 He has been described by 20th-century British diplomat David Tatham CMG, as an 'Empire builder'.Richard Clement Moody was the founder of British Columbia as Colony of British Columbia (1858–66), having been hand picked to "found a second England on the shores of the Pacific".The Colonial Office under Lord Lytton desired to send to the nascent Colony 'representatives of the best of British culture' who possessed ‘courtesy, high breeding and urbane knowledge of the world’ and decided to send Moody, whom the British Government considered to be the archetype of the 'English gentleman and British Officer’, as Commander of the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works for British Columbia, and the first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia.