Heriot Frances Thomson Nicolls: A Family Between Fareham and Canada
Heriot Frances Thomson Nicolls was part of a family whose story stretched from Britain to Canada and helped shape both military and educational life there.
Born in 1782, she married Gustavus Nicolls, a Royal Engineer who later became a general. His career took the family across the Atlantic, and their children spent much of their early lives in British North America. Gustavus served as Commanding Royal Engineer in Halifax and later Quebec, while overseeing some of the most important British military works in Canada.
Heriot’s most notable family connection came through her son, the Reverend Jasper Hume Nicolls. Born in Guernsey in 1818, Jasper grew up partly in Halifax and Quebec before studying at Oxford. He was ordained in the Church of England and returned to Canada in 1845.
That same year he became the first Principal of Bishop’s College at Lennoxville in Quebec, today Bishop’s University. The college had been founded only two years earlier and was still in its infancy. Jasper Nicolls became central to its survival and development, leading it for more than thirty years. Bishop’s University describes him as its first principal and records that he helped secure the Royal Charter which gave the college university status in 1853.
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography describes him as both an Anglican clergyman and educator, and notes that the Bishop of Quebec, George Jehoshaphat Mountain, supported his appointment. Jasper remained principal until his death in 1877.
Heriot therefore belonged to a family whose influence in Canada took two very different forms. Her husband helped design and defend British military infrastructure, while her son helped establish one of Canada’s enduring universities and train generations of students within the Anglican tradition.
She died in 1866.
Her memorial at St Peter & St Paul links Fareham with a family whose life crossed the Atlantic repeatedly and whose legacy survives today in both Canadian military history and higher education.
