Hubert Norbury

Photographer (1897–1969)

Born in Liverpool, UK, Hubert Norbury immigrated to Canada in 1919, settling first as a homesteader then in the 1920s as a newspaper reporter in Edmonton. While working for the Alberta Department of Public Works in the 1930s, Norbury took up amateur photography and was founding president of the Edmonton Photographic Society. Joining the Canadian Navy during WWII, he served as photography instructor, a career he continued in the postwar years at CFB Esquimalt.

 

Upon retirement in 1958, Norbury established himself as a freelance architectural photographer, working primarily for Farmer Construction. Farmer was one of the largest and busiest companies in Victoria to benefit from the postwar building boom. Norbury's crisp hard-edge style was well suited to the clean-lined forms of Modern Movement architecture.