Richard Blanshard MA (19 October 1817 – 5 June 1894) was an English barrister and first governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island from its foundation in 1849 to his resignation in 1851.

Blanshard was born in London to a wealthy mercantile family, and after reading law at Cambridge University, served in the army in British India.

Blanshard's short tenure proved unhappy from the start, largely because of the enormous power and influence wielded by the Hudson's Bay Company and its autocratic Chief Factor, James Douglas.

Almost the entire non-First Nations population were Company employees, answerable to Douglas, and Blanshard was prevented from setting up a colonial assembly by the fact that so few of them met the qualifications of electors, i.e., land ownership.

The absence of any real power, combined with health concerns and the enormous cost of living drove Blanshard to resign; he abandoned the colony in September 1851 after just one and a half years there.