THOMSON, William (1614-81), of St Stephen Walbrook, London.

William Thomson was a younger son from a Hertfordshire family with strong connections with the London trading companies. In 1623 he migrated to America with his siblings Mary, George* and Paul to join his brother-in-law Captain William Tucker on his Virginia plantation, but later returned to England and was (presumably) apprenticed to the Salters’ Company, obtaining his freedom in March 1639.30GL, Q2/3/1, unfol. In January 1638 he had married the daughter and heir of Samuel Warner*, a Grocer and Virginia merchant, and this match may have provided him with the funds to diversify his interests with shares in the East India Company and Guinea trade.31Soc. Gen. Boyd’s Inhabitants 3943, 4454; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 134. In the months before the civil war, Thomson’s enthusiasm for the parliamentary cause was already evident. In December 1641 he joined his father-in-law and his eldest brother, Maurice, in signing a City petition to the House of Lords demanding that an army be swiftly raised to suppress the rebellion in Ireland.32PA, Main Pprs. 24 Dec. 1641, petition of London merchants; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 367. He invested £300 in the Irish adventure in April 1642, and a further £300 in the sea adventure in June, when he also joined a commission, with his brothers Maurice and George, which provided ships for the expedition.33Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 192; A. and O.; LJ v. 144a; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 402-4. He also served in the London militia, rising quickly in the early stages of the war from third to first captain of the Red Regiment, under the command of Thomas Atkins*, and he had been promoted to lieutenant-colonel by the time the regiment distinguished itself at the first battle of Newbury in September 1643.34A List of the Names of the Several Colonels (1642, 669.f.6.8); The Names, Dignities and Places of all the Colonels (1642, 669.f.6.10); Archaeologia, lii. 134.

On his return to London, Thomson became involved in the work of the fledgling Committee for Compounding*. He had already been among those citizens involved in raising money to pay the Scots in the summer and early autumn of 1643, and in November he was added to the Committee of Scottish Affairs sitting at Goldsmiths’ Hall (which would evolve in 1644 into the Committee for Compounding), although his later inclusion among the commissioners to attend the Scottish Parliament was apparently blocked by the earl of Loudon, who considered him ‘an Independent’.35CJ iii. 175b, 211a, 317a; HMC Lords n.s. xi. 358; CCC 2; Bio. Dict. Eminent Scotsmen ed. R. Chambers (1870), ii. 410. In August 1644 he was instructed by the Committee for Compounding to report on the estates of delinquents who were willing to compound, and in December 1645 he was among those ordered to examine those certified as ready to compound who had not yet paid their fines.36CCC 8, 30. His diligence was rewarded by his appointment as a commissioner for compounding on 8 February 1647.37A. and O. In the following May he was instructed to consider how the treasurers at Goldsmiths’ Hall might further increase their revenue.38CCC 64.

During the commonwealth, Thomson continued to be a prominent figure in trading circles. His partner in the early 1650s was his brother Maurice. The two men were involved in a scheme to plant the island of Assada in January 1650, and in March of that year Maurice assigned £1,000 of his stock in the East India Company to William.39Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1650-4, pp. 4, 32. In January 1652 the brothers petitioned the council of state concerning their shipping losses.40CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 101. Thomson was also a member of a consortium supplying muskets and pistols to the army in Ireland from the summer of 1651, and in the spring of 1652 he was exporting weapons abroad.41CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 577-8, 580; 1651-2, p. 557. In February 1653 he was given licence to import commodities.42CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 468. The dissolution of the long Parliament in April 1653 was not a welcome development for Thomson and his friends, and he and his brothers, his father-in-law and other allies signed a petition demanding the restoration of the Rump on 21 May.43Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 636.

A month later, Thomson was elected as alderman for Portsoken Ward, and he soon adapted to the changing political landscape.44CLRO, Rep. 62, ff. 305, 316. After the ratification of the Anglo-Dutch peace treaty, in May 1654 Thomson represented English merchants seeking reparation for attacks by Dutch ships in the East Indies.45Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1650-4, p. 315. When a settlement was eventually reached, he was called upon to settle disputes within the East India Company about the allocation of the money.46TSP iii. 515-6. He did not attend the election of the City Members to the first protectorate Parliament in July of the same year, although his absence did not necessarily indicate his opposition to the regime.47Harl. 6810, ff. 164-5. Indeed, in August he was appointed as a commissioner for ejecting scandalous ministers in London, and in the autumn of 1655 he was elected sheriff for the City.48Beaven, Aldermen of London, i. 184; A. and O. Thereafter, his experience in trade and negotiation was at the disposal of the government. On 15 November 1655 he was appointed to the committee to hear the proposals for readmitting the Jews into England, and on 27 February 1656 he was one of the merchants nominated by the lord protector to consider proposals for preserving trade and shipping.49CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 23, 200. Thomson was elected to the committee of the East India Company in December 1657, and in January 1658 he was nominated – but not actually appointed – as the company’s negotiator with the Dutch.50Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1655-9, p. 197, 219-20. In the latter month Thomson and his brother Maurice headed a merchant consortium that petitioned the council of state, probably about ships seized by the Dutch two year before.51CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 268; TSP vii. 757. On the recommendation of the protectoral council he was added to the London militia commission in March 1658.52CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 330.

Thomson was the first of the four MPs elected to represent London in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament in January 1659, and in the same month he was chosen as alderman of the Ward of Walbrook.53Mercurius Politicus no. 549 (6-13 Jan. 1659), 160 (E.761.4); Clarke Pprs. iii. 173; CLRO, Rep. 66, f. 185. At the opening of the session, late in January, he was appointed a commissioner for administering to other MPs the oath of loyalty to the protector, but his activity in the House was apparently minimal.54CJ vii. 593a. He may have been the ‘Mr Thomson’ appointed to a committee on the countess of Worcester’s attempt to recover her house in London, and the need to find a new home for the records stored there, but the identification is far from certain.55CJ vii. 639a. According to diarist Thomas Burton*, Thomson ‘the alderman’ was initially suggested as a member of the committee for naval accounts and papers, but it was his more experienced brother George who eventually received the nomination (17 Feb.).56CJ vii. 605a; Burton’s Diary, iv. 311.

After the fall of the protectorate, Thomson adapted himself to the new commonwealth. He was chosen for the London oyer and terminer commission on 19 May and to the militia commission on 7 July - the same day he was re-elected to the East India Company’s governing committee.57C181/6, p. 356; Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 54 (E.1923.2); Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1655-9, p. 333. In December he was a member of the City committee appointed to consider an apprentices’ petition calling for a free Parliament, which was opposed by the committee of safety and the army.58Clarke Pprs. iv. 168. With the return of the Rump, Thomson was chosen as one of the assessment commissioners for London on 26 January 1660, and in May he was one of the commissioners sent to present the City’s address to Charles II at The Hague, where he was knighted by the king.59A. and O.; Rugg Diurnal ed. Sachse, 81; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 225.

After the Restoration, Thomson extended his business interests, particularly in the East India Company, and despite his reputation as a Congregationalist and ‘enemy of bishops’ he was re-elected for London to the Cavalier Parliament.60Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1660-3, p. 371; Ludlow, Voyce, 285; CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 536-7, 539. He died in the spring of 1681. Under the terms of his will, drafted over the previous winter, Thomson made his son Samuel the principal beneficiary, receiving Thomson’s London house, Osterley manor and other lands in Middlesex. His stock in the East India Company was divided between his grandchildren. There were also charitable bequests to Bridewell, Bedlam, Blackwall and Christ’s Hospitals in London and £100 for ‘preachers of the gospel’ to be chosen by his son.61PROB11/366/138.