{{Short description|Royal Navy Admiral (1820–1896)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2021}} {{Infobox military person |width_style = person |honorific_prefix = Admiral |name = Sir George Richards |honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|KCB|FRS}} |image = Sir George Henry Richards by Stephen Pearce.jpg |caption = 1865 portrait of Richards |birth_date = {{birth date|1820|01|13|df=y}} |birth_place = Antony, Cornwall, England |death_date = {{nowrap|{{death date and age|1896|11|14|1820|01|13|df=y}}}} |death_place = Bath, Somerset, England |allegiance = {{flagu|United Kingdom|size=20px}} |branch_label = Branch |branch = {{navy|United Kingdom|size=20px}} |service_years_label = Service years |service_years = 1832–1896 |rank = Admiral |commands = {{ubl|{{HMS|Plumper|1848}}|{{HMS|Hecate|1839}}}} |battles_label = Wars |battles = First Opium War }}
'''Sir George Henry Richards''' {{postnom|country=GBR|size=100%|KCB|FRS}} (13 January 1820{{snd}}14 November 1896) was Hydrographer of the Royal Navy from 1863 to 1874.
== Biography == Richards was born in Antony, Cornwall, the son of Captain G. S. Richards, and joined the Royal Navy in 1832. His eldest son, George Edward Richards also became a Royal Navy officer and hydrographic surveyor.
=== Naval career === He served in South America, the Falkland Islands, New Zealand, Australia and in the First Opium War in China. Promoted to captain in 1854, from 1857 to 1864 he was in command of the two survey ships: {{HMS|Plumper|1848|6}} and {{HMS|Hecate|1839|6}}.
==== Survey work in Canada ==== thumb|left|Admiralty Chart of Vancouver Island, surveyed by Richards in 1859–1865. He was the second British commissioner to the San Juan Islands Boundary Commission and a hydrographer on the coast of British Columbia in 1857–1862. He is responsible for the selection and designation of dozens of placenames along the British Columbia coast. In the Vancouver area, for example, he named False Creek. In 1859, after his engineer Francis Brockton found a vein of coal, he named Brockton Point and the area of Coal Harbour. In 1860, he named Mount Garibaldi after Giuseppe Garibaldi. Other landmarks in the area named by him are the Britannia Range, and Brunswick Mountain and many features in the Howe Sound, Sunshine Coast, and Jervis Inlet areas.
In 1863 he was appointed Hydrographer to the Navy and held that position until 1874 when he retired.<ref name="Memoirs">{{cite book |last1=Dawson |first1=L. S. |title=Memoirs of Hydrography, including Brief Biographies of the Principal Officers who have Served in H.M. Naval Surveying Service between the years 1750 and 1885 |volume=2 |date=1885 |publisher=Henry W. Keay |location=Eastbourne |pages=134–155 |url=https://archive.org/details/memoirshydrogra00dawsgoog |oclc=80445321}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ritchie |first1=G. S. |title=The Admiralty Chart: British Naval Hydrography of the Nineteenth Century |date=1967 |publisher=Hollis & Carter |location=London |page=2 |oclc=1355360742}}</ref> At a time when the merchant navy was expanding rapidly and telegraphic underwater cable laying operations were intensifying,<ref name="Aitken">{{cite book |last1=Aitken |first1=F. |last2=Foulc |first2=J.-N. |title=The First Explorations of the Deep Sea by H.M.S. Challenger (1872–1876) |series=From Deep Sea to Laboratory |volume=1 |date=2019 |publisher=ISTE |location=London |isbn=978-1-78630-374-5 |doi=10.1002/9781119610953}}</ref>{{rp|c. 1}} the Admiralty had a great need for more accurate ocean charts. It was in this context that Richards was asked to organise the scientific cruises of the H.M.S. Porcupine and the H.M.S. Lightning between 1868 and 1870,<ref name="Aitken" />{{rp|c. 2}} followed by that of the H.M.S. Challenger.
== Later life == He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1866<ref>{{cite web |title=Biographical Record – Richards; Sir; George Henry (1820–1896) |url=https://catalogues.royalsociety.org/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Persons&id=NA6282&pos=1 |publisher=The Royal Society |access-date=16 March 2023 |location=London |id=NA6282}}</ref> and a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences in the same year. He was knighted in 1877, became a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1881 and became an admiral in 1884. He died in Bath, Somerset aged 76.
A portrait of him by Stephen Pearce, dated 1865, hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Mount Richards in Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada is named in his honor.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Geographic Board of Canada |title=Place-Names of Alberta |date=1928 |publisher=Department of the Interior, Canadian Government |location=Ottawa |page=108 |url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015070267029 |hdl=2027/mdp.39015070267029 |hdl-access=free}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
== Further reading == * {{cite wikisource |last=O'Byrne |first=W. R. |year=1849 |chapter=Richards, George Henry |title=A Naval Biographical Dictionary |publisher=John Murray}} * {{Cite DCB |title=Richards, Sir George Henry |first=Helen B. |last=Akrigg |url=https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/richards_george_henry_12E.html |volume=XII}} * {{cite ODNB |last1=Ritchie |first1=G. S. |last2=Baigent |first2=E. |title=Richards, Sir George Henry (1820–1896) |date=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/37892 |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-37892}}
== External links == {{Commons category-inline|George Henry Richards}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richards, George Henry}} Category:1819 births Category:1896 deaths Category:English explorers of North America Category:English hydrographers Category:Explorers of British Columbia Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:Hydrographers of the Royal Navy Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Category:People from Antony, Cornwall Category:Pre-Confederation British Columbia people Category:Royal Navy admirals Category:19th-century English explorers