Thomson, Hugh Christopher

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: H. P. Gundy, “THOMSON, HUGH CHRISTOPHER,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/thomson_hugh_christopher_6E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Businessman, printer, journalist, politician, office holder, jp, and militia officer; b. 1791 in Kingston (Ont.), son of Archibald Thomson and Elizabeth McKay; d. there 23 April 1834.
    • Hugh Christopher Thomson’s father emigrated from Scotland to Tryon County, N.Y., in 1773 and during the American revolution served under Joseph Brant. By the late 1780s the family had settled in Kingston, where Archibald, a master carpenter, contracted to build a house for Sir John Johnson and also undertook the construction of the first St George’s (Anglican) Church.
    • A man of many interests, Thomson was active in the community. He was a justice of the peace, a militia officer, a warden of St George’s Church, secretary of the Midland District Agricultural Society, and deputy crown clerk and commissioner of the Court of Requests for the district.
    • In 1819 Thomson wound up his mercantile business to become proprietor and editor of the Upper Canada Herald, a weekly journal which began publication that September as a rival of the Kingston Chronicle, published by John Macaulay and Alexander Pringle. By the mid 1820s the Herald had the largest circulation of any Upper Canadian newspaper, and in 1826 William Lyon Mackenzie described it as “perhaps the most consistent, temperate, and useful periodical work in the Province.”
    • A rebuke by a member of the tory élite may have influenced Thomson’s decision to stand as a moderate reformer in the general election of 1824. In this contest he headed the polls as one of the two members for Frontenac County, and he repeated the performance in the elections of 1828 and 1830.
  • Son of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=8381
  • Find A Grave : https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/162557912/hugh-christopher-thomson