Richard Charles Mayne Richard Charles Mayne RN CB FGS MP ( 1835 – 29 May 1892 ) was a Royal Navy Captain , later Admiral and explorer . Richard Mayne was the son of Sir Richard Mayne KCB ( the first joint commissioner of the Metropolitan Police ) and the grandson of Judge Edward Mayne . Both his father and grandfather were graduates of Trinity College , Dublin . Richard Mayne was educated at Eton . He was a scion of a family that settled at Mount Sedborough in County Fermanagh during the Plantation of Ulster and subsequently at Freame Mount , County Cavan in Ireland . . Royal Navy career . Exploration of British Columbia . In 1856 Lieutenant Mayne was attached to the Nautical Survey of Vancouver Island and British Columbia . Mayne sailed with Captain George Henry Richards on his expedition in HMS " Plumper " and also on HMS " Hecate " to survey the coast of British Columbia ( 1857 – 1859 ) , and there came to serve in the Royal Engineers under Colonel Richard Moody and was assigned the exploration and mapping of hitherto unknown parts of the colony . His journal of these activities is a classic source of British Columbia history , as are those of his Royal Engineer colleague Lieutenant Henry Spencer Palmer . Mayne Island in the Gulf Islands is named after him , and Hecate Strait for his vessel . For this work , in 1860 , he was promoted to Commander and returned to England . In 1862 he was appointed to the command of HMS " Eclipse " , for service in New Zealand , and took part in the native wars until severely wounded in 1863 and invalided home . For these services he was mentioned in despatches and promoted to the rank of Captain ; and in 1867 received the Companionship of the Bath . Straits of Magellan expedition . Mayne commanded HMS " Nassau " on the survey expedition to the Straits of Magellan , 1866 – 9 . The naturalist on the voyage was Robert Oliver Cunningham . Charles Darwin requested the Lords of the Admiralty to ask Capt . Mayne to collect several boatloads of fossil bones of extinct species of quadrupeds . Admiral Sulivan had previously discovered an astonishingly rich accumulation of fossil bones not far from the Straits . These remains apparently belonged to a more ancient period , than the collection by Mr Darwin on HMS " Beagle " and by other naturalists and therefore of great interest to science . Many of these were collected with the aid of Hydrographer Capt . Richards R . N . and deposited in the British Museum . Admiral Mayne was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and served on its Council . He was the author of " Four years in British Columbia and Vancouver Island " . Marriage . In 1870 Captain Mayne married Miss Sabine Dent , a daughter of Sir Thomas Dent ( 1796 – 1872 ) , founder of Dent & Co . , Hong Kong , and his wife , Sabine Ellen Robarts , daughter of James Thomas Robarts ( 1784 – 1825 ) , another influential opium merchant . Sabine Dent was the niece of Lancelot Dent . After his marriage he only served a short term afloat in command of HMS " Invincible " . He retired as a Rear - Admiral in 1879 . Political career . After retiring from the Navy , he unsuccessfully contested the Welsh constituency of Pembroke and Haverfordwest as a Conservative at the 1885 general election . He was elected as a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament ( MP ) there the following year , serving until his death shortly before the 1892 general election . References . city