Thom, Adam

   Born in Scotland. Educated at King's College, Aberdeen. Came to Canada, and practised law in Montreal. Appointed recorder of Rupert's Land, 1838, and arrived in the Red River Settlement the following year. Also legal adviser to the governor of Assiniboia. His arbitrary conduct made him extremely unpopular, especially among the French half-breeds, and he was compelled to retire from the bench in 1849. The following year reinstated, to try a complicated case of defamatory conspiracy, but the verdict proved so unsatisfactory that Governor Caldwell procured his permanent removal, and had him appointed clerk of the court. Resigned this office in 1854, and returned to Scotland.

   Index: MS Governor Simpson makes him recorder of Red River, 1839, 245; opposes Papineau in Lower Canada, 245; his newspaper letters signed "Camillus," 245; on Durham's staff, 245; returns with him to England, 245; his influence in Red River affairs, 246; the "stormy petrel," of the Settlement, 247; returns to England, 1854, 247; his connection with Simpson's narrative of his journey round the world, 249.

   Bib.: Bryce, Manitoba and Hudson's Bay Company; Ross, Red River Settlement; Begg, History of the North-West. See also Red River Colony.