Robert Tomlinson (1842–1913) was an Irish Anglican medical missionary, known for his work with the

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. Robert Tomlinson was born in 1842 in Ireland. He defied his Roman Catholic parents by converting to Anglicanism, prompting his father, Thomas Tomlinson, to disinherit him. He graduated from

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

in Dublin, worked as a livery hand to finance his medical training at Adelaide Hospital and was ordained in the

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the second ...

. His parish was St. James Anglican Church in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

. In 1867 he moved to British Columbia as a medical missionary. That same year he met his future wife, Alice Woods, who was also from Ireland, in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. Th ...

. He served under the

Church Missionary Society The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British mission society working with the Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission ...

's Anglican lay minister in charge of the region, William Duncan, who was based at the

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terr ...

community he founded, Metlakatla. Despite initial rockiness, Duncan and Tomlinson shared ideals and Tomlinson supported some of Duncan's controversial catechetical innovations, such as omitting the rite of Holy Communion so as not to stir nascent cannibalistic impulses in his flock. Tomlinson's first serious duty was to re-establish the Rev. Robert A. Doolan's three-year-old Anglican mission among the

Nisga'a The Nisga’a , often formerly spelled Nishga and spelled in the Nisga'a language as (pronounced ), are an Indigenous people of Canada in British Columbia. They reside in the Nass River valley of northwestern British Columbia. The name is a r ...

people by relocating it from the lower Nass River to a newly established community, Kincolith (today known as Gingolx), at the mouth of the

Nass River The Nass River is a river in northern British Columbia, Canada. It flows from the Coast Mountains southwest to Nass Bay, a sidewater of Portland Inlet, which connects to the North Pacific Ocean via the Dixon Entrance. Nass Bay joins Portland Inl ...

. This became a successful mission on the Metlakatla model. In 1883 he was joined there by the Rev.

William Henry Collison William Henry Collison (1847–1922), also known as W. H. Collison, was an Anglican missionary among First Nations people in coastal British Columbia, Canada. Life Birth records are unclear as to whether Collison was born in County Armagh, Ir ...

. In 1887, Tomlinson vacillated as to whether he ought to join Duncan in his move with about 800 Tsimshians to form an independent (non-Anglican) mission at "New"

Metlakatla, Alaska Metlakatla (; Tsimshian: ''Maxłakxaała'' or ''Wil uks t’aa mediik''; Lingít: ''Tàakw.àani'') is a census-designated place (CDP) on Annette Island in Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Alaska, United States. At the 2010 census the popul ...

. Instead, the Tomlinsons joined their fellow missionary A. E. Price in resigning from CMS and moving to the

Gitksan Gitxsan (also spelled Gitksan) are an Indigenous people in Canada whose home territory comprises most of the area known as the Skeena Country in English (: means "people of" and : means "the River of Mist"). Gitksan territory encompasses approxim ...

village of

Kitwanga Kitwanga or Gitwangak or Gitwangax ("people of the place of rabbits" in the Gitxsan language) is located where the Kitwanga River runs into the Skeena River in British Columbia. A long-standing village before contact, the village is within Gi ...

well up the

Skeena River The Skeena River is the second-longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada (after the Fraser River). Since ancient times, the Skeena has been an important transportation artery, particularly for the Tsimshian and the Gitxsan—whose n ...

from Metlakatla. In 1888 they formed a new non-sectarian Christian Gitksan village nearby which they called Meanskinisht (a.k.a. Cedarvale). In 1908 Tomlinson and his son, Robert Tomlinson Jr., moved to Metlakatla, Alaska, to assist Duncan but the elder Tomlinson was upset to find what others too were finding at fault in how Duncan ran the community: that too much economic and political power was in Duncan's own hands and that educating the Tsimshians to be independent citizens was not a priority. Tomlinson left to return to Meanskinisht in 1912. Tomlinson died the following year at Meanskinisht, of hardening of the arteries, at 71 years of age. His son's extensive memoirs, recorded by his wife, Roxie Irene Tomlinson, onto reel-to-reel tape, were later organized by their own son, George Tomlinson, into a fiction-style narrative of his life and work, written from Robert Jr.'s first-person perspective.

Legacy

Alice Arm Alice Arm is the east arm of Observatory Inlet, which itself is an arm of Portland Inlet, on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada, near the border with the American state of Alaska. The abandoned settlement and steamer landing of Alice Arm, ...

and other similarly named features in that area are named for Tomlinson's wife, Alice Mary Tomlinson. Robert Tomlinson's father was the Rev. Thomas Tomlinson who was the Church of Ireland (Anglican) rector of St. James' Parish in Dublin, Ireland.

References

Bibliography

* Murray, Peter (1985) ''The Devil and Mr. Duncan.'' Victoria, B.C.: Sono Nis Press. * Neylan, Susan (2003) ''The Heavens Are Changing: Nineteenth-Century Protestant Missions and Tsimshian Christianity.'' Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. * Tomlinson, George, and Judith Young (1993) ''Challenge the Wilderness: A Family Saga of Robert and Alice Tomlinson, Pioneer Medical Missionaries.'' Seattle: Northwest Wilderness Books. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tomlinson, Robert 1842 births 1913 deaths Converts to Anglicanism from Roman Catholicism Anglican missionaries in Canada Tomlinson, Robert Tomlinson, Robert Irish Anglican missionaries Christian medical missionaries British Anglican missionaries Alumni of Trinity College Dublin