John Thompson was the brother-in-law and business partner of Edward Bagnall Dimmack. He was born 1 Nov 1804 in Bilston, the younger brother of Anne Thompson. His father was Isaac Thompson, who ran a Japanning business in Bilston, This business went bankrupt in 1827.
He married Jane Nicholson in St Peter’s Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton on 4 Apr 1833. The witnesses at the wedding were ‘Edw B Dimmack and Anne Dimmack’, ie his sister and brother-in-law. She was from Manchester and we can presume that John returned with her to Manchester, where the first part of his career took root.
After only a year, Jane died in Cheetham, Manchester on 7 Sep 1834 and John Thompson remarried Anne Miller on 10 Feb 1836. In the 1841 census he is described as ‘Iron M’ – probably ‘Merchant’ rather than ‘Master’
By this time he must have been an established partner of his brother-in-law Edward Bagnall Dimmack. It seems most likely he was there selling raw iron products from the Bilston furnaces into the manufacturing industries in Manchester. By about 1850 he and his family must have returned to the Wolverhampton area. His wealth allowed him to rent out Barnhurst House and employ a Manchester governess called Sarah Agard (future wife of the wayward Thomas Evans). In the 1851 census he is described as a Coal and Iron Master.
It was his son Astley Thompson (born 23 Nov 1836, Manchester) who was able to further develop a career as a Coal Mine proprietor in South Wales. He died in Tenby on 24 May 1887.
The businesses of Dimmack, Thomson and Firmstone, however, began to get in to difficulties by the mid 1850’s. John Thompson left the partnership in 1856 and it was formally dissolved (London Gazette, 26 Dec 1856) . It looks as if John Thompson was declared bankrupt at some point in this period. By Sep 1859 the whole web of businesses was in virtual collapse. The sell-off and refinancing continued under the sole stewardship of Henry Marten, Edward Bagnall Dimmack’s son-in-law.
In the 1861 census John Thompson, a JP, recently widowed, was living in Pembrey, south of Carmarthen.
John Thompson died on 25 Jun 1875 in Great Malvern. Like his brother-in-law, he seems to have taken little active part in the coal and iron industry in the last fifteen years of his life.
Notes
- Marriage form, baptisms etc from Ancestry.com
- Jane Nicholson, his first wife was the second daughter of Mr John Nicholson of Arklow, Co Wicklow.