Biography

George Malcolm Thomson (1848 – 1933)

Teacher, scientist, educationalist, politician

George Malcolm Thomson was born 2 October 1848 at Calcutta in India. His father and mother were William Thomson and Margaret Justin Pratt.

From the age of five George was brought up in Edinburgh. He and his brothers, John and James and his sister, Bessie, were in the care of his mother Margaret’s sister, Anna and her artist husband, James Gordon.

George’s education included the study of chemistry and also botany at Edinburgh university. He got special pleasure from his botany field excursions under Professor Balfour.

In 1863 his mother and father returned from India and took the children with them to Enfield, Middlesex near London. This meant that George was uprooted from his university studies and the family lead a new life, considerably higher up the social scale.

Eventually his father’s business in India no longer gave large profits and wanting to regain their fortune the family set out for New Zealand, sailing on the “Maria” and arriving at Bluff on 22 March 1868. After farming fifteen miles out of Invercargill and not making much financial headway the family moved to Dunedin in 1871.

George loved Dunedin. It had the advantage of feeling like home because of its Scottish heritage. He became a resident tutor at the High Scool of Otago and also gained some teaching experience in arithmetic, science and singing before becoming a science master in 1874.

His marriage to Emma Allan took place on 26 December 1876, having met her while at the adjoining Otago Provincial School for Girls. They had six children – Malcolm, Allan, Stuart, Florence, Annie and John.

By 1881, George was well established in teaching in the Otago Boys and Otago Girls High Schools. He was mainly responsible for the boarding establishment but was also teaching science in the upper school classes of both the boys and girls school. His most well known student was Joe Mellor who, on returning to Britain, became the greatest inorganic chemist of the age.

An accident where he was shot in the foot during cadet corps practice in 1882 lead to him having his foot amputated some years later. George retired from teaching in 1902 to start a business in chemical and biological analysis.

He suffered many deaths in his family. His daughter Florence was accidentally suffocated at 10 months in 1886. Tuberculosis took its toll, first his wife Emma in 1894, then daughter Annie in 1909 and later his son Allan in 1928. His second wife Alice died of cancer within their first year of marriage in 1911. His youngest son John died in 1918 while serving with the Field Ambulance during WW1 and is buried in France.

George was very active in education and religion. He was president of the Young Men’s Christian Association for many years, chaired the founding meeting of the Dunedin City Mission for bible study in primary schools and he started the Dunedin Technical Classes Association for teenagers lacking in secondary education. The government eventually subsidised classes and in 1913 he opened King Edward Technical College. He also helped to start Columba College, a Presbyterian girl’s school.

In the science field he was a teacher and writer and a member of many scientific bodies, both in NZ and overseas. He was interested in the effects of introduced animals and plants to New Zealand but he also became an advocate for the preservation of the native species, noting for example the declining numbers of kiwis. He had a prodigious output of published scientific papers and articles mostly about crustaceans, fish and plants. He was an authority on small crustaceans. His largest work “The Naturalisation of Plants and Animals in New Zealand” was published in 1922. He was responsible for the establishment of the marine research station at Portobello on the Otago Peninsula, chaired the board of the Portobello fish-hatchery and worked in the laboratory. He communicated with hatcheries overseas and started important local studies and for his work was awarded the Hector Medal by the New Zealand Institute. George had been the president of the New Zealand Institute three times but in disagreeing with the dominance of the institute by James Hector he started a quarterly journal the “New Zealand Journal of Science”. Criticism by himself and other scientists led to the separation of the New Zealand Institute from government scientific institutions and paved the way for the establishment of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in 1926.

In the field of sports he was involved in the early games of rugby and was instrumental in starting the Pirate’s Rugby Club in Dunedin.

George was also in politics and represented Dunedin North in Parliament from 1908. Generally he was a conservative and argued against socialism. He was a scientific spokesman and promoted education as well. In 1913 he initiated the establishment of the Board of Science and Art but lost his seat in 1914. He served on the Legislative Council from 1918 until 1932.

Main reference:

Galbreath, Ross. “Scholars and Gentlemen Both, G M and Allan Thomson in New Zealand
Science and Education”.