Francis Thompson (architect)

George Thompson was a builder and the Suffolk county surveyor, descended from a family of farmers in the nearby village of Bredfield.

Thompson attended Woodbridge Grammar School and his family's background instilled him with an interest in architecture.

In 1832, he worked with John Wells (another English emigrant) to build St. Anne's Market, which was temporarily used for the pre-confederation Canadian parliament.

[2] Thompson was also responsible for a cluster of buildings around the station, including a roundhouse, terraced houses for the workers, and the Midland Hotel, which is among the most representative of his surviving works.

[2][4][5] Notable for his criticism of the extravagant nature of the railway architecture of the day, Whishaw nevertheless praised Thompson's works in Derby, writing: The admirably contrived and elegant roofs, the spacious platforms, the great length of the whole erection extending to upwards of a thousand feet.

[6]Thompson and Stephenson went on to work together on the Chester and Holyhead Railway, for which Thompson designed the architectural elements of the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait as well as the Italianate Chester railway station, the frontage of which closely resembles the original station at Derby.

The couple sailed for Canada, and Thompson took up employment with the Grand Trunk Railway and the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad.

In 1866, he retired to a house he built in Hastings in Sussex, before finally moving home to Bredfield in Suffolk, where he died on 23 April 1895.