Fonds F2452 - J.H.R. Thomson fonds

Lt. Col. John Henry Reginald Thomson, 1894-1989, was born in St. Thomas, Ontario, and his family moved to Trenton, Ontario during his childhood. During the First World War he served with a cavalry unit in Egypt and Palestine and was promoted to Lieutenant. In 1924 he joined the Militia as a Captain, and during the Second World War he was in command of an artillery unit in France. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). In his civilian life he worked as an accountant in the banking industry in Ontario and the Prairie provinces until 1936. He was also a professional musician, playing brass instruments in dance bands in the evenings, and he was an accomplished hockey and baseball player. Following the Turner Valley, Alberta discoveries of 1936, he became involved in the petroleum industry. He was a vice-president of Trans Empire Oils Ltd. from 1950 to 1957. In the 1970s he worked for the Riveredge Foundation in Calgary, Alberta and he also devoted much of his time to his collection of sheet music. In 1926 he married Agnes Campbell Fair, 1902-1968, and they had one daughter, Helen, 1927- .

J.H.R. Thomson Popular Song Collection: This collection was compiled by Lt. Col. John H.R. Thomson, 1894-1989, a Calgary, Alberta music enthusiast. From 1968 to 1970 he collected over 600 pieces of sheet music of songs that were popular in Canada during the preceding century. He also compiled a list of 1200 popular song titles. In 1969 he recorded the first few lines of these 1200 songs in his Calgary residence, with Helen Worden Adams as the chief pianist. The actual recording took two weeks.