Alpin Thomson

Thomson's father, also called Alpin Thomson, was a colonial administrator in Western Australia at the time of his birth, being under-secretary for railways in the colony's government. His mother was, in one account, the daughter of the colonial secretary (equivalent to chief minister) of Western Australia from 1877 to 1880, Sir Roger Goldsworthy, and Goldsworthy left Alpin Thomson Sr and his wife with his unfinished house, called Lucknow, at Claremont, when he was posted to St Lucia in 1881.[2] In 1933, Thomson's mother was cited in The Times as one of just nine remaining survivors of the Siege of Lucknow in 1857; if that is accurate, it explains the name of the house, but she is likely on grounds of age to have been Goldsworthy's step-daughter rather than a direct descendant.[3] By the time of the First World War, Thomson's parents had retired to live at Wellington, Somerset.[4]

At the age of 13 in 1906, Thomson was sent to the Osborne Naval College on the Isle of Wight.[5] He then moved on to the Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, Devon, where he won an award for swimming.[6] In 1911, he was appointed as a midshipman to HMS Superb.[7] He was promoted from acting sub-lieutenant to a full sub-lieutenant in 1914 and for the first two years of the First World was second-in-command of HMS Circe, a "minesweeping gunboat".[5][8] He was then promoted to full lieutenant and given command of a minesweeper, HMS Kempton.[5] In 1917, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross "in recognition of (his) gallantry when one of H.M. minesweepers hit a mine": the minesweeper was Kempton, which sank off Dover after hitting a mine on 24 June 1917.[9] He was awarded his medal personally by King George V on a visit to ships at Harwich in February 1918.[10] Thomson went on to command two further minesweepers, HMS Melton and HMS Tring.[5]

Thomson stayed in the Royal Navy at the end of the First World War and retrained as a physical training instructor.[5] He was attached to the 1st Battle Squadron as an instructor, and later served on the aircraft carrier HMS Argus. He was promoted from lieutenant to lieutenant-commander in 1924 and retrained as an "air observer", serving on Argus, and then HMS Furious and HMS Eagle.[11] As a lieutenant-commander, he was "lent" to the Royal Air Force in 1929 for "Observer and Instructional Duties" at RAF Leuchars in Scotland.[12] He stayed in Scotland after this posting as the officer-instructor to the East Scottish division of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve from 1932 to 1936.[5] He retired from the Navy in 1936 and retained the rank of Commander in retirement.[13]

Thomson's first-class cricket career was brief. In May 1922, he played a single match for Somerset against Oxford University, batting as a tail-ender, failing to score a run, but taking three second innings wickets.[23] Having earlier played in non-first-class matches for the Royal Navy team, he then turned out in a first-class game against The Army at Lord's, scoring 7 not out and 0 and taking one wicket.[24] That was not quite the end of his first-class cricket career: at the end of the 1923 season, Somerset played Hampshire at the United Services Ground at Portsmouth, and Thomson was drafted into the team: he batted at No 11, was not out 0 in the first innings and "absent hurt" in the second, and did not bowl.[25]

Thomson married Mary Elizabeth Lindsay, a widow from Fife, in Edinburgh in 1945.[26] Reports in The Times across the 1930s and 1940s indicate Thomson played golf to a high standard at St Andrews. He retired to Hawridge Place, where he died in 1960. His wife died in 1982.

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