THOMSON, JOHN TURNBULL (1821-84) was born at Glororum, near Bamborough, Northumberland, the son of James Thomson, of Earnslaw, Berwickshire, his mother being a daughter of James Thomson, of Abbey St Bathans, Berwickshire. He was educated at Duns Academy, at Wooler, and at Marischal College, Aberdeen; studied engineering under eminent masters, and was in the same office with Sir William Armstrong. He then spent 18 years in the Straits Settlements as chief surveyor and civil engineer. During this time he constructed the Horsburgh light on Pedra Branca Rock, a work of exceptional difficulty in recognition of which the merchants of Singapore made him a presentation (1851). The climate disagreeing with his health, Thomson came on a visit to New Zealand (1856). He was appointed chief surveyor in Otago, and before the year was out he had made a considerable reconnaissance survey, had fixed on the site of the town of Invercargill, and erected the survey office. As chief surveyor and provincial engineer, he supervised the cutting down of Bell hill in Dunedin and other works which later the municipality took over from the province. The simple and accurate system of surveys which he established in Otago became a model for the Colony, and withstood Major Palmer's report on the provincial systems. In 1873, owing to certain provisions of the Otago waste lands act 1872, the offices of chief commissioner and chief surveyor had to be separated, and Thomson chose the former. In 1876 he observed a transit of Venus. After the abolition of the provinces, Thomson was appointed Surveyor-general for the Colony. In his opinion triangulation was an absolute necessity, and he entirely discarded compass bearings in favour of true bearings. In 1877 he lectured before the Royal Society of Arts at Edinburgh. In 1879 he resigned the surveyor-generalship and went to live in Invercargill. There he became a member of the borough council, and was for a while mayor of Gladstone. In 1881 he contested the Mataura seat in Parliament and in 1884 Awarua. It was he who persuaded the local authority to adopt Sir John Coode's plan to deepen the New River by means of a training wall.

Thomson's chief intellectual pursuits were ethnology and astronomy. The Southland Institute, of which he was president from the first, owed its existence to him, and he read many papers before it. He was a founder also of the Otago Institute, and a member of the New Zealand Institute. Abroad he was a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and a member of the Natural History Society of Newcastle-on-Tyne.

While in the east Thomson studied native languages and lore, and mastered Malay sufficiently to make a competent translation from that language of Hakayit Abdulla. Later he published Glimpses of Life in the Far East, Rambles with a Philosopher (1867) and Social Problems (1878). Thomson had a distant manner which helped him little in his service on public bodies or in his parliamentary ambitions. He died on 16 Oct 1884.

Southland and Otago p.c.; Cycl. NZ., iv (p); Baker; Ross; Beattie, ii; Jourdain; Roberts, Southland; Hocken, Otago; Otago Daily Times, 22 Mar 1875, 17 Oct 1884, 24 Apr 1930 (p).

Reference: Volume 2, page 195

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