Publisher, farmer.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 13 April 1840, son of William Thomson and Charlotte Parker, he worked for twenty years in the publishing industry, as an apprentice, cashier, and accountant. He later struck out on his own, working as a book binder, bookseller, and stationer. He emigrated to Canada with his wife and eight children in 1883 and settled on a farmstead five miles west of Virden, Manitoba, eventually amassing a farm of some 1,600 acres.
He established the first golf clubs in both rural Manitoba (Virden in 1892) and Winnipeg (Winnipeg Club in 1894). He was managing director of the Provincial Mutual Hail Insurance Company of Manitoba. He was a member of the Scottish Clans of Virden and president of the Clan Fraser and St. Andrew's Society of Virden. He died in the RM of Wallace on 2 June 1911 and was buried in the Virden Cemetery.
A History of Manitoba: Its Resources and People by Prof. George Bryce, Toronto: The Canadian History Company, 1906.
Death registration [Charles John Thomson], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 1 October 2023
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