Richard Clement Moody

Major-General Richard Clement Moody FICE FRGS RIBA (13 February 1813 – 31 March 1887) was a British Governor and Commander of the elite Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, as which he was the founder and the first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia, in which he owned more than 3049 acres of land.

He was also Commanding Executive Officer of Malta during the Crimean War; and was the first British Governor of the Falkland Islands, of which he founded their capital Port Stanley, Moody Brook, and Moody Point in Antarctica.

Moody founded the Colony of British Columbia whilst selected to 'found a second England on the shores of the Pacific' by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton: who desired to send 'representatives of the best of British culture' who had 'courtesy, high breeding, and urbane knowledge of the world'. The British Government deemed Moody to be the definitive 'English gentleman and British Officer'. Moody's original title was 'Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works for British Columbia' before he was redesignated the first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia, as which he founded the capital of British Columbia, New Westminster, for which been described as 'the real father of New Westminster'.

Moody also founded the Cariboo Road and Stanley Park, and named Burnaby Lake after his secretary Robert Burnaby, and Port Coquitlam's 400-foot 'Mary Hill' after his wife, Mary Susannah Hawks. He designed the first Coat of Arms of British Columbia. Port Moody, and Moody Park and Moody Square in New Westminster, are named after him.

Like his father and siblings, Moody was a polymath who excelled in engineering, architecture, and music. He planned the restoration of Edinburgh Castle using musical chords, for which he was summoned to Windsor Castle for commendation by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He has been described as "a visionary in a plain land".