Pomphrey, Tom

Person

Pomphrey, Tom

Thomas Canfield Pomphrey was born in Wishaw, Scotland on the 29th November 1881 to Marion Pomphrey and William Pomphrey, a stationer and printer. He studied architecture at The Glasgow School of Art in 1903/04, articling under prominent Glasgow architect Alexander Cullen before emigrating to Toronto, Canada in 1906. In 1909 he moved to New York City where he worked in the office of Clinton & Russell while attending evening classes at the atelier of renowned Beaux-Arts architect Henry Hornhostel. He returned to Toronto in 1912, before enlisting with the Canadian Oversees Expeditionary Forces. While fighting in the First World War he sustained a serious shoulder injury that forced him to learn to draw with one hand. His work did not suffer however and in 1924 he and fellow GSA alumnus and emigrant William Ferguson won First Prize for a design competition for the Toronto City Hall Cenotaph. He later became the resident architect for the Toronto-based engineering firm Gore, Nasmith & Storrie. He retired in July 1947 and returned to Scotland later that year. He died in Glasgow on the 8th March 1966. Tom Pomphrey is listed on Glasgow School of Art's World War One Roll of Honour.

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Sources: Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada 1800 - 1950: http://www.dictionaryofarchtectsincanada.org; Scotland's People: http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk.

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