Santa Clara County Biographies


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm



 
ALFRED R. TOMKIN
 
            Alfred R. Tomkin, druggist, was born in Witham, Essex County, 
England, June 7, 1826.  He is a son of Dr. Thomas M. Tomkin, a graduate of the 
College of Physicians and Surgeons, in London, England.  During his life-time he 
practiced medicine, and instituted a private lunatic asylum, besides being much 
engaged in medical literature, writing for the Lancet and other medical 
journals.  He died in 1858, and his son, Dr. Thomas M. Tomkin, Jr., succeeded 
him in his practice and in the management of the asylum.  The mother of the 
gentleman of whom we write was a Miss Eleanor Royce, a native of Essex County, 
and married Dr. Tomkin early in the present century.  She died in 1868.
            The subject of this sketch attended the Merchant Tailors� school, 
then in Suffolk Street, at London, for seven or eight years, passing the usual 
examinations.  On the thirteenth of March, 1849, he embarked in the St. George, 
and bade farewell to friends and country, and turned his face toward the Golden 
West.  He sailed around the Horn, and came direct from England to California, 
the trip occupying seven months, one of which was spent in Valparaiso.  He 
reached San Francisco on October 13, and, storing his goods he had brought with 
him, like all new-comers at that time, started immediately for the mines.  After 
digging a little gold at Mud Springs, he was taken sick, and returned to San 
Francisco, only to find that his goods had been destroyed by fire, leaving him 
absolutely without means.  But he afterward received a remittance from England, 
and, relying upon his knowledge of medicine to aid him, he opened a drug store 
in Santa Clara in 1854.  He remained there sixteen years, and then removed to 
San Jose, where he has since resided.  In 1887 he was elected Coroner and Public 
Administrator of Santa Clara County, which office he still holds.
            In 1858 he was united in marriage to Miss Martha F. Forbes, the 
eldest daughter of James Alexander Forbes, who came to this country from 
Edinburgh, Scotland, in an early day, and was British Consul during the Mexican 
occupancy of California, before it was ceded to the United States.  Mrs. Tomkin 
died in 1875.  Dr. Tomkin has seven living children:  Alfred F., engaged in 
farming in this county; Charles H., a silk manufacturer; Eleanor F., wife of 
Thomas Roots, a nurseryman of San Jose; Thomas, a painter by trade; Anna M., who 
resides with her father; Martha and Clara B., also living at home and attending 
school in San Jose.
 
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, 
Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 
1888.
Pg. 374-375
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
Proofread by Betty Vickroy