Thomas Arthur Nelson

Abden House, Edinburgh
Faubourg d'Amiens Cemetery

Thomas Arthur Nelson MID (22 September 1876 – 9 April 1917) was a Scottish rugby union player, also in business as a book publisher, who was killed in the First World War.

Life

The grave of Thomas Nelson, Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh

He was born on 22 September 1876, the son of the publisher Thomas Nelson and his wife Jessie Kemp.[1] The family lived in the house of their grandfather Thomas Nelson: Abden House on the south of Edinburgh, the grandfather having died in 1861.[2] His father built a new house, St Leonards, in the grounds of Abden House and the family moved there on its completion in 1890.[3]

He was educated at Edinburgh Academy, where he became a rugby player.[4] He then went to study Classics at Oxford University, where he befriended John Buchan.

Nelson played for Oxford University RFC and was capped for Scotland in 1898.[5]

The John Buchan novel The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) is dedicated to him. Nelson and Buchan had been friends since Nelson was an undergraduate at University College, Oxford.[6] He became head of the family publishing firm of Thomas Nelson and Sons, which employed Buchan as literary advisor and was one of the writer's publishers.[7]

Nelson was killed on 9 April 1917 on the first day of the Battle of Arras in World War I[8] while serving as Captain with the Lothians and Border Horse[5] attached to the Machine Gun Corps. He is buried in Faubourg D'Amiens Cemetery, near Arras, grave reference VII.G.26,[9]

He is also memorialised on his parents grave in Grange Cemetery in south Edinburgh.

Family

In 1903 he was married to Margaret Balfour, daughter of the Liverpool merchant, Alexander Balfour.[10][11] They had six children, including Alexander Ronan Nelson (1906–1997) and Elisabeth Nelson (1912–1999), who married Lord Bryan Walter Guinness, then becoming Lady Moyne, Elizabeth Guinness.[1]

Following his death Margaret married Paul Lucien Maze (1887–1979), a Frenchman, and became known as Margaret Balfour Nelson Maze.[12]

References

  • Bath, Richard (ed.), The Scotland Rugby Miscellany (Vision Sports Publishing Ltd, 2007, ISBN 1-905326-24-6)
  1. 1 2 "Thomas Arthur Nelson, III" at Geni.
  2. ↑ Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1866.
  3. ↑ Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1890.
  4. ↑ Public Schools and the Great War, Seldon and Walsh.
  5. 1 2 Bath, p. 109.
  6. ↑ Adam Smith, Janet (1979). John Buchan and His World. Thames and Hudson. pp. 24–25. ISBN 0-500-13067-1.
  7. ↑ John Buchan and His World. pp. 51–52.
  8. ↑ John Buchan and His World. p. 65.
  9. ↑ "Captain Nelson, Thomas Arthur", CWGC.
  10. ↑ "Alexander Balfour, of Liverpool" at Geni.
  11. ↑ "Captain Thomas Arthur Nelson",
  12. ↑ "Paul Lucien Maze" at Geni.
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