E.W. Thomson (poet)

by George Dance

Edward William Thomson (February 12, 1849 – March 5, 1924), who published as E.W. Thomson, was a Canadian poet, journalist, and short story writer. He was a pioneer of the short story form in Canada.

Life
He was born in Peel County, Ontario, the grandson of Edward William Thomson, a member of the York militia who was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada.

When Thompson was 14, he was sent to Philadelphia to work in a mercantile office; he enlisted in the Union Army in October 1864 (at 15), and saw action during the American Civil Waras a trooper in the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Thomson returned to Canada when discharged in August, 1865. He saw combat again the next year, at the Battle of Ridgeway during the Fenian Raids.

Thomson took up civil engineering in 1867, and worked as a Land Surveyor from 1872 to 1878. In 1873 he married Adelaide St-Denis of Pointe Fortune, Quebec. The couple had one son, Bernard.

In 1878, at the invitation of publisher George Brown, he became an editorial writer for The Toronto Globe. He resigned from the Globe in 1891, due to the paper's support for the Liberal Party's position of unrestricted reciprocity (free trade) with the United States.

In 1891 Garvin joined the staff of The Youth's Companion, a boys' magazine published in Boston, Massachusetts, and worked there for the next 11 years.

Recognition
Thomson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1909, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1910.

Publications
He wrote a book of short stories, Old Man Savarin and Other Stories (1895), and one of poetry, The Many-Mansioned House and Other Poems (1909).