Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/228

Thompson sent of the church, as required by their laws.’ He asked and obtained indemnity (27 July); but the dispute continued, and Thompson, though claiming to be ‘the founder of the church, God's agent,’ was served (17 Nov.) with notice of expulsion. He was, in fact, expelled (21 Dec.), but not before he had rallied his immediate following and been elected (14 Dec.) elder of another, and the only real, ‘church of God.’ The revolt against Thompson, headed by John Dillon, partner of James Morrison [q. v.], had no continuance. The original society became extinct in 1851, having survived its branches at Battle, Dewsbury, Loughborough, and a few other places.

Thompson died at Reigate, Surrey, on 20 Nov. 1837, and was buried in the graveyard of the General Baptist chapel at Ditchling, Sussex. An epitaph, his own composition, gives the articles of his creed, and adds ‘The good loved him, and the base hated, because they feared.’ He married, first, on 27 May 1786, Ann Kilbinton (d. 1789), by whom he had two children, who died in infancy; secondly, on 25 Dec. 1793, Mary Fletcher (1777–1850), by whom he had four sons and eight daughters. Sydney Thompson Dobell [q. v.], the poet, was his grandson, his daughter Julietta having married John Dobell on 23 May 1823, with the usual protest.

Besides a few tracts, he published ‘Evidences of Revealed Religion,’ 1812; 4th ed. 1842, 12mo; and contributed to the ‘Universalist's Miscellany,’ 1797–9; the ‘Freethinking Christian's Magazine,’ 1811–14; and the ‘Freethinking Christian's Quarterly Register,’ 1824–5.

[Memoir by J. D. [John Dobell] in Christian Reformer, 1838, pp. 67 sq.; Memoir, prefixed to Evidences, 1842 (portrait); Monthly Repository, 1808, p. 284; Stevens's Antidote to Intolerance, 1821; Coates's Plea for the Unity, 1828; Reports and other Documents relative to the Free-thinking Christians, 1835; Declaration of certain Members, 1835; Brief Account of the … Free-thinking Christians, 1841; Life and Letters of Sydney Dobell, 1878, i. 64 sq. (account of Thompson by Clarence Dobell); manuscript account (1877) by Joseph Calrow Means [q. v.]; manuscript information (1896) from the late Sir James Clarke Lawrence, bart.; tombstones at Ditchling.]  THOMPSON, THEOPHILUS (1807–1860), physician, son of Nathaniel Thompson, was born at Islington on 20 Sept. 1807. His early professional education was received at St. Bartholomew's Hospital and at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of M.D. in 1830, the subject of his inaugural dissertation being ‘De effectibus aliquando perniciosis missionis sanguinis.’ He also studied at Paris with Louis, Andral, and Dupuytren, and attended the lectures of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire at the Jardin des Plantes. Soon after settling down to practice in London he was appointed physician to the Northern Dispensary, which office he held for fourteen years; he was also one of the lecturers at the Grosvenor Place school of medicine. In 1847 he was elected physician to the hospital for consumption, then situated in Marlborough Street; in this institution he took great interest, and his writings show how thoroughly he availed himself of his opportunities for studying the disease. He first introduced cod-liver oil into England, and was the first to give bismuth to arrest the diarrhœa of phthisis, and oxide of zinc for night sweats. The nomenclature of physical signs in lung affections, now in use, is largely due to his suggestions.

Thompson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1846, and in the ‘Proceedings’ of that society (vii. 41 and ix. 474) are two papers by him on the changes produced in the blood by the administration of cod-liver oil and cocoanut oil. He filled the presidential chairs of the Medical and Harveian societies, and contributed five papers to the ‘Transactions’ of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. Thompson died on 11 Aug. 1860. He married the second daughter of Nathaniel Watkin of Stroud, Gloucestershire. Thompson was the author of: 1. ‘On the Improvement of Medicine,’ an oration, 1838. 2. ‘History of the Epidemics of Influenza in Great Britain from 1510 to 1837’ (Sydenham Soc.), 1852; a new edition bringing the subject down to 1890 was issued by his son, Dr. E. Symes Thompson, in 1890. 3. ‘Clinical Lectures on Pulmonary Consumption,’ 1854. 4. ‘Lettsomian Lectures on Pulmonary Consumption.’ He also contributed the articles ‘Chorea,’ ‘Hysteria,’ ‘Neuralgia,’ and ‘Influenza’ to Tweedie's ‘Library of Medicine.’ There are in the possession of the family a watercolour portrait by Alfred Essex and a miniature by William Essex.

[Lancet, 1860, ii. 276; Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. xi. p. xxxi; private information kindly supplied by his sons, Dr. E. Symes Thompson and Rev. A. P. Thompson.]  THOMPSON, THOMAS (1708?–1773), missionary and apologist for the African slave trade, son of William Thompson, was born at Gilling in the North Riding of Yorkshire about 1708. He was educated at Richmond school, and on 19 Feb. 1727–8 was admitted