Born at Wolfville, Nova Scotia, he enlisted at the age of 15 in the Canadian Army during the First World War. Being under age he returned to school at Horton Collegiate Academy. From 1918 to 1931 he worked as a summer student for the Geographical Survey of Canada. In 1926 he graduated from Acadia University where he specialized in geology. He then joined Dr. L. J. Weeks on a 15 month geological exploration trip in the eastern Arctic. Returning on the ‘Beothic’, Haycock and Weeks became friends of A. Y. Jackson, Dr. Frederick Banting and Dr. L. D. Livingston. The meeting of Jackson and Haycock on this trip was to result in their future sketching trips together. On his return from the Arctic, Maurice Haycock enrolled at Princeton University where he took post-graduate studies in geology and mineralogy and in 1931 received his Doctor of Philosophy in Economic Geology. He joined the staff of the Department of Mines of the Canadian Government. During the course of his work he carried out extensive surveys in the Great Bear Lake area (North West Territories) and elsewhere. About the spring of 1939 Dr. Haycock began to sketch in watercolours and took some instruction from Wilfred Flood, Frank Hennessey, Tom Wood and others.
By 1945 he was exhibiting at the Photographic Stores, Ottawa. Each autumn for a number of years he exhibited there while his work with the Bureau of Mines took him to new areas of Canada. In 1949 he was at Beaver Lodge, Saskatchewan, and later joined A. Y. Jackson at Port Radium to do some sketching. The following year Dr. Haycock, at the completion of this work at Port Radium, joined A. Y. Jackson on a sketching trip in the Barren Lands along with Bob Jenkins, an employee of Port Radium.
In April of 1962 Dr. Haycock exhibited his paintings at the Robertson Galleries. Haycock made numerous sketches of Canada’s north country. Working in oils he averaged about one sketch a day in the Arctic (subject to weather conditions). He made a fascinating collection of artifacts on his travels to historic sites of old Arctic expedition encampments. He lived in Ottawa and married Katharine Blackadar of Weymouth, N.S. Dr. Haycock was a fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America, and of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society; also a member of the Arctic Institute of North America.
Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume II”, compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1979
