Lieutenant-Colonel George Latham Thomson
(1816-1881)
8 November 1860
Volume 2, page 84, sitting number 1635.
[Identified as ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Thomson’ in the Silvy daybooks, this is George Latham Thomson of the 4th Regiment of Foot.]
Baptised on 15 November 1816 at St Mary’s in Dover, George Latham Thomson was the son of Robert Thomson of the Royal Engineers and his wife Harriet.
He is listed in Hart’s Army List of 1860 as a Major in The 4th (The King’s Own) Regiment of Foot, brevetted with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
He married firstly on 30 April 1859 at St Mary’s Marylebone Julia Maria Plumer, daughter of barrister Thomas Hall Plumer.
On 4 May 1875 at All Saints, Gordon Square, he married secondly Sophia Mason of Kirby le Soken, Essex.
Colonel Thomson died, aged 64, on 17 February 1881 at 24 St Charles Square, Notting Hill. He left an estate valued at £16,000.
‘Colonel George Latham Thomson, late of the 4th (King’s own) Regiment, whose death is announced as having occurred a few days ago, at Bayton House, St Charles’s-square, Notting-hill, was the eldest son of the late Colonel Thomson, R.E., and joined the Cape Mounted Rifles as a provisional ensign in 1835, in which capacity he served until 1838. He took part in the Kaffir war of 1853 under Sir Benjamin D’Urban, and he also served with the 4th regiment in the Eastern campaign of 1854-55, including the battles of Alma and Inkerman, the capture of Balaclava, and the siege and fall of Sebastopol. He was appointed Deputy-assistant Adjutant-general at head-quarters in the Crimea in May, 1855, and Assistant-adjutant-general in April, 1856. For his services in the Crimea he received a medal with three clasps and the Turkish medal, was nominated a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and obtained the fifth class of the Order of the Medjidie. He retired from the service with the rank of colonel in 1865’ (Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 25 February 1881).
[The preceding portrait in the Silvy daybooks, sitting number 1634, is ‘Mrs Thomson.']