Charles Marsh Thomson (February 13, 1877 – December 30, 1943) was a lawyer, judge and U.S. Representative from Illinois.

Biography

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Thomson attended

public school Public school may refer to: * State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government * Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England an ...

s and the Chicago Manual Training School. He graduated from Washington & Jefferson College, Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1899 and from Northwestern University School of Law, Evanston, Illinois, in 1902. He was admitted to the

bar association A bar association is a professional association of lawyers as generally organized in countries following the Anglo-American types of jurisprudence. The word bar is derived from the old English/European custom of using a physical railing to separ ...

that year and began practicing law in Chicago. He served on the

Chicago City Council The Chicago City Council is the legislative branch of the government of the City of Chicago in Illinois. It consists of 50 alderpersons elected from 50 wards to serve four-year terms. The council is gaveled into session regularly, usually mont ...

as an alderman from the 25th ward from 1908 through 1912. Thomson was elected to this position in 1908, 1910, and 1912. He was elected as a

Progressive Progressive may refer to: Politics * Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform ** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context * Progressive realism, an American foreign policy par ...

to the

63rd Congress The 63rd United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1913, to ...

, where he served from March 4, 1913, to March 3, 1915. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the 64th Congress in 1914. Thompson was originally going to run for mayor of Chicago in 1915 as a progressive. However, after William Hale Thompson entered the race as a Republican, Charles M. Thomson withdrew. William Hale Thompson was elected, and in turn supported Thomson's subsequent candidacy for the Circuit Court of Cook County later that year. Thomson was elected judge of the circuit court of Cook County in 1915, and reelected in 1921. He was appointed justice of the Illinois Appellate Court in 1917, and reappointed in 1921. He served in this capacity until June 1927, then resumed his law practice in Chicago. Thomson at one point was president of the Chicago Bar Association. He was a trustee of the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad from 1933 to 1939, when he was appointed trustee of the Chicago & North Western Railway. He served as trustee until his death on December 30, 1943. Thomson was interred in Chicago's Rosehill Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomson, Charles Marsh 1877 births 1943 deaths Lawyers from Chicago Progressive Party (1912) members of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois Judges of the Illinois Appellate Court Washington & Jefferson College alumni Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law alumni Burials at Rosehill Cemetery Judges of the Circuit Court of Cook County (pre-1964 reorganization) Chicago City Council members