Background
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.
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.
Robert Tomlinson (1842–1913) was an Irish Anglican medical missionary, known for his work with the indigenous peoples of British Columbia. In 1867 he moved to British Columbia as a medical missionary. He served under the Church Missionary Society"s Anglican lay minister in charge of the region, William Duncan, who was based at the Tsimshian 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 Review Robert A. Doolan"s three-year-old Anglican mission among the Nisga"a 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.
This became a successful mission on the Metlakatla model. In 1883 he was joined there by the Review
William Henry Collison.
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. Instead, the Tomlinsons joined their fellow missionary A. East. Price in resigning from Content Management System and moving to the Gitksan village of Kitwanga well up the Skeena River from Metlakatla. In 1888 they formed a new non-sectarian Christian Gitksan village nearby which they called Meanskinisht (aka Cedarvale).
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. Alice Arm and other similarly named features in that area are named for Tomlinson"s wife, Alice Mary Tomlinson.