Sir Matthew William Thompson, 1st Baronet (1 February 1820 – 1 December 1891) was a British railway director and Liberal Party politician.
He was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford in West Yorkshire at a by-election in 1867, but did not contest the 1868 general election.
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Early life
Born at Manningham in the West Riding of Yorkshire, he was the son of Matthew Thompson of Manningham Lodge, Bradford, by Elizabeth Sarah, daughter of the Rev. William Atkinson of Thorparch. His father was co-owner, with his brother Benjamin, of Thompson's Mill on Sunbridge Road, Bradford, built 1803 by their uncle Benjamin Peile. It was later there where Titus Salt first went into business on his own account.
Thompson was educated at West Riding Proprietary School and Giggleswick School. He matriculated in 1840 at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1843 and M.A. in 1846. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1847, and for ten years practised as a conveyancing counsel.
Thompson retired from the bar in 1857 and returned to Bradford to help manage a family brewery. Shortly he became involved in municipal affairs, as a town councillor in 1858, an alderman in 1860, and mayor of Bradford in 1862. In 1865 he was elected a director of the Midland Railway.