My great-grandfather David Thomson was quite the man, I’m told. He was born on the Isle of Skye in Scotland in 1895. Harold McCullagh wrote a book about him, which was published in 1978: The Man Who Made New Brunswick Sing. His legacy popped up in all sorts of ways over the course of my childhood. I remember that we had a music teacher in elementary school who told us to pronounce “r” like “ah” in order to make the music sound more melodious. My mom countered that her grandfather — the man who had made New Brunswick sing — had always said, “You should just sing like you talk.” I prefer his way of doing it.
This post is only partially about David Thomson. I expect a future post will dig into his life story in more detail. There’s a lot there. In the meantime, his biography is available online. Rather, I’d like to focus on his interesting extended family and, especially, two of his uncles: the Scottish composer, Sir Hugh Roberton, and the Scottish poet, William Thomson, who died at the tender age of 22, but not before being recognized as a potential and exciting new voice in Scottish poetry.
David came from a family of artists on both sides. His father, Hope Thomson, wrote and published verse, with his first piece appearing in 1882 in the Glasgow Weekly Herald. Along with his brother — about more, anon — Hope appeared in One Hundred Modern Scottish Poets. There, the editor quotes him as saying “one who is poetically inclined cannot live long in Skye without occasionally bursting forth into song.”
Hope’s wife, Jane Sharp Roberton, also had artists in her family, although her father James Roberton was an undertaker. Her brother, Sir Hugh Roberton, despite being self-taught musically, went on to be the founder and conductor of the world-renown Glasgow Orpheus Choir.
Sir Hugh was a fascinating man, with strong commitments to art and socialism (of the Fabian variety). Famously, he was banned from having his music play on the BBC during World War II due to his avowed pacifism.1 Winston Churchill was asked specifically about this ban and said (speaking specifically about my great-great-great uncle Hugh): “I see no reason to suppose that the holding of pacifist views would make him play flat.”
Sir Hugh was also deeply involved in the collection and preservation of traditional Scottish folk music. I collected a playlist with songs that he prepared the arrangements for here, if you’re interested. His arrangements have been used by some relatively recent bands, including the Dubliners, the Rankin Family, and Celtic Woman. Sometime after immigrating to Canada in 1914, David Thomson would be inspired to follow in his uncle’s footsteps, founding the Carriden Choir in 1937.
I’ve known about the famous Sir Hugh (we always pronounce that name with a Scottish accent in our family) most of my life, having read the McCullagh book as a kid and having heard stories from my mom and grandmother. I wasn’t as familiar with the Thomson side of the family, though, other than that they had come from the Isle of Skye, which always sounded like a very fantastical sort of place. (If you are a fan of Highlander, the island features prominently as the birthplace of the Clan MacGregor).
I’ve already mentioned my great-grandfather’s father Hope Thomson. His elder brother, William, who died at the far too young age of 22 in 1883, was a very active poet in the Glasgow poetry scene of the period, being a member of the “Bardie Clan” and the “Poet’s Club”. The Bardie Clan appears to have had connections to Scotland’s most famous poet, Robbie Burns, who lived the previous century.
William and Hope’s grandfather, James Thomson (1797-1851), had initially worked as a weaver before entering the book trade. He was known for being very well read and was called “Tasso” by his fellow villagers — a reference to the famous sixteenth-century Italian poet about whom Lord Byron had written a poem in the early part of the nineteenth century. The editor of William Thomson’s poetry collection said of James the bookseller that “he never sell’t a beak but he kent a’ that wis in’t.”
Their father, William (1821-1900), was briefly a Methodist preacher in Auburn, New York, but was forced to return to Scotland due to the cold winters. He worked as a tailor and clothier, but suffered significant financial losses during the collapse of the City of Glasgow Bank in 1878. William Jr. helped his father in his business, attending school when it was possible. His mother died when he was 12.
William’s collected poetry, including juvenilia, was published in 1883, the year that he died, through the support of the “Bardie Clan” and the Good Templars, which was a temperance society in Glasgow. Titled, Leddy May and Other Poems, the book features an introductory essay with biographical details about the poet. The book contains many poems about nature, times of year, love, famous people (such as John Howard Payne), poems in Scots, and a few about his family, including his new baby niece, Minnie Bissett, the daughter of his eldest sister, Margaret. Minnie was born in 1880.2
William also wrote a poem for Margaret, Minnie’s mother:
William was part of a circle of working class poets from the period, as we see in a poem that one of his friends, Angus Ross, a machinist and iron planer, wrote for him a couple years before he died.
The extended Thomson-Roberton family bears a lot more investigation, partly because there is simply more information available about many of them.
Finally, I think I probably have to explain the title of this post. My great-grandfather — as I remember him in the stories my mom told me over the years — was a very funny man. When he was upset about something, he would cry out with his strong brogue, “Ohh rrraaafft!” This derived from a newspaper cover story he had seen once about three men who’d been cast a drift at sea aboard a raft. Only, in the article, the headline said, “Three Men Lost at Sea Aboard a Giant Fart.” That was his style of humour (and the style of humour of many in my family too).
This was also evident in his response to those who asked how to spell his last name. He’d just look at them and say, mildly:
“Oh, we’re the dry Thomsons… The ones without the ‘p’.”
The story of Sir Hugh’s experiences through the Second World War would make a great future post, especially his tussles with the BBC. Some of this story is explored in the book, The BBC in Scotland. This blog post also contains some really excellent information about Roberton and his political development.
I did not realize that William and Hope’s older sister had married a man named Alexander Bissett until researching this article. David Thomson was married to a Bissett as well. Alexander Bissett was born in Lanarkshire; David’s wife Rhea was born in New Brunswick from a family that had been in North America since 1771. I suspect this means that it is mere coincidence.
Matt alerted me to your posts and I'm enjoying your writing, especially about the family's history.
I hope Matt is saving them in a form his children can read when they are older. I look forward to more about my grandchildren's ancestors. Blythe's mom, Marion
So fascinating. What a wonderful literary and creative history you have! And how cool to have a family member spoke of by Winston Churchill.