Graeme Thomson

Sir Graeme Thomson K.C.M.G., K.C.B.
26th Governor of British Ceylon
In office 11 April 1931 – 20 September 1933
Preceded by	Bernard Henry Bourdillon acting governor
Succeeded by	Francis Graeme Tyrrell acting governor
Governor of Nigeria
In office 13 November 1925 – 17 June 1931
Preceded by	Hugh Clifford
Succeeded by	Donald Charles Cameron
Governor of British Guiana
In office 4 April 1923 – 31 August 1925
Preceded by	Wilfred Collet
Succeeded by	Cecil Hunter-Rodwell
Personal details
Born	1875
Died	1933 Aden
Citizenship	British

Sir Graeme Thomson G.C.M.G. K.C.B. (1875–1933) was a British civil servant in the Admiralty, who served as a colonial civil servant and then governor in several British colonies.

Admiralty clerk

Graeme Thomson was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford and joined the civil service in 1900, being assigned to the Admiralty.^[1] Some years before World War I, following the Agadir Crisis in 1911, he asked about the plans to get the British Expeditionary Force to France in the event of war and found they were scanty. He and Alfred Faulkner were then permitted to compile a register of ships suitable for requisitioning as transports, after they had completed their normal work each day. This they did, thus enabling the British Expeditionary Force rapidly.^[2]

Director of Transports

Shortly after the outbreak of war, he received extremely rapid promotion, from a superintending clerk to Civil Assistant Director of Transport in September 1914 and to Director of Transports at the Admiralty in December,^[3][4] succeeding Admiral Savory.^[2]

Winston Churchill praised him after stating over a million troops had been moved:

The credit for these arrangements lies very largely with the head of the Admiralty Transport Department, Mr. Graeme Thomson—one of the discoveries of the War, a man who has stepped into the place when the emergency came, who has formed, organised, and presided over performances and transactions the like of which were never contemplated by any State in history. Indeed, so smoothly and unfailingly has this vast business, the like of which has not been previously witnessed, been carried through, that we have several times been compelled to remind the soldiers whom we serve, and I now think it right to remind the House, that, after all, we are at war.^[5]

The Adelaide Advertiser described him in 1915 as:

A tall, soldierly-looking man with the face of a diplomat, the forehead of a thinker, a square chin, and a bushy moustache, Mr. Thomson's appearance conveys the impression of a rare combination of organising ability, accuracy, judgment, resource, and rapid assimilation of ideas.^[3]

In 1917, the Directorate of Shipping for the Ministry of Shipping and Admiralty was created and Thomson was placed in charge of it.^[1]

Colonial Service

After the war, government involvement in shipping declined and his post was abolished. He then joined the Colonial Service, being appointed as Secretary for Ceylon in 1919, then Governor of British Guiana in 1922^[6] and of Nigeria in 1925, and finally of Ceylon in 1931.^[7] He died at Aden in his way home from there.^[1]

He had been appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1928 New Years honours.^[8]

References

1. Obituary in Straits Times
2. Sir Alfred Faulkner, unpublished manuscript memoir of his life, in possession of his descendants.
3. The Advertiser (Adelaide, South Australia), 1 April 1915, page 7, column 7.
4. Edward Walford. The county families of the United Kingdom; or, Royal manual of the titled and untitled aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland (Volume ed.59, yr.1919), 353.
5. Hansard, 15 February 1915, Naval estimates statement.
6. The London Gazette: no. 32751. p. 6896. 29 September 1922. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
7. The London Gazette: no. 33689. p. 1003. 13 February 1931. Retrieved 2 January 2012.
8. London Gazette supplement