Soldier, civil engineer.
Born at Kingsbridge, Devonshire, England on 12 June 1840, son of John and Mary Anne Scoble, he received his education at private schools in England and Canada and at the University of Toronto where he studied civil engineering from 1857 to 1860.
His military career began in 1861 at the time of the Trent affair, when he joined the volunteer militia. He became staff adjutant and town Mayor of Toronto in 1866, and was Brigadier-Major and inspector of drill sheds at Toronto from 1866 to 1870. He was appointed a Lieutenant-Colonel in 1871. He served as secretary of the Ontario Rifle Association from 1869 to 1874 and as commander of the Second District Engineer (Field) Company from 1875 to 1881. He became Brigadier-Major and district quarter-master in Winnipeg in April 1885 and in 1889 was awarded a medal for service in the North-West Rebellion.
As an engineer he compiled a series of maps for the Ontario Government. He was employed on the construction of the Grand Trunk Railway, and, in 1880, on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and was engineer for Growski and Macpherson in the construction of the International Bridge at Fort Erie. He was employed in a number of capacities for the Ontario Government, serving at various times as Deputy Inspector of Asylums and Prisons, Assistant Provincial Secretary, special Commissioner to London and Paris with reference to the Ontario boundary.
He organized the Ontario School of Agriculture and was in charge of the Engineering and Sanitary Works of Ontario public institutions, 1872-77. He moved to Winnipeg in 1881. In 1884 he was secretary of the special committee of the Legislature to enquire into the feasibility of a Hudson Bay Railway. In his later years he devoted himself almost exclusively to this project, and made trips to the Bay in 1895 and 1899. He was editor of the Nor’Wester (1894-1895) and managing editor of the Great West Publishing Company (1898-1899).
He wrote Canadian Volunteers’ Hand-Book for Field Service (1868) and a number of articles on military engineering, Imperial and Colonial Defence and the Hudson Bay Railway.
In December 1866, he married Georgina Sophia Carruthers (1841-1900) of Toronto, Ontario and they had six children: Mary Louise Scoble (1869-1939, wife of John Cowan Gillespie), Frances Emily Scoble (1871-1894), Adelaide Emma Scoble (1872-1946), Georgina Sophia Scoble (1874-1939), Catherine Isabel Scoble, and Arthur Barnes Scoble (1882-1942).
He died at his Winnipeg residence, 25 College Avenue, on 26 October 1900 and was buried in the St. John’s Cathedral Cemetery. His papers are in the Archives of Manitoba.
His articles for the Manitoba Historical Society:
Our Market Crops
MHS Transactions, Series 1, No. 15B, 21 February 1885.Thomas Clarkson Scoble by Keith Wilson, Canadian Biographical Series, 1993.
Death registration [Frances Emily Scoble, Thomas Clarkson Scoble, Georgiana Sophia Scoble, Arthur Barnes Scoble, Adelaide Emma Scoble], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
“Death of Col. Scoble,” Winnipeg Tribune, 26 October 1900, page 5.
Obituary [Catherine Isabel Scoble], Winnipeg Free Press, 2 July 1963, page 21.
Pioneers and Early Citizens of Manitoba, Winnipeg: Manitoba Library Association, 1971.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 4 February 2025
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