A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
History
A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
=Williams, Thomas=, Accountant and Treasurer of the Intercolonial
Railway, Moncton, New Brunswick, was born at Handsworth, near
Birmingham, England, on the 3rd of June, 1846. He is the youngest son of
Joseph and Hannah Williams. His father’s ancestors can be traced back
several centuries as farmers and occupiers of land in the adjoining
parish of Perry Barr. His mother’s ancestors, the Coulburns of Tipton,
in South Staffordshire, have been connected with the development of the
iron industries there for several generations past. Thomas Williams was
educated at the parish schools, and subsequently at the Bridge Trust
School—a grammar school founded from the proceeds of a legacy for
repairs of bridges in the parish, for which after the organisation of
the Highway Board, its existence for its original purposes was not
necessary, and the accumulated funds were devoted to the erection and
endowment of a superior school. In 1868, he entered the service of the
London and North-Western Railway of England as freight clerk, and was
subsequently appointed freight agent at Sutton Coldfield, near
Birmingham, and station master at Marton, near Rugby. He resigned in
June, 1870, to come to Canada, and in December, 1870, entered the
service of the New Brunswick and Canada Railway, at St. Andrews, New
Brunswick, as clerk to the general manager. Mr. Williams left the
service of that railway in August, 1873, to enter upon duties of clerk
in accountant’s office of the Intercolonial (Government) Railway, at
Moncton, New Brunswick, and was subsequently appointed chief clerk in
mechanical department of the same railway. In November, 1875, he was
sent to Charlottetown, to organise the system of accounts of the Prince
Edward Island Railway, and was appointed accountant and auditor of that
railway. And on the 1st of July, 1882, he was appointed chief accountant
and treasurer of the Intercolonial Railway at Moncton, which position he
at present holds. Mr. Williams was a member of the Church of England
until December, 1873, but in consequence of Ritualistic practices having
been introduced into the church he was in the habit of attending, he
left it, and was among the first to join the then newly organized
Reformed Episcopal Church, St. Paul’s, in Moncton. He has held the
office of vestryman and warden in this church, almost continuously
since. On the 12th of January, 1875, he married Analena, daughter of the
late John Rourke, merchant, St. John, New Brunswick, and has a family of
seven children.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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