Editing Robert Means Thompson (section)

===Metallurgist===
Thompson later became interested in [[mining]] and [[smelting]] enterprises, by which he earned his fortune.<ref name="mollus"/> He became president of [[Orford Copper and Nickel Company]],<ref name=esm1>{{cite news |title=Discovery of the Orford process for nickel extraction |url=https://uwaterloo.ca/wat-on-earth/news/discovery-orford-process-nickel-extraction |publisher=University of Waterloo Earth Sciences Museum |date=23 November 1999}}</ref> and it was at his refinery in [[Constable Hook]]<ref name="ccn1"/> [[New Jersey]] where he earned {{CA Patent|44723A}},{{External links inline|date=January 2025}} "Method of obtaining sulphide of nickel".<ref name=esm1/>

A Boston entrepreneur named [[W. E. C. Eustis]] from [[Eustis Estate|Milton]] bought what was to become the Orford Nickel and Copper Company in 1865 in order to develop a mineral deposit discovered near [[Sherbrooke, Quebec]],<ref name=lac1/> in [[Orford, Quebec]].<ref name="pgc1">{{cite news |url=https://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/M39-78-2001E-1.pdf |title=Information archivée dans le Web }}</ref> In March 1878 Eustis, Thompson, [[Robert Gilmour Leckie]], [[Charles Carroll Colby]] and [[Walter W. Beckett]] established the [[Orford Nickel and Copper Company]] in Quebec.<ref name=thompson60/> Thompson et al established the New Jersey refinery to process the ore from Orford there.<ref name="lac1">{{cite news |url=https://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/ic/cdc/heirloom_series/volume4/268-271.htm |title=Nickel }}</ref><ref name="thompson60">{{cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=John Fairfield |last2=Beasley |first2=Norman |title=For the Years to Come: A Story of International Nickel of Canada |date=1960 |publisher=Longmans, Green & Co |location=Toronto}}</ref><ref name=pgc1/>

Orford Copper was the generatrix in 1900 of the [[Ontario Smelting Company]] and [[Orford Village]] which Thompson set up near what was to become known as [[Copper Cliff]], at Cobalt Street.<ref name="ccn1">{{cite news |title=Orford Village |url=https://www.coppercliffnotes.com/orford-village.html |publisher=Copper Cliff Notes}}</ref> 

In 1902 Orford Copper merged with the [[Canadian Copper Company]] and [[American Nickel Works]],<ref name="ew18">{{cite journal |last1=Weidenhammer |first1=Erich |title=THE DEVELOPMENT OF METALLURGY IN CANADA SINCE 1900 |journal=Transformation Series |volume=20 |issue=1 |date=2018 |url=https://ingeniumcanada.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/Development_of_Metallurgy_in_Canada_since_1900.pdf |series=Collection Series |publisher=Collection and Research Division of the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation}}</ref> into the [[International Nickel Company of Canada]], of which he served as chairman for at least a decade.<ref name="aspc">{{cite book | title=The Olympic games, Stockholm, 1912 | first=James Edward | last=Sullivan | publisher=American Sports Publishing Company | year=1912 | page=[https://archive.org/details/olympicgamessto00sullgoog/page/n234 225] | url=https://archive.org/details/olympicgamessto00sullgoog| quote=robert means thompson. }}</ref>