Archives West Finding Aid

Tommy Brayshaw (1886-1967) was born, educated, and trained to be a draftsman in Yorkshire, England. In 1920, he emigrated to British Columbia, where he taught mathematics and kept a small fruit orchard. His hobby was fly fishing, fly-tying, rod-building, and art. Brayshaw began his artistic career as a woodcarver and sculptor of life-size trout and salmon replicas. Canadian angling writer Roderick Haig-Brown commissioned him to do the illustrations for a revision of his book, The Western Angler (1947). Brayshaw illustrated several other publications, but his best-known works are the hundreds of pastel drawings that he sketched as gifts or for sale through art galleries.