Egypt War Medal 1882-89

Obverse: Head of Queen Victoria in a diadem and veil (left) Legend: 'VICTORIA REGINA ET IMPERATRIX'. Reverse: The sphinx on an ornamental platform. Legend: 'EGYPT'. Exergue: '1882'. Bar: 'ALEXANDRIA 11TH JULY'. Inscription on edge: 'J. THOMPSON [SIC] E.R.A. H.M.S. DRAGON'. Ribbon missing.

James Thomson was born on 26 July 1853, at West Calder, Midlothian. In the 1871 census, his family were resident at 22 Tobago Street, St Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh, His father, also James, was working as a carter and James was an apprentice engineer and turner. On 28 April 1876 still at this address, he married Jemima Fraser.
He joined the RN as an acting ERA on 30 April 1878 and served for 20 years. Starting in ‘Pembroke’ based at Chatham. Then in ‘Indus’ – the Devonport guardship, and ‘Belleisle’ - a coastguard ship based at Kingstown, Ireland (Dun Laoghaire). Between February 1879 and October 1882, he was in ‘Dragon’, being rated Engine Room Artificer on 29 May 1879. She was a Doterel class sloop, built at Devonport. Thomson joined at the time she was commissioned and then deployed on the East Indies station. The ship was sent to protect the canal in late June 1882 and landed a naval brigade at Suez during the Anglo-Egyptian war. Thomson returned to the United Kingdom later that year and returned to ‘Indus’. From February 1883 to August 1885 he served on ‘Valiant’, the first reserve guard ship for Southern Ireland until she was paid off in August 1885. He then joined ‘Shannon’, at that time a coastguard ship. Thomson’s final years of active service were spent on the Pacific station in HMS ‘Amphion’. He was awarded the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal in 1889 was promoted Chief Engine Room Artificer on 1 May the same year. The ship was transferred to the Mediterranean in late 1890 and Thomson left her on 31st November 1891. His last date of service was 11 Feb 1892 when he was invalided out.
From 1893 he was confined to a series of Edinburgh psychiatric institutions.
In the 1901 Census, a James Thomson, born 1853, Mid Calder, ‘formerly a mechanical engineer’, was resident in Craiglockhart Poorhouse. He died in Bangour Asylum on 30 April 1930. James and Jemima are commemorated by a granite headstone in Morningside Cemetery.