I am tracing the history of a great uncle of mine, Arthur Walter Nicholson, who emigrated to Canada in 1903. In 1913/14 he was running a tailoring business with a friend Grant Lawson in Fort George. Their shop was near the water tower in what was then Central Avenue but is now part of Route 97, almost next to the Nechako River. There was no bridge then, just a ferry.
In early 1915 they moved to the new Prince George, to be near the centre of commercial activity, but business everywhere was very bad and they both enlisted in the Canadian army. In 1916 Arthur was killed in action on the Somme but Grant Lawson survived and I believe returned to Prince George. Arthur's brother, (my maternal grandfather) kept in contact with Mr Lawson at least until the 1950s, but after he died our part of the family, not knowing anything about Arthur at that stage then lost contact. It was only after the death of my mother some years ago that we found out some of Arthur's story from papers that she had kept.
My brother and I visited British Columbia in 2010 and retraced some of Arthur's movements in Prince Rupert and Fort/Prince George. I would now, belatedly, like to try and make contact with decendants of Grant Lawson to see if they can provide any more details of Arthur and Grant's activities and I wondered if you could perhaps print some of this letter in your paper to see if it jogs anybody's family memory.
I am attaching two photographs, one of the shop on Central Avenue, Grant Lawson in the middle and Arthur on the right, and Central Fort George Football Club in 1914 (Arthur front, extreme right): they were champions of Interior British Columbia in 1913 and possibly 1914.
I hope you might find some of the above of some interest.
David Hammond
Essex, UK
