Robert Burnaby (November 30, 1828 – January 10, 1878) was an English politician and civil servant in British Columbia, where he served as Private Secretary to Richard Clement Moody, who was the founder and the first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia.

However, Burnaby shortly founded a commission-trading business with his friend Edward Henderson, in Victoria, to speculate in a coal mine in Burrard Inlet, that folded in 1865, after which he worked in real estate and insurance.

[1] Burnaby ran for the Legislative Assembly and was elected as its member from Esquimalt and Metchosin, as which he served for five years.

He was a friend of the Judges Matthew Baillie Begbie and Henry Pering Pellew Crease, and of Gold-Commissioner Thomas Elwyn.

An island and a narrows in Haida Gwaii, a street in Vancouver's West End, a hill, and a Park in Burnaby itself, are named after him.