
Civil Servant
 s a young man of barely
20 years of
age, T.W. Edwin Sowter began work, on the last day of February, 1880,
with
the Topographical Surveys Branch of the Department of the
Interior.
But this was not his first job, as one of his obituaries points out
that
he had taught school for a brief time before this. Clearly then,
T.W. Edwin Sowter had not received any formal training in either
archaeology
nor palaeontology. At the Department of the Interior, he was
employed
as a clerk and until April of 1882, he was a temporary employee, likely
a standard period to allow his supervisors to become convinced of his
worth.
In 1882, he was earning the princely sum of $700
annually. He
remained with the Topographical Survey Branch until at least 1908, but
in 1909 a new division within the Inside Service of the Department of
the
Interior appears to have been created to archive the growing volumes of
information relating to the department's activities which centered
primarily
around the administration and distribution of land grants in the former
Hudson's Bay Company territory of Ruperts Land. In 1909, T.W.
Edwin
Sowter is listed as a Class 3-A clerk with the Survey Records Branch
and
at that time was earning $1200 annually. The last record which
was
available in the Civil Service List of Canada is for the year
1918.
By then he was earning $1300 annually and remained with the Survey
Records
Branch. At this time, Sowter was 58 years of age. According
to his obituary notices he continued to work, presumably with the
Department
of the Interior, until approximately 65 years of age or about 1925.
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