Thomas Southorn

Who was Thomas Southorn?

Wilfrid Thomas Southorn, known as Tom, was a British colonial administrator, spending the large part of career in Ceylon. He was the Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong from 1925–1936 and served as Acting Administrator of the colony from February to March 1930 and from May to September 1935, and then in November the same year, basically at either end of the tenure of Sir William Peel as Governor. His official residence was Mountain Lodge.

In 1921 he married author Bella Sidney Woolf, whom he met through her more famous brother Leonard Woolf, when the two men were colleagues in Ceylon. In 1904, then a humble 'Office Assistant', Southorn had met Leonard Woolf on his arrival in Ceylon from England.

In 1936, he was made Governor of The Gambia, notably describing the colony as "a geographical and economic absurdity".