John Millar Thomson

Prof John Millar Thomson PIC FRS FRSE LLD (7 March 1849 – 22 March 1933) was a British chemist who held various leading positions with British chemical societies and was the vice-principal of King's College London. He was President of the Institute of Chemistry from 1900 to 1903. Biography Thomson was born in the precincts of the old college of Glasgow, the only child of Allen Thomson, professor of anatomy and his wife, Ninian Jane Hill. His family had been connected with the University of Glasgow since 1761, when his great-grandfather, John Millar, was a professor of law. Other members of the family held chairs in mathematics, philosophy, medicine and anatomy, pathology, and military surgery at the University of Glasgow or other Scottish universities. Because of the family connections, from early boyhood, Thomson was in contact with notable people in academic circles. He regularly accompanied his father on various administrative duties and foreign trips, providing technical assistance and taking notes. This started an interest in architectural matters, which he retained all his life, eventually becoming an accomplished civil architect. He was educated at the Glasgow High School and then studied at the University of Glasgow. He took the usual curriculum in arts, and then entered the faculty of medicine, but later changed to chemistry. He worked in a chemistry laboratory from 1866 to 1871, being appointed assistant to Professor Anderson in 1869. In 1868 he came to London to attend demonstrations by William Allen Miller and Charles Loudon Bloxam at King's College London. He returned to Glasgow in 1870 to assume a position of assistant demonstrator with Bloxam in early 1871. However, as the senior demonstrator was seriously ill in those years, Thomson took over his duties and was promoted to senior demonstrator in 1879. From 1880 until 1887, in addition to his work at King's College, he was also lectured in chemistry at Queen's College and became a professor in that college. During that time, he led the Chemical Department at King's College and carried out many studies on crystallisation and supersaturated solutions. His other contributions were to the composition and properties of ancient glasses, the chemistry of pigments, putrefaction and antisepsis, the chemistry of building materials, and the composition and optical properties of double salts of nickel and cobalt.