Chairman of the South Yorkshire Pumping Association and South Yorkshire Mines Drainage Committee 1928-46.

A.T. Thomson was a key connection as a colliery manager but also Chairman for the voluntary South Yorkshire Pumping Association as well as the more formal South Yorkshire Mines Drainage Schemes of 1929 and 1936.

Together with Robert Clive as Secretary, the two men oversaw much finthe organisation and strategic management if the early mines drainage work up to Nationalisation.

Background

Born at Seaham Harbour, Durham in 1871, his father Joseph Frederick Thomson moved the family to Wath in 1872 to become manager of Manvers Main Colliery. He was educated at the York Minster Choir School and at Bloxham boarding school, a public school in Oxford.

He joined the company in September 1888. His father became General Manager and Agent in 1905 when Arthurbecame manager if No.1 and No.2 collieries, working the Barnsley Seam and subsequently took on No.3 colliery working the Parkgate seam. Collectively he oversaw 3,600 miners at Manvers by 1910.

He had succeeded his father as General Manager and Agent in 1912. In 1928 he became a director of the Manvers Main Collieries Company Ltd. He retired from that position in June 1934, but continued to occupancy many professional mining and local Council and social appointments. He was a tenor singer, member of the Barnsley Operatic Society and founded the Wath Amateur Operatic Society. He was also active in supporting sports and athletics, being a founding member of Wath Golf Club in 1906.

He resided at Woodside, Sandygate, Wath-Upon-Dearne until he moved to live with his son in Surrey in 1960, dying the following year. He was awarded the OBE in 1953.