Thompson graduated in science at the University of Manchester in 1938, and qualified there in 1941. After house appointments at Manchester Royal Infirmary, he was senior surgical registrar at Crumpsall Hospital. Having qualified during the second world war, Thompson joined the RAMC and, subsequently obtaining a regular commission, he continued as an army surgeon through the following twenty years. He attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, took the Fellowship in 1952 and became consulting surgeon to the Eastern Command at Colchester. He died in 1965 aged about fifty.