Thomson
also Thompson, MacThomas
Son of Thomas — the Lowland Scots form, no 'p', distinguishing it from English Thompson.
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The seat of Thomson
Seat vacantChief
No chief yet. The seat awaits its first claimant — be the first to stake your name to Thomson.
Current mission
No mission proclaimed. The chief, once seated, sets the clan’s public focus — a campaign, a contest, a piece of restoration, a year of remembrance.
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Stake your name →What does the Thomson name mean?
Son of Thomas. Lowland Scots patronymic, distinct from the English Thompson by the absence of the intrusive 'p'. The Gaelic equivalent — MacTavish, from Mac Tamhais — preserves the same patronymic in the Highlands. Where the Welsh form is Thomas (without the 's') and the English form Thompson (with the 'p'), the Scots form Thomson is the orthographic giveaway of a Lowland Scots origin.
The history of Thomson
Thomson is among the most common Lowland surnames, particularly in Fife, the Lothians and the Forth Valley. The Highland equivalent Clan MacThomas — descending from Tomaidh Mòr, son of the 8th chief of Mackintosh, c.1380 — preserves the same patronymic in Gaelic register; the lowland Thomson and the Highland MacTavish / MacThomas are the same name in two linguistic frames.
James Thomson (1700–1748) of Ednam in Roxburghshire wrote The Seasons (1726–1730), one of the most-read English-language poems of the 18th century, and the lyrics of Rule, Britannia! (1740). Sir William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907) of Belfast and Glasgow, was the great Scottish-Irish physicist of the Victorian age — the absolute temperature scale, the transatlantic telegraph, the dating of the Earth.
Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet (1894–1976), was the Toronto-born proprietor of The Times of London and The Sunday Times — a Scots-Canadian press baron whose Scottish-Thomson lineage threads through several generations of Canadian Scots emigration.
Notable bearers of the Thomson name
- James Thomson (1700–1748) — poet (The Seasons, Rule Britannia)
- Lord Kelvin — William Thomson (1824–1907), physicist
- Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet (1894–1976) — press baron