Born in Edinburgh, Thomson came from a family long prominent in Scottish public life and was the grandson of the architect Alexander Thomson.Gavin Bowd, Fascist Scotland: Caledonia and the Far Right, Birlinn, 2013 p. 38 Thomson was educated in universities in his homeland, the United States and briefly Heidelberg University in Germany and studied mechanical engineering, science and philosophy.Benewick, Political Violence and Public Order, p. 117 In 1926, he became a partner in an engineering firm in London specialising in the manufacture of silver paper, a process that he had learned in Germany.Dorril, Blackshirt, p. 252 During his studies in Germany, Thomson met and married Lisbeth, the daughter of the X-ray pioneer Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen.S. Dorril, Blackshirt – Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism, London: Penguin, 2007, p. 252 They would go on to have three children together; Lisbeth already had a daughter from a previous relationship, and Thomson also had a long-term mistress, Olive Burdett.Bowd, Fascist Scotland, pp. 210–211
