sketcher, shopkeeper and landholder, was christened on 12 May 1784 in St Philip’s, Birmingham, third child and second son of Charles Tompson, gentleman, and Martha Louisa, née Webster. Nothing is known of his childhood, but on 23 March 1802 he was sentenced at Warwick Gaol Delivery to seven years’ transportation for stealing two books from a Mr Burrish of Birmingham. Because he could (obviously) read and write he was set to work as a clerk in the Sydney Commissariat Office under John Palmer immediately after arriving in the Coramandel II on 8 May 1804.
Tompson married Elizabeth Boggis, aged fourteen, of the Sydney Orphan School, in St Philip’s, Sydney, on 8 June 1806. On 26 June 1807 their first child was born – a son also called Charles who was to become a well-known poet. By then Charles senior was conducting his own business, a shop selling assorted goods. On 11 February 1809 he received his conditional pardon and was eligible for a 50-acre grant of land, which he took up on the Nepean River and called Birmingham. That year he drew two extremely competent pencil sketches of himself and his wife, still in family possession. These are his only certain drawings. An attributed pencil sketch of St Philip’s Church, Clydesdale (c.1846, Dixson Galleries) may be by Rev. W.H. Walsh .
Both business and family grew; there were finally five sons and two daughters. Elizabeth died in March 1822, leaving Charles with six surviving children. In September he married Jane Armytage, the widow of his business partner who had three children, and he decided to abandon shopkeeping for full-time farming. This was even more successful. He purchased 865 acres in the Bathurst district which he named Clydesdale, erected a splendid two-storey stone house and created beautifully landscaped gardens. A further eight children were born there—a grand total of sixteen to support. Purchases and leases resulted in extensive landholdings throughout the colony managed by his sons.
With the depression of the 1840s, however, Tompson lost Clydesdale and his other holdings. He and Jane and their three unmarried daughters moved to Sydney early in 1850 and spent the rest of their lives in modest houses in Church Street, Surry Hills, both called Clydesville. He died on 10 January 1871 and was buried in the family vault in Sydney’s Devonshire Street Cemetery (later transferred to the Church of England section of Rookwood Cemetery).
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
