Thomas Field Gibson

He was born to Thomas Gibson Snr and Charlotte née Field (who was Sir Francis Ronalds' aunt) at 2 Canonbury Place Islington – his maternal grandparents and an aunt and uncle were living at No 6 and No 3 Canonbury Place respectively.^[2][3] His paternal grandfather (another Thomas Gibson – a laceman and banker) was associated with Sir Richard Arkwright’s commercialisation of mechanised cotton spinning through his brother-in-law Samuel Need.^[4]

Gibson's schooling was with Unitarian ministers John Potticary in Blackheath (where Benjamin Disraeli was a classmate) and James Tayler (father of John James Tayler) in Nottingham.^[5][6] In adulthood he resided in Bloomsbury; Hanger Lane, Wood Green; Elm House in Walthamstow (the birthplace of William Morris); Westbourne Terrace, Paddington; 10 Broadwater Down, Royal Tunbridge Wells; and finally in Fitzjohn's Avenue, Hampstead. He married twice: to Mary Anne Pett and then to Eliza Cogan, daughter of Unitarian schoolmaster Eliezer Cogan,^[7] and his only child, Mary Anne, was born the week before her mother and namesake died.^[1]

Gibson became a freeman of the Weavers' Company and took over his father's silk manufacturing business in 1829. From his warehouse in Spital Square, work was put out to several hundred weaving families in the Spitalfields area. He also employed weavers in Halstead, Essex and was a partner in the Depot silk throwing mill in Derby.^[4][1][8]

Like other industrialists of the period, Gibson believed in laissez-faire capitalism. He was an active member of the Anti-Corn Law League and supported Richard Cobden again in negotiating the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty in Paris, both of which had the goal of reducing import duties and promoting international trade.^[5]

Education, and in particular practical education of the artisans in his area, was of considerable interest to him. His father founded the Spitalfields Mechanics' Institution in early 1825, not long after the London Mechanics' Institution (now Birkbeck College) was opened, and Gibson served on its Committee.^[9][10] Not being a success, it was reoriented into the Eastern Literary and Scientific Institution, and Gibson was still its patron in the mid-1840s. Father and son also helped open and support a mission in Spitalfields with day and evening schools, adult education, a library, savings bank and benevolent fund, as well as pastoral visits to those in need.^{[citation needed]}

Gibson was on the Council of the Government School of Design (now the Royal College of Arts) established in 1837 and spearheaded the early creation of a branch school of design in Spitalfields that achieved valuable results.^[11] He was then appointed to the Royal Commission of The Great Exhibition of 1851. In subsequent years he was a Juror at the Exposition Universelle (1855) and a British Commissioner at the International Exposition (1867), both held in Paris, and was awarded a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.^[5] He also helped organise the Annual International Exhibitions held in London in the 1870s. Gibson was in addition a long-serving Councillor and benefactor of University College London and University College Hospital.^[1]

Gibson was a founding Director of the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes, an early housing association that built affordable and sanitary accommodation for rent. The second complex constructed by the Association was at Spitalfields and was open for viewing as part of the Great Exhibition.^[10] Gibson Gardens, completed in 1880 in Stoke Newington, was named in honour of Gibson's extended contributions to the Association.^[6][12] He also served on the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers that directed the early work of engineer Joseph Bazalgette towards developing an integrated sewerage and drainage system across London.^[13]