Sidney Crespin Thompson was for decades an Alderman on Brighton Town Council. He was the Mayor in 1931 and was still on the Council in 1957, and Chairman of the Racecourse Lessees (the town owned the course). That year the 25 April edition of the West Sussex Gazette had an article about him, still active in public life at 83, and the Lessees seeking to prevent the growing number of unlicensed bookmakers operating just outside the course enclosures.
He must have died quite soon after, for on 16 September 1959 he was being commemorated by the first running of the Sidney Thompson Memorial Nursery, with £1,000 prize money. The nine-times Brighton winner Shikari’s Son won it in 1993 when it was a conditions race. It was a seller the year after and a maiden auction until its final running in 1997.
Thompson, born in 1873, was a dairyman who grew up in Barnsbury, a smart part of the north London borough of Islington. By 1891 his family had moved to Hove. He joined the Sussex County Football Association and became a maintay of that organisation, being elected onto its Council in 1899 and serving on it till his death. He’d been chairman in 1908/09, president from 1937-46, and had received a long service medal back as early as 1921/22.
It would be nice to know more about Thompson’s career in politics, especially in view of an argument in the Council Chambers in 1941, while he was Chairman of the Finance Committee. Voices were raised when he raised questions about the current Mayor’s travel expenses, who retorted “Don’t interrupt me! You may run Brighton, but you don’t run me!”
Sources include this regarding the Thompson family history:
https://woodlloydfamilyhistory.com/fam3774.html