the spot, and in eleven days completed a good military bridge. Sir Henry Durand wrote: ‘Thomson was justly praised for opening the campaign by a successful work of such ability and magnitude; for to have bridged the Indus was a fact at once impressive and emblematic of the power and resources of the army, which thus surmounted a mighty obstacle.’
Thomson's services were of value in the long march through the Bolan Pass to Kandahar, which was reached at the end of April. On 27 June the march was resumed. The accounts received of the weakness of Ghazni had induced the commander of the expedition, Sir John (afterwards Lord) Keane [q. v.] to leave his small battering train at Kandahar, but on arriving at Ghazni on 21 July it was found to be a formidable fortress, which could only be besieged by means of a regular battering train. Thomson proposed to storm it, make a dash at the Kabul gate, blow it in, and admit the storming party. This was successfully done on 23 July. In the assault after the gate was blown in Thomson had a narrow escape in the struggle within. Keane, in announcing the capture of Ghazni in his despatch of the following day, ascribed to Thomson ‘much of the credit of the success of this brilliant coup de main’ (London Gazette, 30 Oct. 1839). Thomson was promoted to be brevet major for this service, dating from the capture of Ghazni.
The march to Kabul was resumed on 30 July, and that city was occupied on 7 Aug. Thomson made an expedition over the mountains to Bamian to reconnoitre the route. In November he returned to India with some of the troops. For his services in the first Afghan war Thomson received the thanks of the government and was made a companion of the Bath, military division (London Gazette, 20 Dec. 1839). He was also awarded by Shah Shuja the second class of the order of the Durani empire, and was permitted to accept and wear it (London Gazette, 8 June 1841; General Orders, 8 Sept. 1841).
On his return to India he resumed the duties of the command of the Bengal sappers and miners, and of those of the public works department at Delhi; but, finding them incompatible, a warm correspondence ensued with the military board, which resulted in Thomson's retiring from the service on 25 Jan. 1841. Before leaving India he submitted to the government of India suggestions for the improvement of the corps of Bengal sappers and miners.
On his arrival in England Thomson joined a brother in business in Liverpool; but affairs did not prosper, and on 24 July 1844 he was glad to accept from the court of directors of the East India Company the appointment of Indian recruiting officer and paymaster of soldiers' pensions in the Cork district, with the local rank of major. The former post he held until the East India Company ceased to exist in 1861, and the latter until 1877, when he resigned and settled in Dublin. He was promoted to be brevet lieutenant-colonel on 28 Nov. 1854. He became a director of the Great Southern and Western Railway Company of Ireland in 1846, and was practically the inspecting director, actively superintending the completion of the southern portion of the line and of the tunnel into Cork. He died in Dublin in February 1886.
Thomson married, when on furlough in Scotland in 1830, Anna, daughter of Alexander Dingwall of Ramieston, Aberdeenshire. He left several children. His eldest son, Hugh Gordon, became major-general of the Indian staff corps. Thomson wrote an account of the ‘Storming of Ghazni,’ which appeared in vol. iv. 4to series, 1840, of ‘The Professional Papers of the Corps of the Royal Engineers.’ In the same volume is a description of his bridge across the Indus at Bakkar, by Lieutenant (afterwards Sir) H. M. Durand.
[India Office Record; Despatches; obituary notices and memoirs in the Times 15 Feb. 1886, in the Royal Engineers' Journal 1886, by Sir Henry Yule, and in Vibart's Addiscombe, its Heroes and Men of Note; Laurie's Our Burmese Wars and Relations with Burma, 1855; Snodgrass's Narrative of the Burmese War, 1827; Low's Afghan War, from the Journal and Correspondence of the late Major-general Augustus Abbott, 1879; Durand's First Afghan War and its Causes, 1879 (contains a sketch of the Kabul gate of Ghazni); Asiatic Journal, vol. xxx.; Kaye's History of the War in Afghanistan; Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, 4to ser. vol. iv. 1840, and Occasional Papers Ser. vol. iii. 1879. See also art. Durand, Sir Henry Marion.]
THOMSON, HENRY (1773–1843), painter, the son of a purser in the navy, was born at St. George's Square, Portsea, on 31 July 1773. He was at school for nearly nine years at Bishop's Waltham. In 1787 he went with his father to Paris, and returned to London on the breaking out of the revolution. He became a pupil of the painter John Opie [q. v.], and in 1790 entered the schools of the Royal Academy. In 1793 his father took him again to the continent to complete his studies, and he travelled in Italy till 1798, visiting Parma, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Venice. He returned by
