Person

Brayshaw, Thomas

1886-1967

Thomas Brayshaw was born March 3, 1886, in Stackhouse in Yorkshire, England. He moved to British Columbia by 1911. He returned to England with World War I, serving in the Duke of Wellington`s Regiment, part of the Territorial Force, including a role as a revolver instructor. He was seriously injured while at the Western Front in France in 1915.

He married Edith Rebecca Sugden, who he met while she was a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment searching with the Red Cross, in Wakefield in 1916. They had one son, Thomas Christopher Brayshaw. The family returned to British Columbia in 1920.

Brayshaw worked as a fruit grower and schoolmaster at Vernon Preparatory School in Vernon, B.C., until joining the WWII efforts from 1940-1945. He served as an army counsellor and recruiting officer, reaching the rank of major.

He was a well-known sport fisherman and devoted most of his adult life to catching, studying and drawing of fish, illustrating several of Roderick Haig-Brown's books. Brayshaw achieved recognition for his wooden fish carvings. He was a founding member of the Hope Rod and Gun Club, serving as president from 1948-1961, and a charter member of the Federation of Fly Fishermen. He died October 10, 1967, in Vancouver, B.C.

Brayshaw (family)

Brayshaw, T. C. (1919-2014)

Record updated by Kristina McGuirk, April 2019.

Read, Stanley E. Tommy Brayshaw: The Ardent Angler-Artist. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 1977.