James Tompkins - Brief Biography

Brief Biography

Jimmy Tompkins was born in Margaree Forks, Nova Scotia, a small farming community on Cape Breton Island. From 1888-1895, he attended St. Francis Xavier University in alternate semesters while teaching there to support himself teaching Greek and Mathematics. He attended the Urban College of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Papal Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith) in Rome from 1897 to 1902. On his return, he continued teaching at St. Francis Xavier University and became the vice-rector in 1907.

Working closely with the Carnegie Corporation, he implemented various reform and modernization programs, culminating in an unsuccessful attempt to amalgamate various sectarian and non-sectarian colleges in the Maritime Provinces into one nondenominational university centered around Dalhousie University in Halifax. Although the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Halifax Edward McCarthy supported amalgamation, the Catholic Bishop of Antigonish James Morrison successfully opposed it and eventually exiled Tompkins to the tiny fishing village of Canso, Nova Scotia as parish priest for Canso, Little Dover and Queensport.

As parish priest Tompkins observed firsthand the plight of the poor fishing community there and helped organize and lead what would become the Antigonish Movement of cooperative fisheries, stores, housing projects, and adult study groups. The Antigonish Movement was eventually institutionalized in the form of the Extension Department at St. Francis Xavier, which was headed by Tompkins' double-cousin Father Moses Coady and which included Father (Dr.) Hugh MacPherson, A.B. MacDonald and others.