belongs to good old English stock, and his parents were Thomas and Mary (Squires) Maynard, both natives of England. Both parents were active workers in the Church of England, and his father for many years was a member of the church choir.
When Mr. Maynard was two years old the family moved from Stratton to Bude, and in that place he was reared and received his early education. For his serious business life he was apprenticed to learn the shoemaker's trade and the leather business in general. But his strongest inclination when a boy was for the life of a seaman, and he consequently went to sea in the ship Stickly, under Captain Greenway, and for a year was engaged principally in the coasting trade between England and Wales. He then returned to Bude, and for some years following he worked at his trade during the winter and followed the sea in the summer.
In 1852, when in his twentieth year, he was happily married to Miss Hannah Hatherly, who was born in England. Soon after their marriage they came out to Canada, and settled at Bowmanville, Ontario, where he engaged in work at his trade. The year 1859 was the date of his coming to Victoria, being attracted thither by the gold excitement, and he did some mining on the Fraser River. He also spent a year of prospecting and mining with moderate success at Stickeen, after which he decided upon returning to Victoria and establishing himself in his regular business. In pursuance of this plan he returned to Bowmanville for his wife, and they came out to Victoria together. Mrs. Maynard had during the interim learned the photographer's art, and when they located in Victoria she engaged in that occupation while he started in a small way in shoemaking business, and success came to both enterprises. Mr. Maynard also learned photography, and the two, husband and wife, have been in that business in Victoria longer than any other firm. They have also bought and sold all kinds of photographic materials.
Later Mr. Maynard retired from the shoe business. One of his sons now conducts a first-class store in Victoria, and another son gives his active attention to the photographic supplies store. As a business man Mr. Maynard has enjoyed a reputation for integrity and genial treatment of all his associates of which he may well be proud. It is a pleasure for him to recall the fact that he was able to retain one employee in his shoe business as long as he remained in that trade, and he and his wife have a man with them in the art gallery who has been continuously in their employ for twenty-eight years.
Mr. Maynard's photographic work has been of the highest order of excellence, and all the photography bearing the Maynard imprint represents the best in that art. He has done a great deal of work along this line for the government. He was in the Behring sea and took the photographs of the seals which were sent to Paris to be used for evidence in the famous arbitration case concerning the seal fisheries. He has also taken a number of pictures of Indian villages. On one occasion while photographing in an Indian village, a native inhabitant, frenzied by fire-water, knocked him down with a club, broke his camera, and would undoubtedly have killed him on the spot had not a constable opportunely reached him and effected his rescue. During his long career Mr. Maynard has passed through many experiences of a dangerous and trying nature, and his life story is far removed from monotony and routine chronology. When on his first voyage to Victoria, on June 20, 1859, when the ship Forward was nearing her landing her magazine blew up and discharged through the skylight half the kitchen furniture and dishes high into the air. The third officer of the ship was killed by the explosion, and the captain's sons and the captain's servant also lost their lives. At the time Mr. Maynard was standing by a table in a room adjoining the place where the cataclysm occurred, and the door was blown from its hinges and precipitated with great force against the table, and had Mr. Maynard been standing on the other side of the table he would undoubtedly have been cut in two, but as it was he escaped with only a few scratches.
The following children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Maynard: George H. is one of the sons engaged in the shoe business in Victoria; Zela is the wife of W. H. Smith; Albert H. manages the photographic supply store which was founded by his father; Emma, the deceased wife of J. F. McDonald, left a small family of children; Lillie is also deceased; Albert H. married Miss Adelaide Graham, the daughter of James Graham, and they have a son and two daughters, who are nearly through with their educations.
Fraternally Mr. Albert H. Maynard is a member of the Foresters and the Woodmen, and served as banker in the latter order for a number of years. He is also a member of the Natural History Society, and has always given a more than passing interest to the study of the wonders and beauties of the nature around him. For eighteen years he was treasurer of the Vancouver Building Society. When the Victoria free museum was founded he was the curator's helper and hunted with him in the order to obtain specimens of animals, and in order to be of greater service in this work he learned the art of taxidermy.
Mr. Richard Maynard and his wife erected a good brick building in which are located their photographic stock and their art gallery, and they also own several residences in the city. This venerable pioneer couple have wrought well in their life work, and they have much ground for satisfaction with their past efforts and are free to spend the declining years of their life as they choose, whether in quiet pleasure or in continued usefulness to themselves and the world.
R. E. Gosnell, A History of British Columbia, (Vancouver, B. C.: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906). pp. 399-410.