William "Billy" Beal BIOGRAPHY

 

Little is known about Beal's life prior to arriving in Canada, but records show he was born William Sylvester Alpheus Beal in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1874 and arrived in the western Manitoba town of Swan River Valley in 1906.

Beal was trained as a sawmill engineer and arrived in Manitoba as a lone Black migrant in search of work opportunities, but outside of his day-to-day work, he pursued his passion for the camera and photography. Equipped with a folding box camera, Beal created nearly one hundred glass plate negatives documenting life in the Big Woody district, with the peak of his practice taking place 1915 – 1925. Despite leaving behind nearly one hundred glass plate negatives, many have gone missing or have been damaged.