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Biography
"Mr. Timms is a real Vancouver pioneer; handpicked, extra special, double refined and forty over proof." Mayor J.S. Matthews, City of Vancouver Archivist, perhaps best described Philip Timms. Born in Toronto in 1874, the son of pioneer music printers who emigrated from London, England. Philip Timms was an extraordinary man whose lifetime spanned: the days of horses and buggies; the invention of the first automobile, radio, airplane and television, as well as the landing of the first man on the moon. He lived to one month short of his 99th birthday having lived a long life filled with many interests and considerable accomplishments. Timms' interests varied from shopkeeper, to professional printer and commercial photographer, to amateur archaeologist, archivist and historian, to musician, vocalist, choir and band leader, projectionist, lecturer and frustrated actor. He developed his own home museum, auditorium and theatre, was comfortable in churches of every denomination and was a deeply committed vegetarian and antivivisectionist. Timms' considered his greatest professional accomplishment to be the photographic record that he created of Vancouver between 1900 and 1910. However, the images that he took during his travels throughout the province of British Columbia during subsequent years are also a tremendous cultural legacy. Timms' curiosity and adventurous spirit drew him to photograph many of the province's natural wonders. Like Leonard Frank who loved to photograph "The Lions", Timms loved to photograph the mountains, his favourite being "Black Tusk" in Garibaldi Provincial Park. He also loved the giant old-growth trees such as those in Stanley Park; his young son Harold was a favourite model to help indicate the scale. Timms was keenly interested in all the ways of life in the new frontier that was British Columbia. As a consequence, the photographic record that he left behind affords us a valuable glimpse of the province during its period of growth from a frontier outpost to a well-established centre of industry and tourism. Philip Timms was a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society; he was also the official photographer for the Vancouver Museum. Of his work, James B. Stanton, Curator of History at the Museum in the early 1970s wrote: "All of Timms' photographs have a certain recognizable quality about them; much of the kindness and gentleness of the man himself comes through. His shots are candid and uncluttered and capture dramatically the feeling and mood of the time."
The photographs on this website are a tribute to Philip Timms. We owe him a debt of gratitude as expressed in Maclean's Guide to Vancouver, "for this comprehensive documentation of the [province's] history, and the invaluable contribution to our cultural heritage." > Search the Historical Photographs Database
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Navigation Bar: VPL 7178, P. Timms, 1906, Philip Timms inside his store at 944 Granville Street. Top Right: VPL 19398 Philip Timms. Photograph courtesy: Lois Peters, Philip Timms' granddaughter. Bottom Left: VPL 19399 Philip Timms, August 1927, Philip Timms in Garibaldi Provincial Park. Home | Overview | Collection | Search | Gallery | Biography | Credits
This digital collection was produced with financial assistance from Canada's Digital Collections Initiative, Industry Canada. |
When he closed his shop on Commercial Drive in 1968 at the age of 94, after 79 years as a printer and 70 years as a photographer, Philip Timms urged other photographers to continue similar documentation of British Columbia's history.
