John Thomas Walbran

John Thomas Walbran was born in Ripon, England in 1848 and died in Victoria, British Columbia in 1913. Walbran 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 is best known for authorship of British Columbia Coast Names originally published in 1909, reprinted in 1971 and widely and frequently cited. Walbran Island, Walbran Point and Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park are named after him.