Researching Thomas Williamson

Williamson grew up in Topeka, Kansas and is best known for designing Topeka High School, a magnificent Perpendicular Gothic public high school, completed in 1931. Assisting Williamson was his chief designer Ted Greist, and Linus Burr Smith from Kansas State College (now Kansas State University) to oversee the plans.

Williamson and Griest also designed Clay Elementary School (now Cair Paravel-Latin School), which was completed in 1926.

Thomas W. Williamson (1887-1974), whose full name was Thomas Wilson Williamson, was an American architect. He practiced architecture for more than 50 years, designing schools and courthouses in Kansas and neighboring U.S. states. A number of his works were listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places for their architecture. Firm names including him operated as Thomas W. Williamson and Company, as Thomas W. Williamson, Victor H. Loebsack & Associates, and later as Williamson-Loebsack and Associates. The firm grew to a size of 46 architects, draftsmen, engineers and other specialists.

He was born in Sydney to typesetter William Williamson and Anna Maria Annesley, and grandson of Michael Williamson who both served as mayors of Redfern. He attended Lyndhurst College, serving as an articled clerk in his uncle's law firm, Williamson & Williamson, and was admitted as a solicitor in 1877. He later became a partner in the firm. On 8 October 1873 he married Annie McNamara, with whom he had seven children.

He was a candidate for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for the district of Redfern at the 1882 election, winning a seat at the 1885 election. He did not re-contest the seat in 1887. He told a meeting of electors that this was due to medical advice, while a biographical article in the Australian Town and Country Journal attributes his retirement to the pressures of business. He was a Protectionist candidate at 1889 election, missing a seat by less than 100 votes.

He served as an alderman of Redfern from 1882 to 1888 when he was elected Mayor, serving a one year term to February 1889.

Williamson had moved to Rydalmere in 1886, and in 1891 successfully organised a petition to divide the Borough of Dundas. He was elected one of 6 aldermen on the resulting Borough of Ermington and Rydalmere, serving as mayor from 1891 until 1893.

In 1894 he was struck off the roll of solicitors as he had misappropriated £776 from a client. He unsuccessfully applied to be re-admitted in November 1896, but was allowed to be employed as a solicitor's clerk.

Some time after November 1896 he moved to Western Australia, where he was a commercial agent. until his death in Perth in . The coroner found that Williamson had committed suicide by taking cyanide.

Williamson, the only son of Rev. William and Mary (Smith) Williamson, was born at Fair Forest, Union District, S. C., in March, 1800; in 1805 his father, wishing to set at liberty the slaves which he had inherited, moved to Manchester, Ohio.

He graduated from Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pa, in 1820, and soon after began to read medicine with his brother-in-law, Dr. William Wilson, of West Union, Ohio. He also attended a course of medical lectures in Cincinnati, before attending the Yale Medical School, where he graduated in 1824. On receiving his degree he settled in Ripley, Ohio, where he soon gained a good practice, and was married, April 10, 1827, to Margaret, daughter of Col. James Poage

A half-formed purpose to devote themselves to missionary work was rendered stronger by the early deaths of their first three children; and after spending one winter at Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, and being licensed to preach the gospel, Dr. Williamson was appointed by the American Board in the spring of 1834 to visit the Indian tribes west of and near the Mississippi River and north of the State of Missouri. The result was the establishment by the Board of a new mission, of which Dr. Williamson was put in charge. As soon as navigation opened in the spring of 1835, he left Ohio with his family, and until 1846 was stationed at Lac-qui-parle, among the Dakotas, in the western part of what is now the State of Minnesota. In 1846 he removed to Kaposia, five miles below St. Paul, and after the cession of these lands to the government, followed the Dakotas in 1852 to their reservation, and selected as his residence a spot some thirty miles south of Lac-qui-parle. He continued there until the Indian outbreak in 1862, and afterwards made his home at St. Peter, Minn., where he died, June 24, 1879, in his 80th year. His wife died in July, 1872.

From the time of his entrance on the missionary work, he gave himself unreservedly to the elevation and Christianization of the Dakotas; he lived to see among them ten native ordained ministers and about 800 church members, connected with the churches which he had planted. The crowning work of his life, the translation of the Bible into the language of the Sioux nation, was only completed, in connection with Rev. Dr. Riggs, about three months before his death. His three surviving sons were all college graduates, and one of them was associated with his father in the missionary work.