Sir george simpson biography

Governor, explorer.

Born at Loch Broom, Ross-Shire, Scotland, in 1792, an illegitimate son of London merchant George Simpson, cousin of Thomas Simpson, he served as a clerk in the sugar brokerage firm of Andrew Wedderburn-Colvile before his appointment as Hudson’s Bay Company governor-in-chief locum tenens in 1820.

In North America, he ran the tough Athabaska Department until the union of the HBC and North West Company in 1821, when he became governor of the Northern Department of Rupert’s Land, with headquarters at Red River.

After 1826 he was governor-in-chief of the HBC and its territories in North America.

For the first part of his tenure he ran his vast empire from Red River, although after 1826 he also established a headquarters in Lachine, Lower Canada.

Simpson married his cousin Frances Simpson, daughter of Geddes Mackenzie Simpson, in 1830 and brought her to Re