Sir Godfrey Hilton Thomson

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

DCL (27 March 1881 – 9 February 1955) was an English

educational psychologist An educational psychologist is a psychologist whose differentiating functions may include diagnostic and psycho-educational assessment, psychological counseling in educational communities ( students, teachers, parents, and academic authorit ...

known as a critical pioneer in

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...

research. The Godfrey Thomson Unit for Research at Moray College in Edinburgh is named in his honour.

Life

Godfrey Thomson was born in

Carlisle, Cumbria Carlisle ( , ; from ) is a city in the Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. Carlisle's early history is marked by the establishment of a settlement called Luguvalium to serve castra, forts along Hadrian's ...

on 27 March 1881. He was the son of Charles Thomson and his wife, Jane Hilton. His parents separated when he was a young boy, and his mother moved the two of them to her native town of Felling located in

Tyneside Tyneside is a List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne, England, River Tyne in Northern England. The population of Tyneside as published in the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census was 774,891 ...

. It was here that he attended High Felling School. He was then awarded a scholarship to Rutherford College of Technology. He proceeded to study at Armstrong College in Newcastle and then moved on to study at the

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. Founded in the 16th century by Johannes Sturm, it was a center of intellectual life during ...

under Professor Ferdinand Braun, working on Hertzian waves. He worked at Armstrong College,

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...

(a college of the

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charter in 1837. It was the first recognised university to ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

) from 1906 to 1925, before moving to the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

from 1925 until 1951. It was here that he was the Bell Professor of Education and Director of the Moray House Teacher Training College. His research began in psychophysics,Thomson, G. H. (1912). A comparison of psychophysical methods. ''British Journal of Psychology'', 5, 203–241. but he became best known for his criticism of Spearman's general factor in

.Thomson, G. H. (1916). A hierarchy without a general factor. ''British Journal of Psychology'', 8, 271–281. Pursuing this interest led to a major work on factor analysis of mental ability.Thomson, G. H. (1939). ''The factorial analysis of human ability''. London: University of London Press. Additionally, Thomson was active in work on the relationship between intelligence and fertility, conducting some of the first nationally representative sample research, which concluded that this relationship was negative.Thomson, G. H. (1950). Intelligence and fertility: The Scottish 1947 survey. ''Eugenics Review'', 41, 163–170. In 1926 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. His proposers were

Ralph Allan Sampson Ralph Allan (or Allen) Sampson FRS FRSE LLD (25 June 1866 – 7 November 1939) was a British astronomer. Life Sampson was born in Schull, County Cork in Ireland, then part of the UK. He was the fourth of five children to James Sampson, a Cor ...

, Alexander Morgan, Sir

Edmund Taylor Whittaker Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker (24 October 1873 – 24 March 1956) was a British mathematician, physicist, and historian of science. Whittaker was a leading mathematical scholar of the early 20th century who contributed widely to applied mathemat ...

and

Norman Kemp Smith Norman Duncan Kemp Smith, FBA, FRSE (5 May 1872 – 3 September 1958) was a Scottish philosopher who was Professor of Psychology (1906–1914) and Philosophy (1914–1919) at Princeton University and was Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at th ...

. He served as the Society's vice president from 1954 to 1955. In 1931 he was responsible for organizing and analyzing the Scottish Mental Survey: Scotland's contribution to a European assessment of comparison between different countries in school examinations and their values. Thomson was president of the British Psychological Society from 1945 to 1946. He was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

by King

George VI George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until Death and state funeral of George VI, his death in 1952 ...

in 1949.Lovie, P. & Lovie, A. D. (2004). Thomson, Sir Godfrey Hilton (1881–1955). ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Oxford University Press. He lived his later years at 5 Ravelston Dykes in western Edinburgh.

Publications

*(with William Brown) ''The Essentials of Mental Measurement'' (1921) *''Instinct, Intelligence and Character'' (1924) *''A Modern Philosophy of Education'' (1929)

Family

In 1912 he married Jane ("Jennie") Hutchinson (later Lady Jane Thomson), who was a fellow lecturer at the Armstrong College. They had one son, the diplomat Hector Thomson (1917-2008).

References

External links

Individual Differences: Godfrey H. Thomson (1881 -1955)

Godfrey Thomson

Godfrey Thomson Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomson, Godfrey 1881 births 1955 deaths Academics of Durham University Academics of the University of Edinburgh English psychologists Intelligence researchers Knights Bachelor Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences People from Felling 20th-century British psychologists Alumni of Armstrong College, Durham