Philip J. Thomas (1921–2007)

Abstract

Phil Thomas was the foremost collector of English-language folk songs in British Columbia. He was also well known as a singer and banjoist whose repertoire was rooted in the songs of his native land, many of which would have disappeared but for his pioneering work of recording and documenting them. Thomas was born on 26 March 1921 and was brought up and educated in Victoria, BO He served in the Canadian armed forces in England and in India during the Second World War, and after returning to Canada attended the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, graduating with a BA in 1948 and a BEd the next year. He then embarked on a career in education, working as an elementary school teacher and as an art teacher. Suspicion of his left-wing political views made it difficult for him to find a teaching position in Victoria or Vancouver, so he took a post at the fishing and logging community of Pender Harbour and it was there, in 1951, that he first became interested in the vernacular song heritage of British Columbia. Thomas earned his living in the British Columbia school system, but his commitment to encouraging and promoting children's art went beyond the classroom. It developed into a collaboration with the Vancouver School of Art and with the Child Art Centre at the University of British Columbia. He was also involved with the Canadian Federation of Artists, and served as the founding president of the BC Art Teachers' Association. A recipient of the G. A. Fergusson Award, the highest honour of the BC Teachers' Federation, he retired from teaching in 1981. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Phil Thomas's interest in folk song began in the early 1950s. Inspired by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, he learned the banjo and began singing a repertoire that was initially mainly American. impressive work of such Canadian collectors as Helen Creighton in Nova Scotia and Edith Fowke in Ontario underlined the apparent lack of western Canadian folk songs. Thomas was moved to discover for himself whether his native province also possessed a wealth of uncollected vernacular song. For nearly thirty years he spent his summers traversing British Columbia, tracking down its oral song traditions. He also explored the province's archival collections to find printed material such as broadsides. result of this collecting and research is the P. J. Thomas Collection, now deposited in the Aural History Archives of British Columbia, in Victoria, BC P. J. Thomas Collection spans material from pre-colonial days to the 1970s, a period of approximately 150 years. earliest songs, such as The Bold Northwestman' and The Poor Armourer Boy', are derived from broadside ballads and reflect tensions between European mariners and the native peoples of the northern Pacific coast. They also document resistance to the threat of annexation by the United States. Such songs from the colonial era as 'Chief Douglas's Daughter', 'The Dredger', and 'Victoria Christmas' depict the social and commercial life of Victoria and Vancouver Island; while the Fraser River and Cariboo Gold Rushes of the 1850s and 1860s found expression in 'Far from Home', The Young Man from Canada', and the powerful 'Know Ye the Land?'. Many of the songs collected by Thomas in the interior of British Columbia evoke the hardships and the joys of pioneer settlers, and some, such as 'Seattle Illahee', even incorporate Chinook words and phrases (Chinook was the hybrid language of the fur trade in the Pacific West, a mixture of pidgin English and the language of the First Nations peoples of the region). …