The Thomson family was connected with the Peels, the manufacturing and political dynasty in Lancashire. James Thomson went to work for Joseph Peel & Co., calico printers in London, around 1795, and remained there for six years; Joseph Peel was an uncle of Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet. While in London Thomson met William Hyde Wollaston and Humphry Davy. Davy became a close friend, and they worked together on the theory of acids, with Thomson willing to inhale Davy's nitrous oxide in 1799. In 1801 Thomson was brought in as a middleman in negotiations for Count Rumford to hire Davy, by Thomas Richard Underwood of the Royal Institution.
