Researching Robert Thompson

Robert (Mouseman) Thompson (7 May 1876 – 8 December 1955), also known as Mousey Thompson, was a British furniture maker. He was born and lived in Kilburn, North Yorkshire, England, where he set up a business manufacturing oak furniture, which featured a carved mouse on almost every piece.

It is claimed that the mouse motif came about accidentally in 1919 following a conversation about "being as poor as a church mouse", which took place between Thompson and one of his colleagues during the carving of a cornice for a screen. This chance remark led to him carving a mouse and this remained part of his work from this point onwards.

Thompson was part of the 1920s revival of craftsmanship, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement led by William Morris, John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle. More specific to furniture making in this genre and era include Stanley Webb Davies of Windermere.

The workshop, now being run by his descendants, includes a showroom and visitors' centre, and is located beside the Parish Church, which contains "Mouseman" pews, fittings and other furniture. The company is now known as "Robert Thompson's Craftsmen Ltd – The Mouseman of Kilburn."

Fr Paul Nevill, a former Headmaster of Ampleforth College, asked Thompson to make the Ampleforth Abbey's furniture; the school liked it so much that Ampleforth kept asking Thompson for more work, including the library and most of the main building. Most of Ampleforth College's houses are now decorated with Robert Thompson's furniture.

Others, who continue in his style working in Yorkshire oak, have adopted similar identifying marks and nicknames, including Thomas "Gnomeman" Whittaker (1910–1991), Derek "Lizardman" Slater, Colin "Beaverman" Almack, Wilf "Squirrelman" Hutchinson, Albert "Eagleman" Jeffray, Malcolm "Foxman" Pipes, and Shaw & Riley "The Seahorsemen of Hessay".

He lived in the Yoruba region of southwest Nigeria while he conducted his research of Yoruba arts history. He was affiliated with the University of Ibadan and frequented Yoruba village communities. Thompson studied the African arts of the diaspora in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and several Caribbean islands.

Thompson was in contact with the Soviet intelligence after he returned to the United States. On June 7, 1963, Federal Bureau of Investigation surveillance watched a personal meeting with a known KGB officer and an individual who later was identified as Thompson.

Thompson was arrested on January 7, 1965, at his service station in Babylon, New York where he was running a home fuel-oil delivery service as a truck driver. He pleaded guilty and received a 30-year sentence which he served in the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. He became an Airman Second Class.

Thompson is the Trustee Professor of Television and Popular Culture at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture.

His areas of research are television history, Popular Culture, media criticism, and TV programming. Thompson's various soundbites have been dubbed by the Associated Press as "Thompson-isms".

On February 4, 2009 Jon Hein of the Howard Stern Show announced that Thompson is his "arch nemesis," referring to popular culture trivia.

He holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Chicago and an M.A. and Ph.D. in radio, television and film from Northwestern University.

He is the recipient of many prizes and distinctions for his music including the First Prize in Musica Nova 2003 (Czech Republic), First Prize in the 2001 Pierre Schaeffer competition (Italy) and awards in the XVI Concorso Internazionale “Luigi Russolo” (Italy), Irino Prize Foundation Competition 1995 for chamber Music (Japan), and Concours International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges (France), among others. He was a Research Assistant of the Center for Music Experiment (CME) Computer Audio Research Lab (CARL) throughout the 1980s, assisting significant composers in the realization of advanced computer music works.

In 1991, he was named a Fulbright Research Scholar and was Composer in Residence at the Danish Institute of Electroacoustic Music (DIEM) where he collaborated on fundamental research and composed the long-form computer music work – The Strong Eye. Over the past decade, he has become increasingly well known internationally for his instrumental and computer music works and also for his many recordings which have been broadcast worldwide.

His music is published on recordings by EMF-Media], Neuma, Drimala, Capstone, Hypnos, Oasis/Mirage, Groove, Lens Records, Space for Music, Zero Music and Aucourant record labels, among others.

While composing and recording takes up most of his creative time, he is also involved in various tangent activities. He is active as a composer for films and often collaborates as an audio mastering engineer, creating master recordings for labels such as Funtone and CRI (Composer's Recordings, Inc.). On the technical side, he has collaborated with Micro Technology Unlimited, and assisted in the development of DNOISE – a real-time digital audio noise reduction software application.

He is a contributing author for two books, Computer Music Techniques for the Electronic Musician and Software Synthesis, Sound Design and Programming, both by Dr. Eduardo Reck Miranda and published by Focal Press in 1998 and 2002 respectively. He is currently under contract for a book with A-R Editions, Inc. on the subject of musical signal processing and sonic design using Csound 5. He was named the Distinguished Honor’s Professor of Georgia State University, College of Arts and Sciences in 1994 where he is Professor of Music Composition and Coordinator of Music Technology Studies in the School of Music.

He lived at Bertha House, 71 Malone Road, Belfast (demolished late 1990s) and at Drum House, Drumbeg, County Down. Thompson's son, Samuel Hall-Thompson and grandson, Lloyd Hall-Thompson, also served as MPs.

Thompson died in 1918 and is buried in Belfast City Cemetery.

He was born in Lanark County, Ontario, the son of Thomas Thompson and Grace Schuyler, both natives of Scotland, and was educated in Lanark County and at the Rockwood Academy in Wellington County. Thompson worked on the family farm and then was employed by the London Publishing Company until 1863. He then operated a book and stationery business in Toronto until 1875, when he was forced to retire due to poor health. After his health improved, in 1879, he came to Emerson, Manitoba and then settled on a homestead at Rock Lake on the Pembina River. In 1881, Thompson married Isabella Butchart. He served as a justice of the peace and was reeve for the Rural Municipality of Louise and warden for Rock Lake County. Thompson was defeated when he ran for reelection to the provincial assembly in 1888.

After leaving politics, Thompson moved to Glenboro, where he dealt in lumber, furniture and agricultural implements. In 1897, he became a representative for the Westminster Publishing Company. From 1899 to 1904, he was an inspector of agencies for the London & Lancashire Life Insurance Company. In 1904, he established his own real estate and financial agency at Brandon. Thompson was also president of the Edrans-Brandon Pressed Brick Company.

He retired to Vancouver, British Columbia and later died there at the age of 85.

Thompson was born in a swimming family – his father James and elder sister Patty were Olympic swimmers and coaches – and started training in swimming at four years of age. He later changed to water polo, and already by 1961 competed at the national level. He was a member of the national teams that competed at the 1967 and 1971 Pan American Games and 1972 Olympics. In 1969 he started coaching water polo and later prepared the Canadian team for the 1980 and 1984 Olympics and 1983 Pan American Games. For his coaching achievements he was inducted into the McMaster University Hall of Fame in 1989 and into the Ontario Aquatic Hall of Fame in 1995.