Harvey Goldman

Industrial photographer who captured the collapse of major Canadian bridge

THE INDUSTRIAL and academic photographer Harvey Goldman, who has died aged 94, was noted for his work with British Columbia University in the fields of ophthalmology and dentistry.

Harvey was born in Stockport, the youngest son of Sam and Sadie Goldman, grew up in London, and studied at Mercers School, a City of London guild school founded in the 1400’s. Sam Goldman was a manager in the live theatre circuit during the days of vaudeville.

In 1941, he was posted by Paramount to Dundee in Scotland. Harvey joined the BBC in Edinburgh at the age of 17,

assisting with live broadcasts. While there he volunteered for the Royal Navy and although under-age, applied for training as a radar operator. A pioneer graduate of the Royal Navy’s radar course, he was posted to an M-class destroyer that served as one of the escort vessels on the Russian convoys, bringing badly needed supplies from the north of Scotland to Murmansk – one of the most brutal naval battlegrounds of the war. Later he was seconded to the Royal Canadian Navy as the radar operator on a coal-burning trawler that served as an anti-submarine convoy escort from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Newfoundland’s Grand Banks.

After the war Harvey went to Glasgow, where his parents had moved. and married Muriel Ginsberg in Glasgow on New Year’s Day, 1948. Their son Paul, was born in 1952. The couple moved to London where Harvey studied X-Ray and Radiology, becoming a sales representative for an X-Ray supply company after graduation. Harvey became fascinated by photography, working part-time for Kodak and setting up his own darkroom at home.

In 1957, Muriel and Harvey made the very difficult decision to leave their family and friends and take up a job in Vancouver, but they found Canada in the depths of a recession and the promised job was no longer available. Eventually he became an industrial photographer for the Workmen’s Compensation Board. His first job was to photograph the collapse of the new, under construction Second Narrows Bridge, one of the worst industrial disasters in British Columbia history.

After 10 years, Harvey joined British Columbia University’s Department of Ophthalmology as a glaucoma research photographer, and received joint authorship credit for a series of highly regarded research papers. He ended his career as a technician with the UCB’s Faculty of Dentistry. and classical music. He is survived by his son Paul, daughterin-law Claudia, granddaughters Rachel and Naomi, great-grandchildren and extended family.His wife predeceased him in 2006

PAUL GOLDMAN

Harvey Goldman: born December 12, 1924. Died March 2, 2019