John Thomas Walbran

John Thomas Walbran (1848 – 31 March 1913) was an English-Canadian ship's master and writer.^[1]

The grave of Anne and John Walbran in Ross Bay Cemetery

Biography

John Thomas Walbran was born in Ripon, England, in 1848. He became qualified as a ship's master in 1881. On the coast of British Columbia from 1888 to 1890 he was employed by the Canadian Pacific Navigation Company. From 1891 until retirement in 1904, he worked primarily on the Pacific Coast in the Georgian Bay Survey, subsequently renamed the Canadian Hydrographic Service. He was the first captain of the DGS Quadra.^[2] He is best known for authorship of British Columbia Coast Names originally published in 1909, reprinted in 1971 and widely and frequently cited.

Death

John Thomas Walbran died at St. Joseph's Hospital on 31 March 1913 and was buried in Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, British Columbia.^[3]

Legacy

Walbran Island, Walbran Point, and Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park are named after him.

See also

• John Richard Walbran

References

1. G. P. V. Akrigg (1979–2016). "WALBRAN, JOHN THOMAS, master mariner and toponymist". Dictionary of Canadian Biography (online ed.). University of Toronto Press. Retrieved 19 June 2012. The next year he joined the federal government's Marine service and brought out from Scotland its steamship Quadra, which he commanded until 1903, performing a number of services, chiefly concerning lighthouses, buoys, and fisheries on the west coast, but also including hydrographic research, the transport of police to deal with native troubles, and passage for Governor General Lord Minto [Elliot] on a cruise to Alaska.
2. Thomas E. Appleton (Summer 1970). "Captain John T. Walbran, 1848-1913". The British Columbian Quarterly. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
3. "Died". Victoria Daily Times. 31 March 1913. p. 20. Retrieved 22 March 2020 – via Newspapers.com.

• Walbran, John T. (1909). British Columbia Coast Names, Government Printing Bureau, Ottawa.