Sir Thomas Thornton
Credit: Dundee Art Galleries and Museums

Thornton also interested himself in the field of education, as clerk to the school board gave him an intimate knowledge of the various education acts. He was consulted by Miss Baxter and Dr Boyd Baxter about the establishment of University College in Dundee and was apparently offered, but declined, the post of secretary. He did, however, represent the college on the Court of the University of St Andrews and was a member of the Council of University College, elected by the governors from 1884 and became a life governor himself in 1886. He also established at his own expense a lectureship in law at University College.

For his many public services the University of St Andrews conferred upon him the degree of LL.D in 1891. Further recognition of his pre-eminence in educational matters came with his appointment as clerk to the Secondary Education Committee for the Burgh of Dundee. In 1893 his fellow citizens presented him with his portrait painted by William Quiller Orchardson, reproduced above. It is not certain what the book to hand is, although it might be the Dundee Directory which in effect outlined his fiefdom.

In 1893 Thornton was appointed town clerk and the post was amalgamated with many of the offices he already held, mentioned above as reported in the Dundee Directory. Thornton was allowed to carry on his private business in view of the fact that the salary he accepted for the combined offices was much less than the salaries and fees formerly paid to him by the various bodies. In 1894 he was knighted for his services in the domain of municipal government.

It was Sir Thomas who drafted the bill which led to Dundee becoming a County of a City in 1894. He then became one of its justices of the peace and soon after was made a deputy lieutenant and also clerk of the Lieutenancy of the County of the City of Dundee.

He took on further commitments after becoming town clerk: vice president of the Dundee Home Mission Union, clerk to the Manual Instruction Classes, trustee of Dundee Liberal Club, various offices in the Faculty of Procurators and Solicitors in Dundee, vice president of the Aged Christian Friend Society of Scotland (Dundee Auxiliary), honorary secretary of the Victoria Hospital for Incurables, president of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society (local branch) and honorary secretary of the Dundee Consumptive Hospital. He was also often in demand as an arbiter when strikes occurred.

He collapsed in April 1903 and died a short time afterwards. His funeral service was at the St Pail’s United Free Church, Dundee (of which he was both a member and an office-bearer), and he is buried in the Western Cemetery, Dundee. He left an estate valued at £173,205 2s. 5d, a modern equivalent is difficult to assess but it does seem to be many millions.

Sir Thomas was not universally popular and he was regularly lampooned in a local publication (available from 1897 to 1901), ‘The Wasp “The Dundee Flagellator”’ which referred to him as ‘his corpulency’ and regularly caricatured him wearing a comical-looking smoking cap. Even one of his obituarists noted that he could ‘ill brook opposition or criticism’ and that he had ‘the force and brusquerie that characterised a masterful nature’. Notable was the observation that ‘it was not in accordance with his nature to harbour petty spite. His enmities were on a colossal scale’.

His biographer characterised him as ‘a bold and resolute pleader, often a daring man of affairs, an astute lawyer, an ever vigilant adviser, and also – be it remembered – the friend of the poor and needy for whom he pled’. He also noted that ‘as clerk to the Police Court …he was invariably both wise in guidance, and merciful to offenders. He tried to help the Magistrates not only to be just and equitable in their sentences, but also to aid the criminals to reform’.

It would be too much to try to reach meaningful and lasting conclusions on the basis of this note about an individual who commanded such powerful forces, political and legal, in one city. Some comment is justified though: Thornton exercised his knowledge and skill as a solicitor and as man of business in the context of the prevailing laissez faire economy in an expanding industrial society that presented a vast array of opportunities. His ubiquitous civic involvement was somewhat democratic but mainly, it would seem, patrician.

The business and other ventures of Sir Thomas exude a willingness to confront matters with inherent risk in various forms. His declining of an offer in 1885 to stand for a seat in Parliament, a contest which he surely would have won, suggests a balancing of risks and gains. In the febrile politics of the time, and a split in the Liberal Party over Ireland, there was perhaps little for him to gain, and his success in politics might merely have been limited and jeopardised his place in Dundee and east central Scotland. It is not too idle, however, to speculate what Sir Thomas might have achieved had he gone to the bar.