Born 4 June 1882 at Blackburn, Lancashire, the eighth child and fourth son of John Thompson, cotton manufacturer, and Alice Whitworth, his wife. He was educated at Repton and at Heidelberg College in Germany. Entering the Victoria University, Manchester, he graduated in medicine with second-class honours at Manchester in 1908 and in the same year took the MB BS at the London University, where he had already obtained the BSc degree with first-class honours. He served a term as house surgeon at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, and acted as assistant demonstrator of anatomy and as senior demonstrator of physiology at the Victoria University. Leaving Manchester on his appointment as assistant medical superintendent at the Hammersmith Infirmary, he was admitted MRCS and FRCS on the same day, 12 June 1913, and afterwards settled in general practice at Paignton, South Devon, in the firm of George Adams, King, Thompson, and Kerby. Here he remained during the rest of his life. He married Elsie Marsh Royle, MD, on 3 February 1915. She survived him with a son and two daughters. He died at Sunny Croft, Hyde Road, Paignton, South Devon on 24 August 1939.