Early life He was born the eldest son of John Thompson [sic] of Kelswick House, near
Whitehaven,
Cumberland, and educated at
Shrewsbury School and at
The Queen's College, Oxford, of which he became a scholar. He took his B.A. degree in 1840, and was soon afterwards made fellow of his college. He was ordained in 1842, and worked as a curate at Cuddesdon. In 1847 he was made tutor of his college, and in 1853 he delivered the
Bampton lectures, his subject being
The Atoning Work of Christ viewed in Relation to some Ancient Theories. These lectures established his reputation.
Career Thomson's activity was not confined to
theology. He was made fellow of the
Royal Society and the
Royal Geographical Society. He also wrote a very popular
Outline of the Laws of Thought (1842). He sided with the party at Oxford which favoured university reform, but this did not prevent him from being appointed provost of his college in 1855. In 1858 he was made preacher at
Lincoln's Inn and a volume of his sermons was published in 1861. In the same year he edited
Aids to Faith, a volume written in opposition to
Essays and Reviews, the progressive sentiments of which had stirred up controversy in the
Church of England. In December 1861 he became
Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, and within a year he was elevated to
Archbishop of York. In this position his moderate orthodoxy led him to join Archbishop
Archibald Campbell Tait in supporting the
Public Worship Regulation Act, and, as president of the northern convocation, he came frequently into sharp collision with the lower house of that body. But if he thus incurred the hostility of the High Church party among the clergy, he was admired by the laity for his strong sense, his clear and forcible reasoning, and his wide knowledge, and he remained to the last a power in the north of England. In his later years he published an address read before the members of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh (1868), one on
Design in Nature, for the Christian Evidence Society, which reached a fifth edition, various charges and pastoral addresses, and he was one of the projectors of the ''
Speaker's Commentary'', for which he wrote the "Introduction to the
Synoptic Gospels." See the
Quarterly Review (April 1892). ==Family==